From Darkness to Freedom: Surrender, Resilience, and the Healing Journey

Have you ever felt trapped in a darkness no one else can see?

In this moving episode of The Unmasking Effect, Ike Anderson takes us on a deeply personal journey through the "dark night of the soul"—a raw and transformative experience that forced him to confront his deepest fears, unearth buried traumas, and shed the layers of his conditioned self.

Through vivid storytelling, Ike reveals the emotional depths of feeling isolated in a shadowy "cave" of despair and how surrendering to the process became his path to freedom. He shares the tools that guided him—breathwork, neuro encoding, and Jungian psychology—that helped him release old wounds, reframe his life’s meaning, and rediscover his authentic self.

This isn’t just a story; it’s an invitation to embrace your own shadows and emerge with renewed clarity and purpose. If you’re navigating challenges or seeking healing, Ike’s journey offers profound insight and hope. Listen now to explore how even the darkest moments can illuminate the way to growth and transformation.

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Transcript

Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies

Ike Anderson: As I traveled, I really got very keen and aware of ancestral energy. got very clear about ancestral wisdom and ancient wisdom. Some of the things that we've totally forgotten because we got so distracted by our Western lives and we've lost touch. So this journey allowed me to really dig deep.

And to see other sides of myself and how I'm connected to the overall sense of humanity and life. But with this awareness, it also created a lot of internal chaos that just started to unfold. I started to see things a lot differently, had just different experiences, different feelings, different emotions.

Connecting to a deeper sense of who I am, and as a result it created some internal chaos. Created what I since come to find out, it's called the deep dark night of the soul. And, This is almost like a spiritual reckoning within the soul, within the self of an observation and a noticing that a lot of things you thought were true, ultimately weren't necessarily the truth.

So the soul goes through this journey of trying to release and unlearn a lot of the things. And as you go through this process of unlearning and the soul's journey of shedding. It creates a darkness in your life. And, this darkness is basically, let's just call it a depressive moment. to the outside world, you look okay.

Everything looks fine, but deep inside there was a death and a birth that was happening. it brought me down into severe depression is what I would just call it. And it was just a very dark place. Had me reconsider everything. Life. What am I here? Why am I here? What am I doing? there's also this deep feeling like I'm ready to go home to my true home in the stars with the divine.

And that journey took me a while, took me about eight years, to be very honest, to go through that journey of the deep, dark night. But one of the things that rung true during those times is that I just had to continue to persevere and make one step every single day to dig myself out of this muck. And even when I say dig myself, that was essentially the feeling in the moment, but came to a point where digging wasn't working and I literally had to surrender surrender doesn't mean give up, but surrender means laying everything down the sword, the shield, the battles, the fight, the hustle.

The pushing and just let it all settle, surrender, releasing, and it was in this release moment where I found myself in this deep, dark cave, no light, and had to become comfortable in this darkness, in this cave,

as I explained, I talk about it now. Thinking back, like, no one really understood what was happening. And even if I did explain it to most, they just looked at me with this glazed effect, like, are you okay? No one really understood what I was going through. And again, on the outside, like, I had the business.

You know, still making money, still managing clients and my team, being a father, being present with my kids, still traveling, learning and connecting, but deep inside there is this, death that was taking place. And as I was in this cave, I realized that it wasn't something I could fight. And as I surrendered.

That's when I actually started to feel myself, I started to understand that I was going through a process process deeper than I was a really truly aware of, as I started to surrender and release. I started to learn more about breath work, the power of the breath, you know, when we're born, it's the first thing that do is take a breath as we come into this world and as we die or transition out of this life, that's the last thing that we do.

It's a deep breath. So I became intimately familiar with breath work, the different modalities of using the breath to release stress to release traumas to release anxiety. And making that a part of my daily practice. I started to see how a lot of things that I've learned over the years, like what served and what didn't serve.

And I just allowed all the things that were meant to serve me at that time to come forth. so the breath work was one major tool that I implemented in the deep, dark night, that cave, when I surrendered, I started to have that practice of breath work. I started to. Do yoga or movements, and I'm a bigger guy, very awkward, but I just followed up and just looked at my body just releasing the tension, the fears, also got deep, deep, deep into neuro encoding to understanding the mind, the psyche of the mind.

So I really got deep, deep studies into, Carl Jung and his work around psychology. So I became a Jungian analyst, after, a few years of deep study. Into the human psychology and going through Negrito, Albedo and all the alchemical processes, for myself, for myself to really heal. and as I did the healing and understanding around NLP, used all the stuff on myself, and just 

One day I woke up and then I realized that I was at the edge of this tunnel that I was in and there was a light and as I approached the light from this cave.

And I looked out, the world looked really scary, so I actually retracted and go went back into the cave, because this proverbial cave was comfortable now. I was in my own world, I was by myself, like I withdrew from a lot of people, and only did the bare minimum. But, I spent a lot of time by myself, learning, and leading and going down just massive rabbit holes, now that I'm looking back at it.

I was still here as a dad and tried to be present, but it wasn't this depth of connection and I couldn't have felt it. So I just really had to focus and do the work. And as we're doing this, we're traveling, we're in different countries, we're doing different things. We're experiencing different things, adventure, learning.

but at nights, this one I would leave and go connect with the elders and do the work. If that makes sense. I realized that I couldn't stay in this tunnel anymore, and I had to go towards the light as scary as it was, and the light just simply represents this world, the chaos of the world, the unconsciousness of the world, and how I show up.

And as I came out of the tunnel and I came into the world and I started experiencing the light, I realized that life is amazing. I started feeling the sun, started hearing the birds chirping, the butterflies flying, and then it just became very clear that I still have to chop wood and carry water. I still have to work.

I have to align with purposeful work. And those ideas of how I felt or those feelings of how I felt when I was in the dark night and I came out into the world, things just started becoming a lot brighter, a lot clearer. And it was during this time when I really learned who I am and what was behind the mask.

And the realization that I was wearing a mask and literally had to start peeling the mask off a layer at a time, a piece at a time, because as you release the ego or the attachment to certain things. Or the perception that you created of who you want others to think you are. It could become very traumatic and very painful.

For others, it's when traumas start coming up. For me, I was just having a lot of flashback of what I'll say is other lifetimes. of experiences from my ancestors and from others. Of I was getting flashbacks of even my own childhood of things that I, totally forgot things. I didn't remember.

I had to confront these things because I realized that subconsciously they were holding me back. There were a lot of fears and anxieties that were there and I didn't even know where they came from, but I had to go through and do the work. You know, they say.

Someone hurting you or trauma to a certain extent is not your fault, but it's your responsibility to heal the trauma and the pain. so I had to go through see these things as they came up and address them one by one. One of the main ones and the main trauma I had, I mean, there's many the sense cosmically, like as a human being, we were incarnated here and we've forgotten who we are and why we're here.

So there's this almost zombie ish effect that we walk around just lost, trying to figure it out, stuck in the muck. you know, my mom died when I was three years old. That was very traumatic for me. I remember wanting to play with her. And I just remember her not being able to play because she was in pain.

Like she was great. And six months later, she was sick. And then she died from cancer. I remember as a little boy, like wanting her attention, cause I used to have it a lot and then I just didn't. And I remember having this feeling of, I don't want to bother anyone because as I was trying to play with her, I remember it's almost like I had this full download, this full visual of.

Things that happened that I totally forgot and just remember someone like slapping me on my butt saying to leave her alone She's tired. She can't play and I felt like didn't want to bother anyone so it made me create this sense of Independence, where if I feel like I'm putting someone or inconveniencing someone or putting someone out or bothering someone, I would never want to do that.

And as a result, I could go through my life going through things and no one would ever know because I've just worked for myself. That was a shadow moment that I had to confront, heal, and realize that my mom really wasn't rejecting me. She just couldn't move. She couldn't play. She was sick. And I just had to find that sense of forgiveness of myself for even creating those  And honoring and loving my mom for the journey she was going through.

That was a major healing moment for me. So, I'm sharing this because we all have challenges in whatever way and however way we look at it, right? And those challenges created wounds. And those wounds created protections and barriers and fears and anxieties. And if we don't become aware of these things, we can, in essence, carry this weight throughout our lives and not knowing where it came from and the effects that it's having on us.

So, a part of our journey is to heal. It's to release the weight, release the anxieties, release the fear. So we can expand, connect to our highest and best, do our highest and best, and be people, the person, the being that was meant to being this reality and do the work that we're ultimately meant to do,

 you know, when you go to Egypt, and you look at the top of the temples and a lot of the sacred spaces, like there's one thing that runs in the Through all of them. And it's on the top of the door, the entrance, it says, know thyself. That's a huge part of the gnosis is to know thyself. They become intimately familiar with your true and highest self, the version of yourself, that's not living from a space of accumulation of anxiety and fear and connecting to your bravery, your strength, your courageousness.

Not fake, not bypassing, but connected.

So as I went through this journey and I came back into the light and I started to chop wood and carry water, I realized that there's actually a process behind this process that we can actually use to uncover our strengths of who we truly are, why we're here, it's a deep discovery process. That I've used for myself and since used with other clients to help them to navigate their own journey, their own alignment to their highest and best selves, because at the end of the day, the other thing I learned as I did a lot of this work myself is I could have done it so much faster.

If I had reached out for help,

no man's an island, no man stands alone. We feel like it feels safe and we don't want to bother anyone. No one understands whatever the story is, we become alone. And as humans, we're meant to be in the community. We're meant to work together as a collective. I think there's different factions within our humanity.

We have different families. It's clear for me that I have my blood family, my relatives by birth, but a bigger, bigger connection is my chosen family, friends, my inner circle, the people that I choose to connect with, and they're my family.

That social connection is very important and we're living in an age of a lot of loneliness and a lot of fear and a lot of separation, but it's time for us to align. It's time for us to see each other. It's time to transition into the heart. And live a heart led, centered, caring, loving, nurturing life. The days of despair and anxiety is, gone.

Yes, it comes up, but we have to have a process to work through that. And we'll work through those things. Because if not, when and not now, then when we don't have a lot of time left, you know, when I look at time, like things, just have a different look and perspective. Now I have a birthday next week.

I'll be 47. And if I was to look at the average age of when someone lives, let's just call it 80 years old. I've already lived way more than half of my life.

So technically you have like another 30 years to go. For me, that's amazing. My mom died when she was 33. She didn't live the full life to old age. So growing up, I've just always had this appreciation for life and for time.

So, where are you?

On this wheel of time, we're supposed to live quote unquote 80 years if  you're lucky, 90 if you're even luckier, it becomes a time where you got to see where you are on that wheel of time. How many summers do you have left? I have 30 summers, 40 summers. How much time do we have left?

And quite frankly, how do you want to live and experience the time that you're here? What do you want to do? What appeals to you? Get clarity. Don't waste any more. We've accumulated a lot. It's time to release and find what's behind the mask aligned to your authentic self. That's the work. And that's my intention with this channel, is to share the stories and the tools and the transformation that's needed for us to expand and grow, to create our own communities of friends and family, to share the resources, the guides, create a sense of safety and love for all of us.

Like it's really important. And that's a part of my journey. And my purpose is to be that person that's here to love, to support, to be that brother, that father, that friend, that elder, if that's needed for our community,

so I invite you to connect, subscribe to these videos, like these videos. If it calls to you if it resonates,

we can't do this alone. We need each other. This world as we know it is going through a very transformative time. And as it continues to transform, it's going faster and faster to either you align or you're out of alignment, and you'll feel the effects out of alignment. It's either you decide to chart and set course.

For the direction that you're going to choose, or you'll be a part of somebody else's journey, and their course won't be yours. And the last thing you want to do is live a life, much older, and a lot of time has passed, and you look back. And you say to yourself, did I live? Did I live fully? Do I have regrets?

You don't want to have regrets. Did I love the people in my life? Did I love my family? Did I love my friends? Did I love humans? Did I love humanity? Did I create? A space of contribution of giving of sharing myself and ourselves to each other. We got to be able to create that life and be very intentional about the life that we want to create.

So I encourage you to ask yourselves these questions. I encourage you to look deep behind the mask.

I encourage you to realize and see go on the journey to see if you are wearing a mask. Is this mask serving you? Is the mask you're wearing protecting you from something that doesn't need to be protected anymore? Are we blocking the light of the divine from flowing in wearing these masks? You got to do that journey.

You got to do that self assessment and get deep, deep, deep, deep, deep like we've told ourselves many stories. A lot of these stories aren't true.

And you know that whatever you believe, like your perception becomes your reality for the most part. So we got to make some serious adjustments in perception and beliefs. To align with the truth. So,

we don't have time to be playing any games no more. Like the game done! have to align to the bigger, bigger, bigger picture of why we're here. We gotta get over this bullshit. Saying this from a space of love.

A lot of people died for us to be able to be living today. So, we're grateful to all the ancestors.

We're grateful to God the Father. God, the mother, we honor the divine mother and the divine father

on our ancestors.

We're not a here alone.

We got to do our individual work, but we're not here alone. There's many forces of good around us. And as we start to align and tap in, you'll actually see the manifestation of this goodness. Some might call it wealth. Some might call it peace. It's still an alignment because we're not meant to live a life of low vibration.

We're not here to live a life of fear.

So we realized that we have to put on that armor of protection, of guidance, of duty, and show up every single day, knowing that

we're aligned. I'm grateful for you being here. I'm grateful for you listening to my voice. I'm grateful for you considering what I'm saying. But more so, I'd be more grateful if you take action, do something today, one step forward in the life you want to create, take one step today. So again, guys, like and subscribe, follow the channel. I want to bring on some really amazing guests for you. And the idea is to really understand, like what's their journey, what's their life been like, what are some of the obstacles that they had to overcome?

And most importantly, what did they have to do? What systems, what tools did they have to use? To help them to get over it, to create the success that they've created for them, their own selves and whatever that capacity is and see success in the body, financially, business, I think all life is just a spiritual game.

So there's ways and things that can be done to help us win this game and the line. It's not about winning or losing, but it's really more about aligning to our highest and best selves. If that makes sense. So I appreciate you guys. Thank you.