by Anna Laskowska | Jan 27, 2026
The domain of human emotionality is vast and largely unexplored, much like the immensity of the ocean. This is what I discovered while diving deep into the hadal zone of suffering. The deeper I went, the more these hidden, unresolved fragments began to appear—often when I least expected them. It is precisely in those moments, while we are distracted by the physical aspects of life unfolding around us, that what truly affects us, lies beneath the surface, within us.
Some of that murky, previously unrecognized inner content tends to emerge from the sediments during—or after—long, deeply binding relationships.
How is it that someone who once felt like the one, the love of our life, can hurt us through betrayal and eventually leave? Where is the logic in that?
Through my own exploration, I began to notice that very often we enter relationships not because of genuine connection, but because of a convincing imitation of it—a series of illusions that closely resemble love, yet never truly are.
From what I have observed, we tend to be far more equipped for suffering than for intimacy. We may be capable of performing loving actions, yet as we move through life, we frequently carry vast amounts of unresolved inner layers—burdens we remain mostly unaware of as we move through relationships.
Another observation is this: when distress becomes activated, we are often left completely in the dark—unsure how to meet what has been stirred, or how to remain present as it rises.
Yet suffering itself can become a remarkable and valuable resource—if only we knew how to stay with it. We are deeply unfamiliar with how to be with our inner tension in a way that allows it to release. This sphere of existence, as I mentioned at the very beginning, feels frightening and unknown to us, and very few people are truly able to dive into the dark depths of their own inner world.
I recall vividly being immersed in the most excruciating psychological and physical rupture of my life. I was struck by how this ache spread into every crevice of my existence, disabling me and erasing any memory of what it felt like to live without the vast darkness pulling me under. It exposed a depth of suffering I could not even begin to put into words.
The intensity of what came into view made distraction impossible. There was no other option but to learn how to stay with what was being activated—and released—from within me.
In most cases, our first instinct is to neglect our hurt and run away from it. For many of us, though, it is only through necessity and persistent practice that we begin to learn how to stay present with the weight of what we are feeling.
When someone appears to be the cause of our misery, they are often only the crucial activator of what was already buried within us. That underlying wound may take on a particular face. It may come from an almost-relationship that never fully took shape, a bond that lasted only briefly, or a long-stretched marriage that ended abruptly. No matter the form, what was awakened was an avalanche of grief.
Whatever that experience is, it cannot be covered, replaced by another person, or escaped through distraction. It must be fully met and felt for its movement to complete—otherwise, it risks circling back endlessly, never truly healed. One of the clearest indications that this process has resolved is the quieting of the incessant thoughts once tied to its activator.
What often appears to be grief over a specific person is, in fact, something far more ancient and primordial than we tend to realize.
What I came to understand is that healing does not require us to escape from the depths. It asks us to remain there long enough for suffering to stop shaping and expressing itself through our relationships—so that the pressure can finally ease.
When the pain is fully met, it no longer calls us back through old memories, faces, or names. Bonds do not dissolve through forgetting or even instant forgiveness, but through completion.
And one day—without any active effort to fight, manage, or outrun those currents—something shifts. The ocean grows quiet. We are no longer drowning. We are no longer being pulled downward by the weight of unresolved suffering.
What once felt overwhelming settles. And in that stillness, life becomes possible again—without the burden we carried for so long.
by Anna Laskowska | Jan 22, 2026
As someone who has experienced narcissistic abuse, I once came across a statement attributed to a therapist suggesting that those who truly need therapy rarely seek it—their victims do.
At first glance, it sounds true.
But it is also deeply incomplete.
What I want to make clear in this post is this: the real issue does not live at the level of roles, but at the level of pain.
Whether we call someone a victim or an abuser, an empath or a narcissist, suffering is present in both individuals.
It simply takes different forms.
After a prolonged immersion in what felt like the deep recesses of purgatory, I began to see relationships differently. More precisely, instead of focusing only on what happens at the surface, I started looking beneath it. If healing is to occur, we must be willing to examine the empath–narcissist dynamic from a deeper perspective—not as a moral dichotomy, but as a psychological and emotional system.
Healing doesn’t happen on the level of labels, but on the level of suffering in both individuals.
On the surface, the pattern appears obvious: one person inflicts pain, the other receives it. Yet during my own healing process, I noticed that this dynamic does not exist solely within romantic relationships. It repeats itself across many forms of interaction. The intensity may vary, but the pattern persists along a spectrum.
My understanding is this: whether we consciously manage ourselves or not, unresolved emotional material will continue to recreate the same relational dynamics. The issue, then, is not limited to the empath–narcissist or victim–abuser labels. Something deeper is at work—something beneath the surface that keeps replicating itself. And because of that, both sides of the dynamic require attention and healing.
As someone who identified as the empath—the one consistently on the receiving end of pain—I was struck by a difficult realization: the very same unprocessed emotional material within me was binding me to people who occupied the opposite end of that spectrum. The pain we carry inside corresponds to the pain that sustains the dynamic.
Removing oneself from such situations is a crucial step. But it is not enough. Disengagement alone does not heal the underlying wound, nor does it guarantee the ability to form a healthy partnership in the future. For this reason, all participants in this dynamic—regardless of the role they play—require an equal commitment to healing.
by Anna Laskowska | Jan 16, 2026
There is no shortage of conversations today about masculine and feminine energy. The topic has become popular, fashionable, and often oversimplified. Yet after spending a prolonged period in a deeply demanding dark night of the soul, I arrived at a very different understanding—one that does not align with much of what is commonly presented.
What I came to see is that( the true and exalted )feminine energy is widely neglected and, in many forms, systematically obscured, suppressed, and often redirected into distorted expressions. In this sense, it is not absent—it is interfered with and compromised. Its depth is undervalued, its intelligence dismissed, and its natural function frequently replaced by imitation or mechanisms of control rather than genuine understanding or integration.
Feminine energy is intangible, yet it would be a mistake to underestimate it—it is extremely powerful. It belongs to the realm of emotion, sensation, intuition, and inner experience. It is the capacity to feel what is happening within—to recognize emotional movement, inner tension, resonance, resistance, and truth as it arises. Although it cannot always be seen or measured, its presence or absence shapes everything that follows. Feminine energy does not act first; it perceives. It receives. It understands. In this sense, it provides the inner container in which action takes shape.
Masculine energy, by contrast, is the energy of expression and action. It gives form to what has been felt. It moves outward. It translates inner understanding into decision, direction, and structure.
One cannot exist meaningfully without the other. Expression without awareness becomes impulsive, reactive, or destructive. Awareness without expression remains stagnant, unresolved, and contained. When either operates in isolation, imbalance follows.
When distorted forms of feminine energy meet distorted forms of masculine energy, the result is not neutral—it is destructive. What emerges from such an encounter is painful, chaotic, and often harmful. And once this imbalance is expressed outwardly, it can be felt. It carries a particular weight. It wounds. It destabilizes. It leaves traces in relationships, in bodies, and in lives. This is not theoretical; it is something that registers immediately, because it hurts.
All creation emerges from the interaction between feminine and masculine energy. What determines its impact is not the presence of one or the other, but whether this interaction is integrated and healthy, or distorted and destructive.
This is where a fundamental misconception appears. It is often said that men embody masculine energy and women embody feminine energy. This is not true. Both men and women carry both. And more importantly, both men and women currently struggle with their relationship to feminine energy.
When feminine energy is distorted or suppressed, a person loses contact with their inner reality. Feelings are misunderstood, denied, projected, or acted out unconsciously. Some people express emotions without understanding them. Others suppress emotions entirely, believing this to be strength. Both are expressions of imbalance.
Healthy feminine energy does not mean emotional chaos or passivity. It means clarity of inner experience. It means knowing what one feels and why. Only from that clarity can masculine energy act in a way that is coherent, grounded, and aligned.
This imbalance lies at the core of many relational struggles—not because one person is “too feminine” or the other “not masculine enough,” but because both lack a grounded relationship with their own inner world. Feminine energy provides orientation. Without it, action becomes disconnected from truth.
There is a reason night has long been associated with the feminine and day with the masculine. The night is inward, receptive, silent, and unseen. The day is expressive, visible, and active. The dark night of the soul carries this symbolism for a reason. It is a period of withdrawal from outward movement and a turning inward—toward feeling, emotional accumulation, and unresolved inner material.
This process is often misunderstood. It is not weakness. It is not regression. It is the restoration of feminine intelligence within the psyche.
For this reason, I strongly disagree with the idea that women must “embody femininity” to attract men. If women alone were meant to carry feminine energy and men alone masculine energy, balance would already exist. It does not.
If both women and men had a healthy expression of feminine energy—the capacity to feel, recognize, and understand their inner states—many conflicts would dissolve before they ever formed. And if both also had a healthy masculine expression—the ability to act from that understanding—relationships would no longer revolve around confusion, projection, or power struggles.
The work, then, is not about choosing one energy over the other. It is about restoring the feminine capacity to feel and the masculine capacity to express within every individual, regardless of gender.
From this, relationships can become grounded, honest, and whole.
by Anna Laskowska | Jan 15, 2026
Relationships have always fascinated me—or perhaps more accurately, their absence, even when they technically existed, or the poor quality of the ones that did.
I never had it in me to move through life with dominance or aggression. I disliked creating conflict or externalizing my inner struggles by producing chaos around me. And yet, chaos seemed to follow me regardless.
At heart, I carried a deep desire to connect with someone who shared similar values. I genuinely tried to live according to healthy relational principles. But that approach did not work.
During my healing process, despite wanting to be strict with self-imposed rules, I found myself repeatedly exposed to the temptation of breaking every single one of them. That tension forced me to look inward—to understand what kept returning to me, even when my intention to live differently was clear and definitive. As it turned out, the rules themselves quietly collapsed, which required me to change the method rather than the intention.
That alone became a powerful realization: instructions, frameworks, and discipline mean very little on their own. No matter what rules you impose or how rigid you become, whatever remains unresolved within you will eventually find its way back to you.
Pause here for a moment and consider this: how is it possible that a deeply loyal person repeatedly attracts someone who embodies the opposite?
I have come to believe that the core of a wound is often made of the same material—it simply expresses itself differently. These complementary distortions form what I call a perfect suffering pair.
If you have ever been cheated on, and you stop for a moment to feel how excruciating betrayal truly is, I can almost guarantee this: the very same emotional pain exists in the person who cheats—but it manifests differently. Instead of betrayal, it appears as boredom, restlessness, or a lack of excitement. Unable to face that internal emptiness, the person acts out the wound through betrayal in order to escape the pain it generates.
Both people are miserable—just in different ways. Together, they create the ideal conditions for the wound to express itself fully.
And yet, seeing how these wounds operate does not erase the longing beneath them. I believe that women and men—people in general—are meant to live in harmony, in relationships that nourish and support both individuals. I believe this desire exists, at least unconsciously, in every human being. And yet, a naturally loving and flourishing relationship is incredibly difficult to achieve. We are saturated with inherited patterns and paradigms that promote the opposite. This is why humanity has been suffering in relationships since the very beginning.
Moments of genuine joy are rare. What fills most of our days are problems—some epic, some small, but persistent nonetheless.
When I entered a deeper healing process, all my rules and internal regulations quietly dissolved. It felt as though I had entered outer space—everything suspended, weightless, temporarily unanchored. In that state, every lived experience—from the beginning of my life and even beyond—came sharply into focus, stripped down to raw emotional truth.
Everything I disliked, everything I avoided or rejected, returned to me with quadruple force. And within that confrontation, I finally saw that whatever I rejected externally had always lived within me as well.
It was important for me to recognize that what I experienced was not something I had consented to, nor something I deserved. There was a quiet but necessary reckoning in seeing that my boundaries had been crossed in ways that contradicted my own values and sense of self. And yet, despite knowing this, it all still happened.
To me, it felt profoundly wrong. This is not what life should be about. And yet, in one form or another, this is precisely what most of us are forced to confront.
Seeing this clearly did not erase the pain immediately. But through sustained inner work—and by taking responsibility for what was living and expressing itself through me—I began to change my relationship with reality. What once felt deeply personal gradually revealed itself as structural, woven into patterns far older and wider than my own story.
There is a deeper kind of work that lies beyond clarity and virtue—work we all inherit, whether we are aware of it or not.
It is easy to blame the other person, to label the other side as broken, spoiled, or wrong. This is nothing new. Humanity has been doing this since the beginning of time. The question is whether awareness and healing can finally become the next step—or whether the cycle continues simply because it remains unseen.
by Anna Laskowska | Jan 14, 2026
I am well aware that there is a vast amount of material on the dark night of the soul. Many people are going through it, and I am certain that most who have experienced it would agree that it is unlike anything else.
At this point, we understand it as an event initiated by some form of collapse—followed by a profound disconnection from the life one once knew and an inward turn into a kind of hermit mode, driven by the need to survive the existential rupture this experience evokes.
Over the past twenty years, I have been through numerous dark nights of the soul. It began with an hour of being completely “switched off,” if that makes sense. When one is accustomed to constant access to a functioning mind and suddenly finds that access entirely cut off, the experience is unforgettable.
It started as a miniature dark night, and over time, its duration gradually lengthened, preparing me for a much more prolonged dark night of the soul. By then, I was already becoming familiar with—and, in some sense, prepared for—being gradually disconnected from ordinary life. Very little in a true dark night of the soul resembles what we would call a regular life.
I will not disclose how long this particularly intense period of somatic release lasted, as I have no intention of frightening anyone. What I will say is that it spanned years and required total dedication to understanding and expelling the patterns of negativity that exist within this reality. It was complete hermit mode.
What is essential to clarify is that a true dark night of the soul—despite its poetic name—is more accurately described as a purgatory. After remaining in this process for so long, it became clear to me that what I was undergoing was a cleansing. It felt as though the very essence of existential suffering was being purged from my body, and it was anything but graceful or pleasant.
While this was happening, there was no one around. There were no parties. There were no conversations. Any contact with the world was painful. There were no drugs or alcohol involved. Even food could not be used as a numbing agent—everything tasted like cardboard anyway. Nor was there any form of relational or sensual distraction available to soften, bypass, or momentarily forget what was taking place. Nothing could be used to regulate or soothe the experience away.
There was nothing that could divert my attention from the process that was taking place within me.
My entire existence became focused on what was unfolding within me. And if people appeared at all, it was only to expose deeper layers of pain and the negative patterns in which I was entangled.
What I want to make absolutely clear is this: suffering is often mistaken for purging, and they are not the same. Going through pain, enduring distress, or waiting for something to happen to you is not what processing is about. Pain, on its own, does not heal anything.
True processing is not passive. It does not rely on collapse, endurance, or prolonged misery. It requires awareness, presence, and the capacity to remain in contact with what is arising without being overtaken by it. Without these elements, pain simply circulates within the system, reinforcing the very patterns one hopes to dissolve.
This is why many people remain stuck in cycles of suffering despite years of “inner work.” The system may be activated, but nothing is being metabolized. Purging, when it is genuine, is an intelligent and precise process. It involves the gradual dismantling of defensive structures, the safe exposure of what has been protected, and the release of energy that has been bound within those patterns.
When this distinction is not understood, suffering becomes normalized, even spiritualized. But suffering is not the goal. Clarity is. Integration is. Liberation—from both emotional suffering and physical pain.
In the next piece, I will go deeper into naming these energetic patterns and the paradigms they create, so they can be recognized—not mythologized—and consciously dismantled.
