What to Expect From a Spiritual Awakening

Some of it is a bit rough but it comes with a lot of good

Spirituality and awakening are pretty tricky and hard to define, in a sense you just kind of know it when you experience it. These definitions are as wide as the ocean and equally mysterious. The main reason that it’s so difficult and tricky is because of the nature of our ego. The ego wants answers and to understand everything in concrete terms, the ego really struggles with the nuances of things that it can’t put parameters on. It just wants everything to make sense and to fall in line with its own demands and expectations and on a very essential and basic level, spiritual awakening is just a real peek behind the illusion that’s been crafted by the ego. While you can gain some elements and insights for a spiritual awakening, the best thing to do is to start acting like a bridge is going to build itself as you walk across it. Spirituality is more about the doing part and gaining the understanding as you do it.

But if we were to put an awakening in terms that are relatable and understandable, it starts with a seemingly spontaneous change in perspective. People suddenly see themselves in a different light than they did before and when that happens, they start to see their relationships, the world around them and how they interact with it in a different light. You believe that you are seeing the truth of things, at least more truth than you did before and you just can’t force yourself to live the same way that you did before.

I’ve heard people talk for years about a mass spiritual awakening that’s been happening and I didn’t believe it because I didn’t personally see it. But I do now. And I’ve been seeing it more and more over the course of the last year or so. The illusion and facade is breaking away and it’s leaving people feeling disoriented and confused. The VR goggles are falling off, so to speak and nothing seems familiar anymore. People feel like they were blindfolded, spun around and dropped off in an unfamiliar place. The basic essence of having a spiritual awakening is realizing that what you thought and believed to be true is a giant loaded diaper worth of shit.

It is a hard and disconcerting experience. The red pill has been taken and there’s no going back cupcake. Below you will find things to expect going forward and some advice on making the process more rewarding and less painful. First, I will list some of the harder things before listing some of the best parts. So eat your vegetables before you can have some ice cream for dessert and all that you know.

“We live in a dystopian hell where our screens do all the thinking for us”

1. We’re not in Kansas anymore — Expect things to make less sense based on your pre-existing belief system and way of being. Your ego will desperately want the old reality back resulting in an internal power struggle. Accepting new truth will be terrifying at first but resisting it will only make the process more difficult and more painful in the long run. It’s hard, I get it, when you realize that you’ve been lied to, manipulated or maybe even deceived. You have trusted people or systems and feeling betrayed by institutions that you once trusted completely is brutal. It’s a rough ride. Not to mention extremely confusing. Feeling totally lost is totally normal. It’s important to realize that feeling lost is hard because we have been conditioned to believe that we’re supposed to be “found” of sorts and supposed to have it figured out. It’s not just okay to feel totally lost and confused, we’ve been led to believe but it’s a necessary part of the process. You will only move if you’re uncomfortable and you must move if you want to find your way out of this labyrinth. The answer is to learn to let go. Trust the process. Walk across the bridge even though it’s shrouded in darkness and fog. Let go of old beliefs, shed them like the burdens that they are. There’s a higher intelligence guiding you. Trust that intelligence instead of the ego.
2. The meaninglessness of life — One thing that has been troubling and difficult in my journey is the realization that virtually everything I was doing, cared about or thought was important is actually empty and meaningless. For a minute there, I was mostly convinced that not only was life meaningless and empty but there was a frustrating futility in continuing to live. Fortunately, I made it through that phase (I think) and came to the truth. There is deep meaning to be found but our modern culture of technology and so-called “conveniences” are completely devoid of any of it. I realized that I was so reliant on technology and modern privilege that my life had almost no real meaning or connection. I wanted to die. I wanted off this ride. I’m obviously still here and hot on the pursuit of real meaning, joy and purpose and I couldn’t be more excited to be making the changes that I’m making with goals down the road too to find out what it means to live. Truly live. Authentically and meaningfully. When you find yourself walking through this dark place, remember courage. The right answer exists, you must be willing to trust the process and embrace a path that you once would have dismissed as crazy or weird. At the same time, it’s often necessary to be willing to let go of things that have proven false. Many people remain attached to beliefs and behaviors that they were certain about and their unwillingness to accept things as they are is just a way to create more misery and suffering.
3. All my friends are gone, maybe we’ve outgrown all the things that we once loved — You can expect it to be harder to relate to people in general but even your closest friends will start to seem small and horribly negative. You will see the absurdity in things that they believe are extremely important and you will find it extremely difficult to relate. It gets even harder when you’re feeling lost and confused. Maybe you’re experiencing things that others would dismiss. Maybe when you tell your friends about the altered state of consciousness you achieved through meditation they’ll tell you to go see a therapist or a doctor when you know that nothing is medically wrong. The spiritual journey becomes far less turbulent when you are able to sit with and embrace the comfort of solitude. Solitude is the positive opposite of loneliness. It’s deeply rewarding and comforting and many great minds such as Carl Jung, Nicola Tesla and Albert Einstein talked about the virtues of solitude. It’s peaceful. And comforting. The good news too is that you can always make new friends.
4. Who am I? — Do you know how to tell if someone is a vegan? Oh don’t worry, they’ll tell you. The ego always wants to attach itself to an identity and insists on staying in one place but growth doesn’t happen that way. The journey has a tendency to put a wrecking ball through who you believe that you are and what you believe is important to you. The trouble with carrying around an identity claimed by the ego is that you close yourself off to possibilities. There could be something for you that is the most freeing and loving thing that you ever thought possible but it’s quickly dismissed because the ego has convinced you “that’s not what people like us do” or some other absurd nonsense. My journey has brought a whole new version of myself in the last 18 months that I almost don’t recognize but it’s beautiful! I’m finally opening myself up to what I believe might be possible for my life and I’ve never been so excited to be alive! In the process, my musical tastes have changed, the way I spend my free time has changed and I’ve even started curbing my unnecessary spending while purging my mountains of stuff because I want to be more of a minimalist. It’s okay to let go of identity because that’s where you truly find yourself. It’s scary and difficult, I know, but that’s the point. In the trial, we discover our true selves.
5. Living in hell — There’s no other way to say it. We are living in a dystopian hell where our screens do all of our thinking for us and technology has left us horribly disconnected from things that are personally meaningful, especially each other. We need each other. We are all connected like cells in a body and if those cells are not working in connectivity and purpose, the body will be sick and so it goes for our modern world. Our systems and institutions have failed us. And so has technology. We are living in hell. The ego wants to fight against the enemy, to conquer it, punish it and make it pay but in doing so we only perpetuate the problem and share an equal responsibility in it. The majority of people would agree that the world needs more empathy and compassion and yet what I collectively see are people that will be more empathetic and compassionate when other people start doing it first. What the world needs now, is love sweet love people. Everyone you see is just as confused, lost and disconnected as the next. They do what they do because they just don’t know any better. They have been deceived and in many regards, it’s not their fault. We can turn hell into heaven but it starts with individual responsibilities. If you have truly experienced an awakening you will serve yourself and the world by taking the higher road. If you continue on a path of bitterness and anger that is justified by the ego you will only continue to suffer and cause others to suffer. I know it sounds cheesy but sometimes the truth is cheesy. You must choose love. If you don’t you will continue to live in hell.
6. Grief, sorrow and sadness — Spirituality doesn’t mean happiness or ease. It means growth and there’s a lot of grief, sadness and sorrow that we need to work through. We’ve been conditioned to hold it in and store it away. Our body holds onto it until we release it and even though it’s difficult, it can be an immensely healing and liberating experience. It’s important to be aware of the tendency to run away from it or resist it and realize that you can only delay the inevitable. Despite popular belief, sadness isn’t the opposite of happiness. Sadness is just a different side to the same coin as happiness as the process of finding true happiness has to include walking a mile in sadness. Sadness is a highly empathetic emotion and Lord knows the world and the people in it need more empathy. Be willing to sit with the grief and the sadness and push through the discomfort and you will grow through it.

“It’s time to start the process of truly living”

You might be asking yourself, why would I want this? Why would I want this to happen to me? Well, you have to take out the trash before you can really live in a clean house. I would be lying if I said that I hadn’t sometimes wished that I could just be normal and boring. We often say that ignorance is bliss but in this case, I actually believe that ignorance is 7th level of hell. Let’s get onto the good stuff and the benefits of having some spiritual awakening.

1. Everything is going to work out just fine -Fear, anxiety, worry and everything that goes with it has found its way into my life like most everyone else. Everything felt like a disaster and I felt powerless to avoid it. The fear of death was always in the mix of course. This looming inevitability and the fear of some kind of eternal suffering waiting for me beyond it was a special kind of suffering. Spirituality has not only enabled me to let go of the fear of death but I can honestly say that I will welcome it. I’m not going to hell, I’m already in it. I am certain now that everything will be okay and work out just fine one way or another and that understanding has really helped me to start living.
2. I’m good enough, I’m smart enough… — Ah yes, the elusive, vague and disturbing concept of self-love. Human beings detest this though I’m not entirely sure why. There’s something in there about it being narcissistic or malignantly selfish. Experiencing true self-love is nothing how your ego or the collective sick ego of others has portrayed it. It’s a sense of peace, acceptance and empowerment that turns into action with a large helping of positive regard for others on the side. Trying to explain it would only create more limitations and warped perceptions from the ego, I just want you to walk the path and experience it. It’s one of those treasures that you need to dig out yourself.
3. Living in your truth — It’s so incredibly difficult to live authentically. Everyone has an agenda for you and human beings can’t support each other in living totally authentically let alone just let them live. No, human beings hinge their lives on bending other humans to their will. For some reason *cough EGO cough* people really get their panties knotted up over things that other people do that don’t matter, at all. Not everyone is like this, of course, but the ones that do are seriously overbearing and aggressive and the internet has enabled them to invade more of the private corners of our lives. Most of us don’t live authentically because we’re afraid to upset certain people or have our choices questioned by others. And that pales in comparison to the dreaded thumbs down or dislike that can get shamefully served to us on the internet. When your fear melts away, you become more emboldened to live authentically. Frankly, most of us don’t really know what that means, we’ve become so lost in expectations and the deceptions of life. The spiritual path helps to eliminate that fear and live authentically and believe me there are fewer feelings better than the feeling of living authentically. So many of us are afraid to do it because other people just won’t put up with it. Living authentically is hard but it’s worth it.
4. The meaning of life — I wish and I mean I really wish, with all of my might that life felt complete and satisfying from drinking beer and watching football when, honestly, it’s just another empty distraction from one burning question. ‘What is the point and purpose of life!?’ Spiritually, the meaning of life is hard to put into words. The spiritual path is one of connection, discovery and deep understanding. Solving the puzzle of life can only be done spiritually. The ego has no solution for the enigma of life when spirituality creates greater and greater levels of enlightenment which is where we not only discover the meaning and purpose behind all of this but we see it, we perceive it, we understand it.
5. Stop feeding your inner demons, it’s time to heal — I can tell you as someone with more than twenty years in mental health, spirituality has brought more profound personal healing to myself and my clients than anything else that I have found up until this point. I’ve realized that healing doesn’t happen by conquering the demons in my psyche but instead learning to let them go and walk away. Wounds don’t heal when you keep your finger in it and people don’t psychologically heal by constantly keeping their emotional energy into something that they want to heal. Inner demons die when you stop feeding them.
6. Finding your true self — Very few people really, truly and deeply know themselves. I notice that a lot of us seem to think that we have other people figured out and pinned down when we don’t even really understand or know ourselves. I find that the majority of people only know how to live, think and feel through the ego which is confusing and chaotic. They never really penetrate the deeper layers of the self. My spiritual practices have enabled me to peel back those layers and in the process I’ve been able to get to know myself better and have a deeper understanding of who I am and what makes me tick.
7. I’m going through changes — I find that most people want to be different and they want their life to be different. We all want change in our life but it seems like most people are hoping that their fairy godmother will swoop in and wave her magic wand to make it all change. People often say that winning the lottery will be the answer in their life which is just another way how people point to some external force coming through and sweeping their messy life away, replacing it with a shiny new one. Even if that did ever happen to people, which it doesn’t, they would just ruin the shiny new in no time because they haven’t changed. I have found that spiritual living has not only shown me what I have needed to change but I’ve found the motivation and the courage to do it. I’m absolutely convinced that spirituality just helps us become better versions of ourselves by enabling us to change.

There you have it, some of the good, the difficult and honest about what you can expect from spiritually awakening. One of the best things that you can do is to focus on reducing the resistance to change by learning how to let go and go with the changes. Happy journeys friends.