The spiritual awakening faux pas

Okay, I’m going to skip the long intro this time because we have a lot to cover here. So turn off your TV in the background, put on your reading glasses, grab a mug of tea (or wine…I’m not judging), and listen intently.

Just like with all the information on the internet that gets taken in, chopped up, chewed, revamped and spit back out - the concept of the “spiritual awakening” is no exception. I, too, have fallen victim to click-baiting, peace-loving, content creators who tell you that the ultimate key to happiness is…*drum roll*:

A prompt-filled affirmations journal… now available on their website only for $25.99! Terms and conditions apply.

But what if I told you that you could find ultimate fulfillment without ever spending a dime, except you’d have to trade the pretty book filled with flowers designs for an earth-shattering dark period of conscious suffering?

No? Okay, well what if I told you that period would later catapult you into the happiest, most authentic, grounded, self-aware version of yourself? Yeah, now we’re talking.

Over the years, I devised my own system for describing the awakening process. Please note that this is not a universal process and that an awakening will look different for everyone, even following different steps. This system is based purely on my own experience working with others, hearing an array of others’ stories, and through my own experience.

Phase 1: The Ohhh Moment
I’ve mentioned before the concept of a turning point. I noted that everyone has either had, or will have one. This turning point is essentially the first trigger before your awakening. I’ve been asked how one can know whether they experienced a turning point/awakening moment. There is no universal way to describe it - you just know. Through my own research and speaking with several individuals on the matter, however, most of them have described the feeling to me as like an “Ohhhh” moment. You know that feeling when you’ve been staring at a math problem for a long time and when you finally figure out what you were doing wrong, you say “Ohhh, that’s what it was!” Kinda like that.

Everything starts making a little more sense. The world begins to look a little clearer. Your mind activates at lighting speed making all these connections you never even noticed before. You start seeing yourself more clearly too - noticing your behaviors, actions, reactions. And it’s exciting and overwhelming all at the same time because you feel reborn again - like you’re looking at the world for the first time. You’re literally waking up.

Phase 2: Yoga, crystals, and all things pretty
This is usually where the faux pas comes in. Your natural curiosity to understand the way you’re feeling and thinking will propel you down a deep, deep rabbit hole of youtube videos, aesthetically pleasing instagram pages and positive-vibes-only podcasts. That’s okay though, it’s normal to revert to those mediums for our generation, it’s how we take in most of our information. The issue is that some (not all of them, but a good amount) of these pages are self-proclaimed “spiritual life coaches” who only tend to focus on the superficial aspects in an awakening because not only are they feel-good, but it’s also easier to relate to - therefore more subscribers, more followers, more confused and lost souls.

But your emergence won’t find solace on the internet through live, love, laugh conspiracies. Don’t learn about inner healing or even shadow work from someone who only talks about positivity, wears a lot of white and posts a lot of glittery selfies with paraphernalia or pseudo-craft new age stuff.

That’s not to say that having an established morning routine, journaling, using affirmations, meditating, doing yoga, and eating right do not work. Healing is an integrative and holistic process - you need to target everything. The issue becomes when it’s promoted as the almighty cure, and because those things are generally easy to do, you develop an over-reliance on those habits to make you feel better. In that sense, what you’re doing is spiritually bypassing. This is using spirituality as a crutch to overlook your dysfunctional patterns.

It actually shows up in many different ways. I have encountered several individuals who claim to be “spiritual” yet continue to act without compassion or authenticity, or even judge and look down on others who haven’t “woken up” yet and label everyone else as “toxic” without turning inwards.

“Spiritual” is not an identity. Our spirituality is inherent, regardless of our religion or beliefs. You’re not more “spiritual” if you adhere to practices that the new age community endorses. Nor is there a universally established way to “become more spiritual” - anyone who claims otherwise is full of shit. Point blank.

The only thing you should “becoming more” of is Whole. Wholeness is about integrating both the light and dark aspects of ourselves in order to live with more authenticity. That means living life according to your true human design (more on this later), and following the path that makes you feel most alive and in harmony with yourself and others. The only way to do this is by working on your shadow side. If you’re new to my blog, the shadow self is the unconscious side of your personality that contains all the socially-deemed “negative” parts of yourself that you don't want to admit to having and project onto others.

Phase 3: Dark Night of the Soul
After a while of waking up every morning, drinking lemon water and meditating - you begin to feel a plateau in your “spiritual” progress. You start to notice that while you may feel good doing those things in the moment, the minute you go to work and encounter your narcy boss who continuously triggers you throughout the day - you end up come home with extremely low self-esteem, feeling exhausted, irritable and unfulfilled. So you snap at your partner because they left a dirty cup on the counter. Which only makes you feel more guilty, thus you go out with some friends to take the edge off. Except you end up drinking yourself into oblivion for a short-lived false sense of oblivion. Do you see the point I’m making?

Eventually you start feeling frustrated that your current methods aren’t working - and you begin feeling depressed, drained and extremely alone. Cue the Dark Night of the Soul.

The dark night of the soul is a collapse of the whole conceptual framework of your life. You become conscious of the limitations of your socially constructed way of living. Suddenly, everything feels meaningless. You realize that the issues you were having before your awakening were not because you didn’t repeat affirmations every morning, but because there was something internally within YOU that needed to change.

So you feel a complete disintegration of your perceived meaning in life. Your ego begins to crumble away (i.e., feeling like you don’t know who you are anymore or what your purpose is). You begin losing interest and motivation in the things that once used to excite you. You feel extremely alone, empty, scared and lost.

And while these feelings are intense, it’s accompanied with a whole new thirst for inner healing. You start to crave authentic experiences and interactions more often, you feel less of a desire to please others, you begin to notice and accept your deepest traumas and shadow side (i.e., identifying your maladaptive patterns), you have a deep need to evaluate and heal your familial and ancestral line of intergenerational trauma.

If you’re going through this right now, please give yourself space to grieve. This time is one of complete identity shedding. You’re growing out of your old skin and stepping into a deeper connection to your soul. You might feel a pervasive sense of loss - of old connections, career paths, interests or dysfunctional thought patterns that no longer serve you. It’s okay. Take your time. Make way for acceptance of your new reality.

Phase 4: Finding Yourself Again
The final part of the process and also the least linear. You might find that once you reach this stage you could cycle through stages 1 - 4 or randomly jump from one to another all over again. That’s because life isn’t fair and shit happens. You’re still going to go through heartbreaks, your boss might still be an a**hole, your loved ones will still betray you. But believe me when I tell you, after doing the work, that dealing with these things becomes a WHOLE lot easier.

After doing the work, what you are essentially doing is quieting your ego (PSA: you can’t get rid of your ego, that’s a myth). In addition, contrary to what @angellovechild1111 might say, your ego is not the enemy - it is the subconscious part of you that serves to protect. It is based on conditioning from your previous life experiences. For example, if you grew up with an overly critical parent, your ego may begin to perceive any form of criticism (even constructive) as a threat. So your body goes into flight or fight mode, and you may react by choosing to fight (attack), flight (withdraw), freeze (disassociate), or fawn (people-pleasing mode).

I noticed through my research that what you’ll find once you reach this stage is a permanent transition from reacting to responding. Being rightful or validated no longer becomes a priority for you, and you begin to value interpersonal harmony instead. And that’s mainly because your empathic energy center’s have been activated and you’re able to view the world with a whole-hearted sense of compassion and understanding. You finally begin to understand that “good” and “bad” are socially-constructed labels designed to shun individuals to keep us in this constant state of anxiety and depression in order for the big dogs to monetize off it, and you begin to accept that we are all one and the same. (Seriously though, the next time you see that person you don’t really like, try talking to them, you’ll be shocked to find out how much you actually have in common.)

So this time, after you’ve done your morning routine of vision boards and meditating, nothing that happens throughout your day can trigger you, hence you won’t go home and yell at your partner for the dishes, and you won’t have to get wasted to feel happy. You will truly feel like an almighty, invincible being; at one with yourself and the universe (bet the $25 journal doesn’t sound so appealing now, huh?)

And to end this note, fellow soul child, I hope you continue to be met with progress and compassion throughout your journey to becoming Whole again. And if you haven’t already, I’m so, so excited for you to begin. Let’s work together to trigger a collective awakening and make the world a better place for ourselves, our loved ones, and our children…

Until then,

Sending love & light.