Have you felt a deep yearning grow inside you? A calling to awaken to something infinitely vaster and more meaningful than your day-to-day existence? If so, you’re not alone. I too reached a tipping point where I could no longer ignore the inner rumblings of my soul.
A few years ago I was so unhappy, and I felt lost, I just didn’t know what to do. I just knew that something had to change in my life. I was afraid to lose everything I had worked hard for. I saw everything as a loss. It was an extremely painful experience.
I started looking for motivation and inspiration but they felt so out of reach because I had no more energy to pursue anything. So, I started practising meditation and that practice alone kickstarted my journey to spiritual awakening.
But
What is Spiritual Awakening?
Spiritual awakening is the process of shifting one’s perspective to experience life, the self, and human nature in a radically new way. It’s about transcending the limitations of the ego and truly awakening to your full potential as a multi-dimensional being of mind, body and soul.
Curious Fact: The spiritual awakening process is often kickstarted by major life transitions like illness, loss, trauma or dramatic changes that shake a person’s foundations and compel them to question their beliefs and existence on a deeper level.
Harmonizing Mind, Body and Soul
True spiritual awakening requires aligning and integrating all levels of your being – the mind, the physical body, and the soul or life-force energy. Spiritual teachings across cultures emphasize the importance of this holistic balance:
“Taking care of your mind, body, and soul is the key to living a higher vibrational life.”
Leon Brown
When the mind, body, and soul are in harmony, you experience profound benefits:
Mental Clarity and Inner Peace
By calming down the constant mental chatter and aligning your thoughts, you gain clarity, focus and inner calm. Meditation is a powerful tool for this. During meditation, you learn to witness the relentless stream of thoughts, emotions and bodily sensations rather than unconsciously being driven by them. As you cultivate this ability to simply observe the contents of your mind, you create space between the reactive ego mind and your true, awakened nature. You realize your thoughts are just mental events arising in consciousness – not ultimate reality itself. From this spacious awareness emerges tremendous stillness, balance and freedom. You begin responding to life’s ups and downs from a grounded, peaceful centre rather than being thrown off balance.
Curious fact: Brain scans show that regular meditation alters the brain’s neural pathways, increasing grey matter in areas controlling focus, emotional regulation and positive qualities like compassion.
“The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.”
Marcus Aurelius
Physical Vitality and Well-Being
Connecting with your body through breathwork, movement practices like yoga, and living in attunement with nature’s rhythms fills you with vital life-force energy. Many spiritual traditions emphasize the importance of embodiment – fully inhabiting the physical vessel and treating it as a sacred temple. This means listening to the body’s signals like thirst, and hunger and feeling all emotions. When you’re disconnected from your body and moving mindlessly through life, you cut yourself off from a wellspring of the body’s wisdom and pranic vitality. However, by developing body awareness through breathwork, yoga, tai chi or other mindful movement modalities, you awaken the subtle flow of energy through your being. You become attuned to nature’s cycles like the rising and setting sun, the phases of the moon, and the turning of the seasons. Living in harmony with these primordial rhythms regulates your circadian clock and hormonal balance.
Curious Fact: The Sanskrit word “prana” and the Chinese “chi” or “qi” refer to the vital life force that animates all living beings – this intelligent bioenergetic flow nourishes and coordinates our bodily functions when balanced and flowing.
“To keep the body in good health is a duty… otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.”
Buddha
Emotional Balance and Fulfillment
Doing inner work to heal unresolved traumas and conditioning opens your heart, allowing you to experience life’s ups and downs with greater balance and joy. So much of our suffering stems from being unconsciously driven by past emotional wounds, limiting beliefs and fear-based patterns. However, by having the courage to feel, process and release stuck emotional energy through practices like journaling, inner child work or working with a skilled therapist, you clear away psychic debris. You unburden yourself from carrying the weight of the past into the present moment. With a lighter, freer psyche, you can be fully available to the richness of your felt experience without shutting down or overreacting. Challenging situations become opportunities to spontaneously respond with wisdom rather than habitual reactivity.
Curious Fact: Groundbreaking research on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) shows how unresolved childhood trauma actually hard-wires the brain’s threat detector to be hyper-vigilant, influencing lifelong mental/physical health implications – underscoring the importance of trauma healing.
Expanded Perceptions and Intuition
As your spiritual senses awaken, you gain access to higher levels of consciousness, intuitive insights, and feeling interconnected with all life. In our normal waking state, we’re perceiving only a thin slice of the full metaphysical spectrum. However, by clearing the obstructions of identification with the small, egoic self, new vistas of awareness start opening up. You may experience transcendent states of unity consciousness where the boundaries between subject and object dissolve. There is a profound feeling of merging with the Divine, of being one with the rhythms of nature and the pulsating energy that animates the cosmos. Your intuitive faculties become heightened – you can sense information and guidance that transcends the rational, linear mind. Synchronistic events happen with more frequency as you become attuned to the unified field.
Curious Fact: The Cherokee term for experiencing this elevated unitive awareness is “ṭlᶕnaho:hi” which translates to “I am of one mind with all.” Many mystics and seers across traditions have described reaching these expansive, non-dual states.
Practical Insights: Take some time in quiet self-reflection to examine where you may be out of balance, compromising in one area at the expense of others. What small step could you take today to start bringing more harmony?
The Journey of Awakening
Spiritual awakening is a journey of progressive self-discovery and unfoldment, not a finite destination. There are, however, common stages many seekers experience:
- The Catalyst is often a major life transition like loss, illness, breakup etc. that acts as a spiritual wake-up call, shaking you out of automaticity.
- The Inner Calling – You develop a burning interest in spiritual/existential questions and begin exploring meditation, self-help, mystical traditions etc.
- The Dark Night of the Soul – You undergo an ego disillusionment/deconstruction phase where old belief systems, attachments and identities come undone, which can feel psychologically and emotionally turbulent.
- The Re-Birth and Re-Integration – Having shed inauthentic layers of the ego/false self, you slowly rebuild a more aligned sense of self/life based on your deepest values and truth.
- Embodying the Awakened State – You increasingly learn to anchor and live from your authentic, awakened state of being – present, loving, free and at peace within the dreamlike nature of existence.
Curious Fact: Many spiritual traditions, from Buddhism to Islam to Christianity, have their own maps and models describing the journey of spiritual awakening/enlightenment using similar metaphors of being spiritually “asleep” versus “awakened”.
Practical Advice: Be gentle and patient with yourself on this profound, non-linear journey of awakening. There will be periods of profound insight and bliss, as well as fear, darkness and confusion – this is all part of the process of unlearning, growth and rebirth.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
While infinitely rewarding, the spiritual journey also comes with potential pitfalls to be mindful of:
Spiritual Bypassing
Using spiritual concepts/practices to avoid dealing with painful emotions, unresolved psychological issues or everyday human responsibilities.
Potential Solution: Commit to doing the inner work of self-inquiry, shadow work and embracing all parts of your human experience – not just the “light” aspects.
Spiritual Materialism
Getting caught up in ego drives like spiritual pride, comparing your evolution to others’, or merely collecting spiritual concepts/experiences as a means to feel superior.
Potential Solution: Keep realigning with a beginner’s mind, humility and the intention to be of sincere service beyond your personal agenda.
Spiritual Addiction
Using practices like meditation as an escape/checked-out avoidance of life rather than as a means to be more present.
Potential Solution: Balance periods of spiritual practice with full embodiment and engagement with your daily life, relationships and duties.
Overwhelm and Trying Too Much
Getting overly caught up in a multitude of complex teachings/techniques which causes more stress.
Potential Solution: Keep things simple – master the basics and stick to what resonates before exploring more.
Curious Fact: Many non-dual teachings suggest that no technique or practice can ultimately “achieve” awakening – it’s more about removing obstacles to realizing your already awakened, enlightened nature.
The Awakened Life – Living with Balance
Once you commit to walking this profound path of spiritual awakening, it initiates a transformation that touches every aspect of your life:
Relationships – You learn to show up more authentically, communicate with empathy/vulnerability, set healthy boundaries and attract more nurturing connections.
Work and Purpose – Work becomes an expression of your truest values and you feel drawn towards a sense of purpose that allows you to be of service to others/causes you care about.
Health & Wellbeing – You naturally adopt lifestyle choices that nurture your optimal wellness – meditation, clean eating, exercise, self-care rituals etc.
Creativity and Growth – You become excited by and open to limitless possibilities for learning, evolving, expressing yourself and manifesting your full potential.
Practical Advice: Regularly pause throughout your day to check in – are you staying present/aligned with your highest self and deepest priorities? Where might you have become unconscious/out of balance? Adjust accordingly.
Ultimately, walking the path of spiritual awakening means waking up from the trance of separateness, fear and unconsciousness that keeps us suffering. It’s about transcending conditional, egoic happiness to rest in the peace and freedom of your true, divine nature – already whole, already home.
Does the call to awaken, to live with greater authenticity, presence and fulfilment resonate deeply? If so, I invite you to explore working with me as your personal guide in this life-changing journey. Having walked this path myself, I can help illuminate your way, support you through the inevitable challenges and encourage you to fully embody and sustain your awakened state. Book a free consultation.
