Table of Contents
Embarking on a spiritual journey is a deeply transformative experience, but itโs certainly not devoid of challenges. Sometimes, you feel like everything youโve done was for nothing. Suddenly, youโre back to square one, which can be extremely frustrating.
It feels hopeless when you feel like you’re going backward along your spiritual journey, but let me make something clear. Just because you feel like youโre regressing along your spiritual journey doesnโt mean youโre regressing. It’s normal to return to old patterns and problems you thought you had overcome because you’re reaching deeper levels of learning through them.
It’s true that this particular problem may not have been transcended when you thought it was, but that’s more of a human error rather than a spiritual decline. True growth and learning take time, and often, we need to revisit the same problems from many points of view before we completely transcend them.
The spiritual path is an individual journey, as no soul has walked the same path as you are walking. You will get lost sometimes because youโre clearing the path with a machete. If spiritual growth were a linear road, we would all be enlightened by now.
But we’re not… far from it actually.
Self-discovery is a maze into the endless labyrinth of consciousness. At times, the path may seem well-lit, which fills you with a sense of progress. However, sooner or later, you will hit a dead end. Itโs only natural.
You will feel like youโre regressing along your spiritual journey when youโre just mapping out the maze. Letโs explore these feelings of spiritual regression to discover what theyโre trying to teach you and how you can leverage them for your self-betterment.
Is It Possible to Spiritually Regress?
Spiritual regression is a perceived decline in your spiritual development. It occurs when you feel disconnected from your soul nature or higher purpose.
In short, as long as you are committed to your growth and learning, you will never go backward with your spiritual growth. There will be times that you revisit old issues, but it doesn’t mean you are spiritually regressing. It just means you’re revising certain issues you haven’t yet fully overcome with a higher maturity.
Imagine it as a 2nd chance, or a 3rd chance, or perhaps a 5th chance. You will need to resit the same exam again and again until you pass it, but it doesn’t mean you’re going backward. It just means that you need more spiritual maturity until you can get to the next level of your development.
Let me tell you a little story about myself…
While I was traveling the world, life was great. I had so many great experiences, meeting interesting people and reaching new levels of well-being with my spiritual practices. Eventually, the time came to go back home.
Initially, everything was great.
It was nice seeing my family and friends again, but that spark was short-lived and it wasnโt long until I felt like I was back at square one. I had no money, no car, and I was living with my mum. Being a thirty-year-old man back in a past situation, my mind followed suit.
That feeling of helplessness crept back in.ย I was getting triggeredย by things after I thought I had transcended these frustrations, and I once again felt like a dependent child.
My humanness was coming out in full force, and I felt I was regressing into old patterns, but how? I had made so much progress in every dimension of my life; how could I once again be back in the same shoes?
I felt ashamed and deflated, but then I saw that the universe was testing me. Itโs easy to be zen when youโre in a zen situation, but the real challenge arises when youโre thrown into a past situation and need to apply your wisdom.
I decided to bring consciousness to every setback and to use those challenges as opportunities. With awareness, these stubborn feelings of spiritual regression can be a trampoline for genuine growth, but you must leverage the situation.
Think of spiritual regression as reverting toย old patternsย that you thought you had overcome. You feel like youโre stepping backward with your evolution because life is getting harder, not easier.
With that said, feelings of spiritual regression serve an important purpose along your journey. First off, setbacks along your spiritual journey are important reminders to stay humble. They can lead to valuable lessons, and periods of spiritual regression can offer insights for realignment with your authentic self.
Furthermore, feelings of spiritual regression facilitate shadow work. This is the internal phase of going inward and clearing out junk that no longer serves you. If we were all on a linear path, we would never do the inner work.
But spiritual growth isnโt a linear path, itโs a wave that goes up and down, consistently.
When everything is going well, life seems cruisy. Youโre on track, you know where youโre going, and you feel good about it. But yourย life situation can spontaneously change, and this is when the universe tests you to see if your spiritual growth is dependent on your life situation or not.
What to Expect During Periods of Spiritual Regression
Spiritual growth is a journey with peaks and valleys. You can rest on a peak for a while, but if youโre looking to move forward, youโll need to traverse the landscape.
Itโs not uncommon to have moments when it seems like youโre taking steps backward rather than forward. These feelings of regression can be disheartening as they cast shadows on the progress youโve made, but theyโre temporary as long as you work through them.
Itโs essential to recognize that these feelings of spiritual regression are not signs of failure or stagnation. Instead, they indicate a natural phase of growth. Just as a plant may appear dormant before sprouting new leaves, your spiritual journey may temporarily slow down to allow for deeper rooting and stabilization.
Some common signs that youโre experiencing a period of spiritual regression include:
- Reverting to old patterns: You may start experiencing attitudes, behaviors, mindsets, and traumas you thought you had overcome.
- Doubting yourself:ย Spiritual regression can be disheartening as you feel that all the progress you worked so hard for was for nothing. Because of that, self-doubt can creep in as you question the authenticity of your spiritual experiences. You may feel uncertain about the path youโve chosen or question its validity.
- Questioning your beliefs: Your practices may slip out the window, and you find yourself going back into old habits. Due to these feelings, itโs natural to feel disillusioned as youโre not sure where you stand anymore. You may begin questioning the validity of your belief systems.
- Feeling discouraged: The feeling that you have made no progress (or very little) can lead to a lack of motivation, or the desire to give up. It can be difficult to maintain the same level of enthusiasm or commitment that you had before.
- Comparing yourself to others:ย You might start comparing your progress to other people. Everyone else seems to have it worked all out which can lead to feelings of inadequacy.ย These feelings of inadequacyย can create a negative spiral where you self-criticize and think thereโs something wrong with you.
Understanding the Spiritual Growth Cycle
In the pursuit of spiritual growth, you need to recognize that your journey is not a linear progression. Just as nature undergoes cycles of change, your spiritual development has different phases, each with its unique challenges and opportunities.
You will have highs where you reach new levels of your spiritual development, and then you will cycle back down into a growth phase. The growth phases can be challenging, but they are necessary because thatโs where many important lessons and insights are discovered.
Learning from a growth phase allows you to expand further. Moving through a growth cycle leads to a deeper sense of self, a stronger alignment with your purpose, and more faith than you had before.
The spiritual growth cycle involves three distinct phases:
- Expansion and clarity:ย In the initial phases of your journey, you may experience a sense of expansion. Everything feels fresh, youโre learning new things and gaining wisdom. Your spiritual path appears well-illuminated. During this time, youโre eager to learn, grow, and embrace new experiences. Throughout your spiritual journey, you will come back to moments of clarity and feel motivated to continue along your path because itโs fulfilling.
- Plateaus and hills:ย After the initial enthusiasm, progress slows down, and you will encounter challenges. This is where feelings of spiritual regression often surface. These moments are not indicators of failure but rather invitations for genuine growth. You may revisit similar challenges multiple times, each time from a higher level of awareness.
- Integration and transformation:ย As you persist through challenges and plateaus, you enter a phase of integration and transformation. Insights gained during challenging times become part of your wisdom. Your understanding deepens, and you experience profound transformation. This period occurs after you do the inner work during a spiritual regression and tweak your path moving forward, and it often leads back to the initial feelings of expansion and clarity.
How to Make Progress With Your Spiritual Journey
The first step to overcoming feelings of spiritual regression is to realize that it’s a normal process rather than feeling like something is going wrong.
When you understand that the spiritual journey is a rocket road that will bring you back to the same points from time to time, then it becomes a whole lot easier to relieve the painful feelings that all your work was for nothing.
Therefore, acknowledge your feelings.
Understanding that these heavy feelings are a natural phase of your spiritual journey helps smooth the process of transformation. Use these periods as a springboard for deeper growth, and you will learn to invite them rather than run away. This will only benefit your spiritual growth in the long run.
Use This Period of Spiritual Regression to Recalibrate
I often compare the self-discovery journey to being lost in a maze. Sometimes, you need to hit a few dead ends to map out the maze. When you feel like you’re going backward, it could be a signal that you’ve hit a dead end and need a little recalibration to find the right path.
When you do feel like you’re going backward, I encourage you to engage in deep self-reflection to identify the attitudes, actions, and behaviors that might contribute to these feelings. Think about:
- Are there certain patterns of belief, thought, or attitudes that need readjustment?
- Is there something in particular that triggered these feelings?
- What is bubbling up to the surface that hasnโt yet been fully resolved, and why do you think you’re going back into this old pattern?
- How can you tweak something in your life to find deeper alignment with your soul?
- Is there something you’re still holding onto that needs to go? How can you make progress with it?
- Are you following the path of yourย deepest fulfillment? Do you need to pivot the direction youโre moving in?
Reevaluate your values, reflect on where you are, and develop a clearer picture of what you are aiming for.
A Little Self-Compassion Goes a Long Way
Itโs important not to be too hard on yourself. As spiritual regression is a natural part of the process of aย spiritual awakening, acknowledge that these stubborn patterns are coming up for a reason and that you’re not at fault.
View spiritual regression as a time of shedding old programs and taking a step deeper into a preexisting problem that has always been there, even if it has seemingly gone away for the time being. During these moments, we can be particularly hard on ourselves because we believe that we’re the culprits.
Therefore, try to show yourself a little more self-compassion during these times, and don’t be too hard on yourself.
Always Show Up for Yourself
To combat these feelings of spiritual regression, try to be consistent with your spiritual practices. I’m not saying that consistency will ensure that you never go back into old wounds, but the discipline of regular practice can provide stability, even when youโre feeling discouraged.
So, feel the hurt, but get back on the horse as soon as possible. Use these moments of regression to recalibrate and think about what needs some fine-tuning – perhaps a practice or belief system.
Be willing to adapt your practices as needed, but make sure you continue doing them. Experiment with new approaches and techniques that might better serve your current stage of growth.
Let Go of Your Expectations
Often, expectations are a big culprit here. We tend to believe that spiritual growth is a linear journey, and that once we feel like we’ve overcome a particular problem or block, it’s never coming back.
My advice is to focus on correcting your expectations. Perhaps this is where your spiritual journey is leading you right now – to letting go of your expectations and learning to be more content with what is, without labels or judgement.
Having unrealistic expectations regarding spiritual growth, or anything in life, is a ticket to suffering, which is why you should work on getting rid of them. In my opinion, self-comparison is a big player in expectations. If you’re comparing your self-discovery journey to what others are seemingly going through (although you never really see behind the curtains), then you will always place unrealistic expectations on yourself.
Ultimately, remember that your feelings of spiritual regression are just a phase of your growth. You are always progressing as long as you choose to continue walking your path towards understanding and self-betterment.