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Undergoing a spiritual awakening can be a very disorienting time in your life because it marks the beginning of a long transformation of consciousness. You might feel like your world is falling apart under your feet. But a spiritual awakening is a wonderful thing. Itโs the process of shedding the ego and discovering the true essence of who you are: God.
A spiritual awakening is the awakening of your soul, which opens the door to a deeper layer of your consciousness. This process can be challenging, but I can guarantee you that you wonโt want to go back to how you were before. Understanding this phenomenon can help you navigate this process much more smoothly, which is why Iโm writing about it now.
What Is a Spiritual Awakening?
A spiritual awakening represents the transition from your human awareness to your soul awareness. People often describe it as a profound shift in perception, values, and beliefs, which often accompanies a period of mourning and disillusionment known as a dark night of the soul.
A spiritual awakening creates permanent changes in your life experience and sets you on a new pathway of finding deeper meaning and substance in your life.
During this process, you may find yourself losing interest in the things you once loved. You may not find joy in the same pastimes that may be enjoyable but otherwise hollow. This sets you on a path to explore your consciousness and discover yourself to a fuller extent.
You can view it as a major shift in consciousness, which brings you more in alignment with your soul’s nature. This process is a catalyst for huge change and transformation, so even though it may be disorienting at first, lean into it and explore because itโs an exciting new chapter that is unfolding.
Your eyes are opening to a deeper truth beyond reality, which is like waking from the dream-like nature of your ego and experiencing something more to life.
Another way to look at a spiritual awakening is that youโre breaking out of the matrix. You have lived your life unconsciously, operating from your beliefs, indoctrination, and subconscious patterns and programs without experiencing true awareness.
Everyone who is in the pursuit of spiritual truth will experience a spiritual awakening. It might slap you on the face, forcing you to embrace the journey, or it may be a gradual unfurling of the mind and identity with many ups and downs.
Either way, a spiritual awakening is a good thing because youโre starting to see beyond this dimension of experience and recognizing that you are not your body. You are something much more profound.
What Can You Expect During a Spiritual Awakening?
During a spiritual awakening, you can expect some challenges. It will be a disorienting time of your life where youโre letting go of everything that didnโt serve your growth as a person, and finding a new identity that aligns with your soul nature.
With that said, a spiritual awakening is a period of transition, and periods of transition are often rocky.
People often struggle at times throughout this process as all the nasty things tucked away in the corners of your subconscious will slowly be illuminated. Itโs natural to go through a process of shedding, because you have accumulated a lot of junk throughout your life that doesnโt serve your spiritual expansion.
You canโt expect people to understand you throughout this process. A fairly universal experience of a spiritual awakening is to feel alienated. You may feel like you canโt connect with a soul, and for the first time, youโre truly on your own.
But itโs also beautiful stepping into the unknown. People who have not undergone a spiritual awakening wonโt be able to connect on the same wavelength, because their consciousness hasn’t been opened up to the spiritual. It doesn’t matter how logical, rational, or persuasive you are… someone who has not begun their spiritual awakening will simply not see it, because it’s beyond their realm of understanding.
They might wish the best for you, but youโre going to feel a disconnect on a fundamental level. You might find it difficult to relate to most people or to find support, which makes a spiritual awakening a very personal journey.
Once you embrace this journey and get through the rough stages, an awakening is an extremely rewarding experience. For lack of a better word, youโre going to feel much purer. You will feel a sense of inner peace and genuine fulfillment that was previously missing from your life.
Your life will open up to an entirely new dimension of experience. Ultimately, life is going to be much more of an adventure because more dimensions will become apparent. You will see that there is a lot more to life than what meets the eye, and as a result, life becomes much more dynamic.
Below are some of the common symptoms that people experience when theyโre undergoing a spiritual awakening.
- Feelings of being lost in life
- A sense of disillusionment and alienation
- A feeling of abandonment and loss of faith
- You feel like your life has been a lie, and thereโs something more
- A sharp increase in curiosity, especially about the nature of your existence
- A deeper questioning of your belief structures and perceptions
- The realization that everyone is faking it (and pretty miserable)
- Insights and understandings about your soul’s nature
- A general disconnection from self and ego
- You start reflecting more and paying more attention to your internal processes
- You generally become more introspective
- You start paying more attention to your triggers and dysfunctions
- Your journey of healing becomes much more intense
- A general dissociation from your identity
- You may not know who you are anymore
- Changing interests, motivations, and desires
- You stop finding pleasure in the same activities and hobbies
- Find that you canโt connect with the same people
- A deeper connection with your intuition
- Cultivation and connection with spiritual abilities
How Long Does a Spiritual Awakening Last?
A spiritual awakening doesnโt have a specific time frame, but itโs good to view it as an ongoing process, probably for the rest of your life.
In my case, my spiritual awakening happened overnight as the result of a kundalini awakening. Even though I instantly developed spiritual beliefs and a new way of perceiving myself and reality, Iโve been on a nomadic journey exploring my consciousness for many years now.
During this time, I have continuously been more deeply embodying my spiritual self, which has led me into shamanic healing, and many interesting experiences have come from it including astral projection and clairvoyance.
But I recognize Iโm still a baby on this spiritual journey. I know much more than I did when my spiritual awakening started, but I am continuously on this same journey of self-discovery and probably will be for the rest of my life.
Thatโs the thing, there is always more to know. You can always go deeper into your consciousness. Unless youโre enlightened, which none of us are, there is another layer of the spiritual onion to explore.
Imagine a spiritual awakening as the bud of a flower beginning to bloom. This process of unfurling takes time, but the more you lean into the experience by encouraging your self-discovery and growth, the quicker you will find your feet.
Itโs difficult to say when youโll experience a spiritual awakening, as theyโre a natural product of the soulโs evolution.
Everyone is evolving at a different pace and a different stage. If you havenโt experienced the slow unfurling of your infinite consciousness, then continue learning, experiencing, and doing. If you are within this process, keep doing the work and deepening your connection with soul.
Why Do People Have Spiritual Awakenings?
Every person eventually undergoes a spiritual awakening, as it’s a natural evolution of consciousness. This doesn’t mean that you will necessarily experience it in this life, or even the next. However, when the desire to search for meaning outgrows the comfort of being unconscious, this inevitably sets the soul on a journey of self-understanding which cannot be reversed.
A spiritual awakening is often described in stages. It can take many lifetimes to pass through each of these stages to reach the final goal: self-realization. This occurs when the self dissolves, and one not only experiences or understands, but embodies their true nature as a spirit undergoing a human experience.
Internally, a sense of dissatisfaction or yearning for a deeper meaning in life can spark the initial stages of a spiritual awakening. This might manifest as a growing disconnect from conventional societal norms, a feeling of emptiness despite material success, or a curiosity about the nature of existence beyond the physical realm.
Sometimes, personal experiences such as trauma, loss, or moments of great joy can act as triggers, shaking individuals out of their regular routines and prompting them to seek a higher purpose or understanding.
While the triggers for a spiritual awakening vary from person to person, most people fall into one of the categories below:
Exposure: You Stumbled Upon Something Deeply Meaningful
Exposure to new things can be a catalyst for spiritual awakening. If you have lived your life within your programs and preset conditioning, but stumble upon something that truly makes you feel something that transcends the limitations of your programs, it may set you on a new path.
This exposure could come in the form of being introduced to a new idea that makes you think, exploring diverse cultures, witnessing someone you know die, or chance encounters with individuals who radiate spiritual insight. All these things can play a pivotal role in awakening oneโs spiritual consciousness.
Self-Exploration: You Discovered a Deeper Meaning
Moments of introspection and reflection can lead to deeper insights, which can act as a catalyst for awakening consciousness.
Whether you have some big realizations during meditation, you discover new things by dabbling with mysticism or other spiritual modalities, or follow the voice telling you to explore your consciousness and ask questions. This self-exploration can lead to profound insights, which create a shift in consciousness.
Suffering: You Are Forced to Find a Better Path
One of the more common ways that people embark on a spiritual journey is when they experience something so unpleasant that it forces them out of their slumber. Pain is a catalyst for growth. When you go through a period in your life that is extremely painful, sometimes this offsets a spiritual awakening.
The reason why this happens is that suffering forces you into the darkest parts of your consciousness, where you need to start exploring it, as anywhere is better than where youโre at. Therefore, when something in life causes a great deal of pain, this pain often illuminates a better path forward, one that they need to walk if they wish to heal.
Can You Reverse a Spiritual Awakening?
The first stages of a spiritual awakening can be especially distressful as you begin shedding your skin and transitioning into new, unfamiliar paradigms. It can feel like you’re existentially homeless for a period, but for the icing on the cake, a spiritual awakening also brings up all the trauma stored in the unconscious, making it a particularly painful period.
When people are in the midst of this process, they often wish they could just call it quits and go back to the way things were. And I can’t blame them, I felt the same way when I began experiencing deeply painful shifts in consciousness, causing me to barely recognize myself. Therefore, the question commonly arises: Can you reverse a spiritual awakening? Can you make it stop and go back to the way things were when everything made sense?
The simple answer is no.
Once a spiritual awakening begins, there’s nothing you can do to prevent it from happening. While you can resist it and potentially delay the process, this usually causes a lot of unnecessary suffering and won’t get you anywhere in the long run. Imagine pausing time while you’re getting a tooth pulled. You’re not stopping the discomfort, you’re really just perpetuating it and preventing the hard part from being completed.
The same applies to a spiritual awakening. You can prolong the hard parts, but I would ask… is that what you want to do?
A spiritual awakening sets a process in motion that can’t be stopped. You’ve gotten a glimpse behind the curtain of life, and even if you try to forget it, the feeling that there’s something more to life won’t just go away. It will eventually consume you. In this sense, you can either consciously surrender to it and allow it to take you deep into the unknown and unpleasant, or unconsciously surrender to it when holding on has become so painful that you have no choice.
Your identity begins shedding, and foreign understandings, perceptions, feelings, and desires kick in. You can resist these desires, bury your questions, distract yourself, force yourself to engage in past hobbies, and do your best to mimic the person you were before the spiritual awakening began, but this will only lead to deep feelings of unfulfillment and dissatisfaction with your life.
Resisting the process of transformation generally shows up as inner conflict, depression, disconnection, or feeling stuck between two worlds: the old and the emerging. Many people unconsciously retreat when the path gets intense, because awakening often demands that we let go of everything false, and that can be terrifying because before we awaken, most things in our lives are false!
Surrendering to the Spiritual Awakening
The real question isnโt can you reverse it, but rather why would you want to? To avoid the temporary growing pains you will experience while shedding your skin? It’s not worth it… A spiritual awakening fruits in countless forms, and ultimately makes your human experience so much more wholesome.
Think of it this way. Would you rather stay a caterpillar your entire life, knowing that you have to undergo an arduous process of metamorphosis to become a butterfly? Objectively, the answer is no. A caterpillar will never stay a caterpillar, because it is the nature of the caterpillar to become a butterfly. Likewise, you cannot stay ignorant forever, because it is your nature, as a consciousness, to evolve.
Awakening might shake your foundation, but whatโs being built in its place is far more real. The spiritual awakening is setting you on a course towards truth, and if you prefer to live blind because you’re comfortable in your illusion, then you’re yet to realize just how beautiful life can get. How much more substantial it can be when you step into your spiritual growth process and surrender to it.
Therefore, if you are currently going through a spiritual awakening, step into it. Even if it seems painful or you don’t want it due to its disorienting nature, understand that this is a blessing that many of us won’t experience in this life. Once you find your feet, you will settle into higher paradigms of consciousness, and life will become so much better than it was.
How can it not when your consciousness is opening to new layers of information that many of us are oblivious to? You can’t reverse a spiritual awakening, and once you truly embrace it, you won’t want to.
So continue stepping forward, seeking more knowledge, wisdom, and good teachers in your life who can help you navigate the next chapter into consciousness. Allow yourself to go through the process, and encourage the changes that are slowly taking place.