We are living in a time of great spiritual awakening on this planet. More and more people are awakening, which can be a very jarring and disconcerting experience, but understanding the process can help us navigate it with more ease. If you find yourself reading this, it is not by coincidence. May the information presented here bring you comfort and understanding on your journey.
Disclaimer: The information presented here is based on my personal experience, perception, ideas, and current level of consciousness and should, therefore, be considered theory, not fact. Always use discernment when ingesting content, including this content.
WHAT IS AWAKENING?
I think of awakening as becoming aware of something you weren't previously cognizant of. There are different types of awakening. This article addresses awakening to spiritual truth; an initiation of the ascension journey, which can be an extremely challenging experience that profoundly impacts your mental, emotional, physical, and energetic state. What triggers a spiritual awakening varies. It could be a spontaneous occurrence happening for no apparent reason, a gradual experience, or one triggered by a major life event, often a challenging one such as losing a loved one, a near-death experience or hitting rock bottom. Even meeting a particular person or travelling to a specific place can trigger an awakening.
This article presents the awakening process in stages, but there are countless ways to move through it. Some steps may not occur for you, or perhaps you undergo something not listed here. You may experience numerous stages simultaneously or cycle within a stage (or two or three) repeatedly or flow through them step-by-step. Everyone's journey is unique, and the complexity of this process is difficult to map. What is presented here is a simplified version of my personal experience. Everyone's story will be different. I share mine so others may know that they are not alone.
A quick sidenote here to briefly summarize what I mean by "ascension" since I reference it throughout this article. To me, ascension is an expansion in consciousness, which allows for the comprehension of one's multidimensionality, resulting in the ability to anchor higher aspects of self into the here and now. This is a massive oversimplification of an extraordinarily complex concept, and it is completely normal if it sounds like gibberish. I cover this process more in-depth in the article The Shift.
THE STAGES
Stage 1: The Wake Up
My initial spiritual awakening occurred after my father's death in 2010 when I was 28 years old. I began experiencing things I couldn't explain, went searching for answers, and stumbled into metaphysics. I was instantly hooked and I thought I had discovered life's greatest secret. This would be the end of my suffering; all my pain and earthly problems would dissolve, and I would live the remainder of my life in some state of spiritual bliss. Obviously, this did not occur.
Stage 2: The Collection
I thought the key to enlightenment was the collection of knowledge. So began my insatiable consumption of information. With this accumulation of "wisdom" came the impulse to educate others, whether they asked for it or not (deepest apologies to anyone in my circle at that time). This is an unfortunate phase experienced by many people moving through the awakening process. You are coming from a place of good intention, with the genuine belief that you have discovered the key to life, which you desperately want to share with those you love. I hadn't yet realized that it is each person's choice if, when, and how an awakening occurs for them, and it is not my job to force it upon them. It took me a long time to move out of this phase (a decade).
Eventually (hopefully), one comes to realize that they, in fact, are not enlightened and that the endless collection of spiritual concepts without integration through healing and embodiment is not a genuine ascension path. For that, we must move through the dark night.
Stage 3: The Dark Night
Many of us come to spirituality in search of relief from our suffering. It is a distracting vacation from our earthly lives where we can bliss out on concepts of love and light and dream of manifesting our best selves. However, unbeknownst to most of us, this path will inevitably lead us straight back to the pain we were trying to avoid. This is the threshold of the dark night, and what we do next is a personal choice each of us must make.
Authentic spiritual development requires facing our pain, which most of us have spent a lifetime (or lifetimes, plural) avoiding and repressing. In the dark night of the soul, you will be faced with all the things you have not dealt with: emotions, experiences, wounding, trauma, karma...the full gamut. This unprocessed aspect of self which is unveiled in the dark night is referred to as the shadow.
Some people fall head first into the dark night immediately upon awakening. I cannot even begin to comprehend how jarring this experience must be. To those of you who are instantly thrown into the deep end, you have all of my compassion and empathy. Unfortunately, we must all enter into the shadow at one point or another.
It is a common misconception that our shadow is "bad," when in reality, it is just rejected parts of self, pieces we repressed out of the often subconscious fear of facing them. It is natural to avoid pain, and even necessary in some circumstances. But if we repress these parts of self long-term, they become more entrenched and influential. The dark night requires us to shine a light on our shadow and acknowledge what it is trying to show us so that we may transmute and release the trapped dense energy within. The shadow is not meant to be feared or overcome; it is an integral and powerful aspect of you that is the key to ascension.
As we do shadow work, we will be called to review all we have created and accepted in our lives under the influence of our subconscious shadow aspects. People, situations, environments, mindsets, belief systems, possessions, and possibly your entire life will come up for assessment. This. Is. Not. Easy. You will also begin to see all the mistreatment you have allowed in your life (including all the unloving things you have done to yourself), and all the ways you have mistreated others.
This process can be very painful, lonely, and confusing (especially if you've consumed a lot of "positive vibes only" New Age content) or have become very identified with/attached to your life circumstances. We may be tempted to skim over this phase or avoid it altogether. It is not uncommon for people to abandon the ascension path at this point, returning to their lifestyle prior to awakening or perhaps choosing to swim in the shallows of pop culture spirituality.
For me, I swam in the shallows for a decade, choosing to accumulate information over doing the inner work. I was completely unconscious of this and fully believed I was partaking wholly in the process. But in reality, I was attempting spiritual development without doing the necessary shadow work. Finally, in 2020, I took the journey inwards to begin my healing process. (You can sneak a peak into my personal experiences since then in my blog series Struggle Into Surrender).
Much of today's spiritual content encourages striving for consistently elevated emotional states, and some even imply that feeling/thinking "negative" emotions/thoughts should be avoided. I got caught in this belief for a long time, which resulted in experiencing extreme lows when I wasn't able to maintain extreme highs. Eventually (after exhausting a lot of time and money attempting to achieve this magically elevated state), I realized that these teachings were unbalanced and that a genuine ascension path is not about achieving bliss; it is about healing. This was the realization that allowed me to enter the dark night.
The dark night is an extremely complex and important concept, and I am barely scratching the surface. If you are experiencing this, I recommend you research and seek support if you require it.
Stage 4: Integration
You are moving through massive shifts that not every person chooses to undertake. What you are doing is no small feat. Acclimation periods throughout the ascension process are necessary to allow for integration. This takes time. We cannot just accumulate knowledge and expect to evolve instantly. We must implement the new energy into our lives, practice it, embody it, and heal what it calls us to heal. Devotion and a willingness to evolve are required.
Taking the time to integrate can be difficult because we may want to rush forward to some nonexistent destination or continue accumulating knowledge (two impulses I personally struggle with deeply). Not all steps of spiritual awakening are enjoyable, but they are necessary. This process is not a race, and attempting to rush through it will only extend the challenging parts.
Stage 5: Balance
Balance is required in many ways on this path. Ultimately it comes down to balancing masculine (yang) and feminine (yin) energies within ourselves. Both polarities are required in equal parts; neither is better or less than the other. This is a massive topic so I'll just offer a comparative list to consider (this is energetic in nature and has nothing to do with gender).
Yang/Yin
Give/Receive
Pursue/Attract
Support/Nurture
Material/Spiritual
External/Internal
Analyze/Intuit
Act/Integrate
Effort/Allow
Head/Heart
Think/Feel
Do/Be
I have always been a very yang-dominant individual. For most of my life, I held very little appreciation for or belief in the feminine principles. Today's success-driven culture of hustle was well ingrained in me, and I required extensive deconditioning in order to open and soften into a more balanced state. I am still a work in progress.
Stage 6: Isolation
Any or all of the stages may include isolation, which can be self-initiated or not. Isolation may be required for many reasons, one of the most common being that it can protect you from exposure to harsh energies that could impede you. It might help to think of it as cocooning like a caterpillar to allow for transformation. This doesn't necessarily mean you physically isolate yourself, and it could be as simple as not disclosing what you are experiencing to others. If you need to isolate, you will feel an instinctive urge to do so.
The extent and duration of isolation varies between people (I hermited for years). You will still long for connection and likely feel lonely and misunderstood. Know that you aren't alone and that many others are experiencing what you are. If nobody in your circle understands what is happening, find an online community and/or connect with your spirit team for support through this process. Always, always, always seek help if you feel you need it.
Stage 7: Rebirth
This is an emergence from the cocoon, and like the isolation phase, it can occur at any time during this process or be attempted (and abandoned) multiple times. I stuck my head out of the cocoon countless times, only to look around and nope my way right back in. Like a newly hatched butterfly, you are very vulnerable at this stage, and sometimes, the energies surrounding us as we emerge aren't supportive enough for us to feel safe. It is important to note that remaining isolated beyond the point of usefulness is possible. It may be required to push yourself out of your comfort zone at some point.
Rebirth can be very challenging. You have evolved energetically. People may not understand your shift or even be aware that it happened, and you may feel pressure from individuals/society to revert to your old self. When we shift our frequency, people who no longer match it can sense this on a subconscious level and may attempt to pull us back to our former state. Witnessing a shift they are not ready to undertake themselves is very uncomfortable for some. Think of when we make a life change for our betterment, such as releasing alcohol or implementing healthy eating. How many people pressure you to resume old habits? It is your responsibility to establish healthy boundaries in this scenario, which is sometimes easier said than done. Developing the awareness and inner strength to do this can take significant time.
At some point, if you learn to maintain boundaries, you will feel a shift where the repressive energies no longer have the power to contain you. Perhaps the source of that energy is no longer in your life, or it just doesn't have the same effect on you, or maybe you have managed to release the compulsion to live your life based on what others think in favour of living a life authentic to you. Some experiences may still feel uncomfortable and challenging, yet a perceivable change has occurred in you, and you now have the strength to walk through lower frequencies without them pulling you back down.
Stage 8: Forgiveness
Throughout the awakening process, your self-love and acceptance will strengthen. Sovereignty, confidence, authenticity and the ability to show up as your true self are cultivated, but this takes time. You may not recognize the person you once were, and the people surrounding you may not either, which can trigger them. This is where compassion and forgiveness play a huge part, not just towards others but also towards self.
It is common for feelings of regret, guilt or shame to surface due to past actions taken while at a different level of consciousness. Or perhaps you feel anger or resentment towards others for how they have treated you or your particular experiences with them. All of this is normal. Thankfully, when you have moved through this process, your new perspective allows you to understand that you (and others) did the best you could from where you were at that time. Process your emotions, establish boundaries, make amends if needed, and forgive yourself and others. This doesn't necessarily mean you allow those past behaviours or people to remain in your life, but it does mean you have processed your pain and released the energetic ties associated with it. Forgiveness frees your heart, and it will be required of you.
THE LAYERS
It is easy to summarize this process and make it seem as simple as following a few steps, but the truth is it took me over a decade to move through what I summarized in a few hundred words, and it was the hardest thing I have done in my life, by far. It required surrender, devotion and faith far beyond what I thought myself capable, and I'm not done yet.
We experience multiple awakenings throughout our lifetime. It is not the case that you awaken, roll through this process once, and reach a destination. There is always another layer, another opportunity to go deeper/higher. As long as we choose a genuine ascension path, we will continue evolving upwards on the spiral of consciousness.
TRAPS
As we take this journey, many tricky little traps trip us along the way. They aren't "bad"; they exist to gift us lessons and act as initiation points. These are a few examples (far from all) of the ones I have personally struggled with.
1) Redundancy
We can get stuck in thinking that we have to achieve healed perfection. This often happens on the spiritual journey, and we get trapped in a healing/victim mindset and repeat, repeat, repeat. Sometimes, when we finally overcome/heal/transmute/release something, we can experience a high. Some people get addicted to this and get stuck in a never-ending cycle of digging into themselves to uncover stuff to heal (speaking from personal experience here). You do not need to go digging; anything no longer serving you that is ready to be released will rise to the surface on its own. Allowing is highly advisable.
2) Running
It is important to avoid putting ourselves in some non-existent race to "get there." In truth, this is just attempting to outrun our pain, which will only get us caught in a loop of repeating cycles because we haven't yet transmuted the energy; we just denied its existence and ran from it. This process will unfold organically, and there is no need to control, force or rush. It really is all about the journey, not the destination; awakening and ascension are not meant to be tasks we check off a list, they are a way of life. Approaching energetic evolution from a mindset of reaching a finish line is counterproductive. You are always evolving; allow it to happen, and don't forget to enjoy life while you do it.
3) Repression
Everything we repress will inevitably surface one way or another. The longer we ignore it, the more it strengthens, attempting to gain our attention. Repression only prolongs the inevitable and makes the eventual release more destructive. Many of us are still taught to repress our trauma and emotions, and this is the cause of a large portion of the mental health conditions and physical dis-ease in our world.
The tendency to repress can also develop from misconstrued spiritual teachings, which inaccurately prompt us to believe that feeling or thinking something "negative" will attract more of it into our lives. Our thoughts are a barometer of our inner and subconscious states, and our emotions are an indicator of how we are responding to that state; they are here to inform you and should be addressed, not bypassed.
Alternatively, it is possible to swing to the other end of the spectrum and become overly identified with our pain and trauma. We must learn to become aware of our painbody without becoming hyper-focused on it. It took me a long time to learn to feel the feeling, not become it (or intellectualize it); observe the thought, not believe it; acknowledge the trauma, not relive it; process the energy, not repress it. It is all one big balancing act.
4) Righteousness
It is easy to slip into righteousness on this journey, believing we know more or better than others. The key is remembering that every soul has a specific life path, which is not ours to control or manipulate. It's hard to overcome the urge to forcefully awaken others through certain phases of this journey, but controlling someone else's path creates energetic karma better left alone. Adopt the motto "to each their own" to assist you in releasing righteousness, judgment and controlling tendencies (all spawned from fear). Lead energetically by example and allowing, which will be far more influential without impeding someone else's free will. It's all about inner work for outer change.
INNER WORK FOR OUTER CHANGE
Everyone who chooses to do this inner work has an enormous impact. Working on yourself is the most effective way to create planetary change. This creates a ripple effect that will energetically influence humanity's collective consciousness. You have no idea how powerful you are. You do not need to wake others up forcefully. Your raised consciousness has more effect on more people without saying a word than you can imagine. As you heal, awaken and evolve yourself, you heal, awaken and evolve humanity.
And always remember:
You aren't crazy, even though it may feel like you are.
This process can be lonely, isolating and difficult, but it gets better.
You are impacting the world positively in ways you can't even imagine.
Reach out for help if you need it.
You are not alone!
You are loved!
You got this!
Written by: Lacey
Up Next: Truth Rising
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Disclaimer: The information presented here is based on my personal experience, perception, ideas, and current level of consciousness and should, therefore, be considered theory, not fact. Always use discernment when ingesting content, including this content.
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This content was originally posted on April 4, 2023.