Why a Spiritual Awakening Doesn’t Always Feel Great
A spiritual awakening is the term used to refer to people who become aware of their lack of separation from the universe. While this sounds like a pretty easy process, a spiritual awakening isn’t as easy as a cognitive awareness. A spiritual awakening must take root beneath your concept of self, and it must be allowed to change your entire worldview. A worldview is the lens through which you see the world and usually contains beliefs about the metaphysical realm, a set of standards to live by, and accompanying beliefs about what happens to us after our physical body dies. Once you realize that every life force, every thought, and every action is connected, you’ll have to revisit everything you thought you knew and adjust it to reflect this new knowledge.
If I tell you that a tomato is actually a berry and not a vegetable, you can assimilate that new information pretty easily. The category of being a berry or a vegetable doesn’t affect much about the way a tomato is used. If, however, I tell you that the conceptualization of your entire existence has been a lie or a secret, processing the implications of that news will be a bit more complicated. This is why hearing the news of one’s adoption can be so life altering; suddenly their parents aren’t their biological parents and the nature of their existence has shifted dramatically. This is also why a parents’ divorce may have such an extreme effect in the family dynamic as the children learn to see their parents as two separate individuals. What has always been is no more, and this means quite a bit of mental rewiring.
Many factors are involved in a spiritual awakening that can’t be summarized in a simple article such as this, but a metaphysical shift of this nature shakes someone’s entire conceptualization of how the world works. We grow accustomed to adopting views and beliefs that only explain a small portion of our existence, but those beliefs are able to fit neatly inside of a book or two. A spiritual awakening can’t fit inside one book, two books, or even 100 books. Why? Because a spiritual awakening is a never-ending experience of the soul. Once your soul is awake and self-aware, it continues to take on a life of its own as it guides the avatar that is your human body. So how come this awareness comes with a price? Let’s take a look…
A Spiritual Awakening Means a Personal Wake Up Call
Once you’re spiritually aware, you also become aware of how detrimental your negative thoughts can be. As you come to learn that your words have just as much power as a spell straight out of a witchcraft book, you start to realize how important it is for you to consciously monitor every thought that gets verbalized internally or externally. This means a lot of changes in how you think about yourself and the world around you. For some people, this is a daunting task to take on. While meditation can certainly make this process more manageable, being mindful of your thoughts requires more dedication than it took to learn all the skills you’ve ever acquired combined.
With practice, monitoring your thoughts begins to feel like second nature, but in the beginning of a spiritual awakening this new skill can feel overwhelming. The benefits of engaging on this spiritual quest include overcoming trauma, decreasing anxiety, increasing self-esteem, increasing compassion and forgiveness, decreasing/eliminating depression, and preventing self-sabotaging patterns from repeating to name just a few. When a spiritual awakening occurs, you become your own lifelong project. You suddenly realize the responsibility you have to yourself and the world around you to master your own inner world. While it may be a significant undertaking, self-mastery of the mind is one of the most rewarding things a person can ever do for themselves. In fact, many might argue that this is the exact reason we are here.
A Spiritual Awakening Means Saying Goodbye
Whether this happens immediately or gradually, people who are on the path of enlightenment will notice that their interests begin to change. As their interests change, they outgrow some friendships and connections and begin to form new ones. This is a natural part of someone’s journey during maturation and personal evolution, but this change does shock some people who are just beginning their spiritual awakening journey. Here someone is in their middle-aged years thinking they have a solid friend group only to find that their friends are not fond of the idea of them growing. In fact, oftentimes the people closest to us are terrified of us changing.
Imagine you come across the most mind-blowing information that makes your soul wake up from the coma it’s been in for 20+ years. You are so eager to share the information with friends and family, but you become very saddened when you realize that not everyone is as excited as you were to discover these universal truths. In fact, many of your family and friends begin to mock and disregard you whenever you make any mention of your new findings. Not only will you begin to feel disrespected, but you will also begin to feel misunderstood and isolated from your current friend group. This will naturally lead to you gravitating towards new friends who share similar interests or who have the same curiosity about life.
In addition to changing how much time you spend with some of your friends, you may also begin to change how you spend every waking second of your time. Becoming more conscious and self-aware means that you’re also becoming more aware of how your actions are affecting your success in life. Ignoring your escapism tendencies or overlooking your bad habits will feel impossible when you’re also working towards living in the present moment 24/7. The good news is that self-awareness and conscious living will lend themselves useful as you begin to upgrade your life. Overcoming bad habits and learning to love yourself will get easier and easier the more you grow into your spiritual self.
While the benefits are definitely worth it, growing into a new you with new habits, new friends, and new thoughts and feelings can be a little more challenging than it might sound. The body often craves the familiar. The mind will scrutinize the things that deprive it from the chemicals it is used to experiencing. This means that, while the conscious part of you wants to heal and grow, the subconscious part of you will be skeptical, nostalgic, and longing to wallow in feelings of isolation. The most productive thing you can do at this stage of your awakening is to immerse yourself in success stories and literature that inspires you or reach out for guidance. Constantly refuel your desire to grow until growth becomes your new normal.
A Spiritual Awakening Means No More Ignorance
Many people will support the idea that ignorance is bliss. Ignorance may not be ultimate bliss, but it is certainly easier than being aware and carrying the burden that nothing can be done. The more awakened you become, the more aware of injustices you will also become. You’ll begin to notice when those in charge are capitalizing on the unknowing, general public. For example, you’ll realize that the brain is made up of mirroring neurons that produce chemicals that resemble what they’re watching on TV. When a man or woman says, “I could’ve gone pro at this sport if it wasn’t for an injury,” and also engages in watching the sport live or on television on a regular basis, s/he is dosing her/himself with the same chemicals s/he used to experience the sport when s/he was on the field. The brain mirrors what you take in from your senses because the brain cannot tell the difference between a real scene or a fake scene. For this reason, people can become emotionally attached to fictional characters because their brain has a conceptualization of who that character is and has grown to like the character the same as someone may grow to like a best friend.
Now that you understand mirroring neurons a bit, perhaps you’ll also understand how detrimental a fictional or nonfictional crime show can be. As the show gets your anxiety levels heightened and you’re zoning out into brain state that is the equivalent to hypnosis, then the commercials come on the television that are advertising an anti-anxiety medication. Emotions are being induced, brain states are being created, and then products are being sold to treat the emotions that they’re manufacturing in your body. Products that match the emotion the show is creating are not a coincidence; marketing teams are very familiar with the audience they want to sell to. The psychology of selling and marketing has been around longer than the formal science of psychology itself, and your mind is being manipulated on a constant basis without you even knowing it.
This example of mirroring neurons is one small example of the many truths you will discover along your spiritual awakening journey. Once you’re aware, it is hard to become blind to these truths again. Suddenly you’ll realize when your child is more agitated after playing a video game that is inducing stress. Suddenly you’ll realize when someone induces an emotion and then offers a product that will relieve the feeling they just caused you to experience. While I wish I could say that the psychological warfare only goes as deep as your pockets can allow, it unfortunately goes much deeper than that. You will sometimes wonder if your awakening is a blessing or a curse because you will discover so many unfavorable truths about humanity.
Will I feel “great” in the end?
So, is a spiritual awakening worth the hassle? Absolutely! Knowledge is power. You can’t help someone if you don’t know how they need help. You can’t discover your passion and mission in life without experiencing a few things in life first. You can’t overcome the things in life that will limit you if you don’t take the time to become self-aware. You can’t heal without identifying the thoughts and emotions that are keeping you stuck in the past. You can’t become successful and abundant if you’re operating with a belief that is in resistance to those achievements. Self-awareness, out-growing the old, stepping into the new, and becoming more aware of how the 3D world works are all necessary components of you being able to live in your purpose and contribute to a positive change in the world. So, while a spiritual awakening may feel a bit overwhelming, trust that you cannot create something new without first clearing out the old.
