Spiritual awakenings are something that most people seem to think are positive and simple regarding making steps and moving forward in life but that is not ever the case. Spiritual awakenings are always intense and for many unsettling.
For those who might be confused a spiritual awakening is something, we go through in life to reach a higher state of consciousness. Through this awakening, we become more aligned with our truest selves. This awakening, for the most part, can and does happen sporadically but that doesn’t make it any less painful.
Scott Jeffrey’s website outlines this process on an internal level and notes as follows:
As the process of spiritual awakening unfolds, the ego begins to sublimate to the Spirit. In the language of Taoism, the lower soul gets refined into the higher soul.
Arriving at this Spirit, or psychic wholeness, was the goal of Jung’s individuation process.
But despite popular belief, this doesn’t generally happen in a single “moment of awakening.” While we can have “peak experiences” that open us up to Self-transcendent reality, these experiences tend to be fleeting.
Instead, the developmental literature explains that there are stages of psycho-spiritual growth. And these permanent stages tend to develop over time.
And this is part of the reason many people are confused about spiritual awakening. Walking in nature or on a psychedelic substance, they may have a beautiful experience of oneness, for example, but this experience is momentary. The individual’s structure of consciousness hasn’t changed yet.
This ego death is not easy to deal with. Taking the dive into the unknown is not fun and brings forth a lot of unsettling emotions. Sure, you might want to become spiritually awakened but it’s not something everyone can handle. Real awakenings are far too intense for most people, and they come with lots of tears, confusion, strain, wonder, and as noted above pain.
You when becoming more awake will feel like the whole world is working against you and you will begin to see the bad things around you that you otherwise would not notice. You become caught up in everything that is changing and pulled underneath all of the negativity that you’ve been pushing out without realizing. This kind of thing comes from a lot of fighting within and ultimately when all the fighting is said and done surrendering is inevitable.
You may go through this kind of experience only to find that your new self isn’t the self you wanted it to be. You might become extremely disconnected and isolated from the world around you. Whether you end up wanting to make big changes in your own life or you want to embrace the future while still holding onto the past everything will feel foreign.
That being said, all of this struggle shouldn’t be taken as a reason to avoid becoming awakened. Becoming awakened is an amazing thing and it can help you grow in some of the most fascinating ways. Just keep in mind, it’s not all it is made out to be, and if you think you’re doing it wrong because it feels like your life is falling apart, you’re not. Everything has to crumble before a new basis can form.