Explain Yourself, Dear Universe: Book One

Spiritual Awakening Process

HOW MANY STAGES ARE THERE TO A SPIRITUAL AWAKENING?
Again, debatable, but from my experience, there are 7 major stages to a deep spiritual awakening, each defined by its own unique characteristics.

Stage 1 – Deep sense of unhappiness, feeling alone and lost
At stage 1, you recognize that you feel lost, depressed, and generally unhappy with your current situation. We're not talking about one 'down' day either. This is a deep-rooted feeling. You feel trapped, replaying past experiences again and again. You crave change. 90% of people enter this stage, often without trying. It can happen after an intense life event e.g. death, divorce etc, or for no apparent reason at all. MOST people DON'T get past this stage, but NOT because they don't know how, but rather because they DECIDE not to.

Stage 2 – A shift in perspective
At this stage, you start to question old conditioned habits, feelings, and negative thinking. You see beyond society, and its man-made systems. You imagine a different life lived on your own terms. Once you've entered this stage, you cannot see the world around you again in the same light.

Stage 3 – Seeking meaning and purpose
The research and deep thinking stage. At this stage, you're desperate to discover more about yourself, your path, and your purpose here on Earth. You conduct lots of research and begin to create a plan of action. You feel like you're on a mission to discover your life's purpose.

Stage 4 – Happiness, thinking you've found the answers, breakthroughs
Ah, this little gem. Treat this stage as fool's gold. After a ton of soul searching, you finally believe you've struck gold and found your answers. You feel happier, more carefree and finally, that dreadful veil of low energy is lifting.
Old behavioral patterns start to dissolve, clarity comes your way and you're ready to pivot onto a new path. Hello, new life!

Stage 5 – The 'VOID' stage
Until you hit the void. The most frustrating stage of them all. After a strong belief in the spiritual world, you find that nothing has really changed. You ask 'where's all the good stuff?', 'where is my magical new beginning?'. You're now in spiritual no man's land, aka the void. Consider this a test. The void is the space between utter joy and utter despair. Stage 4 was just giving you a glimpse into what was on the other side, waiting for you as long as you push through. It's normal to feel as though you've completely detached from the spiritual world during the void – just like anything in the world, there are ebbs and flows. Sometimes your connection to the universe will increase, other times it will decrease. This is a decrease stage. Most people quit at this point. With a heap of fake spiritual guidance floating around on the web promising awakening's to be super easy, it's no surprise many even feel more disillusioned than before. Here, you either crave a deeper understanding of yourself, or you let go of this experience entirely, falling back to stage 1.

Stage 6 – Deep inner shadow and child work
You're ready to get serious. You actively get your spiritual geek on – meditation, inner child work, shadow emotional release...these are just some of the things you might use to go deeper and understand yourself.

Stage 7 – Ultimate breakthrough – joy, elevation, purpose
After deep inner shadow work and applying what you've learned to your daily life, you finally breakthrough to see the light. You feel happier, and more joyous, and you might have found your purpose. Often, you will find it's simpler than what you expected it to be, but it will be something that lights you up. Old habits will be broken, new ways of thinking installed into your brain and a general feeling of gratitude takes center stage. Enlightenment isn't necessarily what you've reached at this point (and that's totally okay!) – you don't need to strive for that ultimate level of spirituality to feel immense joy, attract great abundance or feel immensely grateful. You might feel a deep sense to share your new found wisdom with those around you (who are accepting of it – not everyone wants help!), or you might want to keep it to yourself as a little best-kept secret. Expect deep alignment and miracles to happen, especially if you are using the Law of Attraction.

IS PROGRESSION LINEAR?
Not at all. It's perfectly natural to transition between multiple stages during your spiritual awakening. Once you've reached stage 7 and you've been there for a while, it's highly likely you'll also flow back into previous stages so you can keep growing, improving, and expanding on your previous knowledge. If you start to feel 'stuck' in between stages, you could be trying to force your way through to the 'light'. It's natural to want to get through a spiritual awakening as fast as possible, but your spiritual awakening is teaching you many lessons, purging old belief systems, and is shaking up the old from the new. Don't rush it.

SHOULD I BE SCARED OF A SPIRITUAL AWAKENING?
The universe will never give you anything you can't handle. It might feel scary in the beginning, especially if you're not used to moving outside of your comfort zone, but it should never be so scary that you become terrified of the process. If you feel it's too much or too overwhelming to cope with, this could either be a sign that you THINK you're not ready for the process yet (when in reality, you are), or it could mean that your pre-conditioned beliefs are holding you back from progressing to the next stage. Deep rooted beliefs such as 'who am I to live this good life?'', 'I fear the unknown, or 'what if I end up in a worse situation?' can hinder you from moving forward, but fortunately, these are all examples of negative beliefs you can work through. Guess when the best time to work through these are? You guessed it. Your awakening!

WHEN WILL I MOVE INTO THE NEXT STAGE?
Hard to say. For some people, their transformation is pretty quick (2-3 weeks), others a few months or even years. A LOT of people stay stuck in stage 1 for their entire life without even realizing they're at the start of an awakening. Think of how many people you know who are unhappy with their life, yet never seem to change their situation. Other times, people get stuck at stage 4 (the first happy stage), which is okay too. Their spiritual journey took them to the level that they needed. To them, stage 4 was the perfect stage to stay at, rather than move to stage 7, so don't be afraid when I say some people take years to move through the process.

WRAPPING UP
A spiritual awakening isn't all love, light, meditation, and roses, but it's 111% necessary to evolve and grow spiritually. It can feel incredibly difficult at times, especially when you feel as though you're stuck and not moving forward, but it's something to be embraced, not afraid of.