Which Stage of Awakening Are You In?
Awakening to a deeper, spiritual reality is a unique and personal journey, often marked by distinct phases. Each stage offers new insights and challenges, providing growth and transformation. Whether you're just beginning to notice subtle changes or are deeply immersed in the complexities of spiritual awakening, understanding these stages can help you navigate your path with greater awareness and acceptance.
Below is an outline of various stages of the awakening process as laid out by Jessa Reed in the podcast episode “Awakeners Guide to Losing Your Mind”. If you haven’t checked out the Awakening OD Podcast, it’s awesome.
The Wobble Phase
Characteristics: Your journey begins with the "wobble," where your reality starts to shift subtly. You might notice synchronicities—seemingly random events that feel intensely meaningful. This stage is characterized by an emerging awareness that there's more to your existence than you previously thought. You may feel a mixture of excitement and confusion as your old views start to be questioned.
Signs You're Here: You might feel uncertain or question longstanding beliefs. Unusual coincidences seem to point towards deeper meanings.
Advice: Embrace curiosity and allow yourself to explore new ideas without judgment. This is a time of exploration, so take note of the synchronicities and signs without needing immediate answers.
A Jump Cut
Characteristics: For some, awakening comes as a sudden, intense shift known as the "jump cut." This could be triggered by a near-death experience (NDE), a traumatic event, or a profound psychedelic experience. These significant moments drastically alter your perception of reality, catalyzing a rapid departure from your previous state of consciousness.
Signs You're Here: A singular event dramatically changes your entire outlook on life, leaving you with a radically different understanding of your place in the universe.
Advice: Prioritize self-care and grounding techniques. Such intense experiences can be disorienting, so finding practices that keep you connected to your physical wellbeing is crucial.
The Carrot
Characteristics: This stage is driven by a lure, something that pulls you deeper into the awakening process. It might be the pain of a lost loved one, a breakup, or a severe illness. These experiences act as catalysts, urging you to seek deeper truths and understanding about life and your role in it.
Signs You're Here: You're driven by personal losses or challenges, seeking answers and deeper truths in response to suffering or curiosity.
Advice: Use this time of deep emotional engagement as a catalyst for growth. Reflect on these experiences to understand your needs and desires more profoundly, and consider seeking support from a therapist or a support group if you're dealing with significant grief or loss.
The Allegory
Characteristics: During the allegory phase, you project deeper existential desires onto everyday situations, like wanting to quit a job or end a relationship, not merely for practical reasons but as a symbolic act of wanting to leave behind old, limiting systems—the "matrix" of your previous existence.
Signs You're Here: You feel a profound need to change your life circumstances, not just to improve your situation but to escape a deeper, unseen confinement.
Advice: Recognize the metaphors in your life as reflections of deeper desires for change. This is an opportunity to evaluate what you truly want from your life and career. Start small by making changes that align more closely with your authentic self.
The Visceral
Characteristics: This intense phase might feel like you're on the edge of sanity. Experiences of 'psychotic breaks' or alien communications aren't uncommon. Reality becomes fluid, filled with overwhelming synchronicities and the sensation that you're living in a personalized Truman Show.
Signs You're Here: Reality feels overwhelming, packed with "glitches" and meaningful coincidences that are hard to ignore or explain away. You might feel like you're in a surreal, personalized drama.
Advice: Maintain a connection with reality through practical daily routines and check-ins with trusted friends or mentors who can provide perspective. It’s important to process these experiences without letting them overwhelm you.
The Scavenger Hunt
Characteristics: Here, you develop an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Whether through books, podcasts, or documentaries, you seek to understand and piece together the vast puzzle of your existence. This phase can be addictive, filled with constant epiphanies but also potential isolation as others may find your new obsession bewildering.
Signs You're Here: You're obsessed with gathering information, feeling a compulsive need to understand and connect the dots of your awakening.
Advice: While it’s important to seek knowledge, ensure you balance learning with reflection and integration. Taking time to understand and assimilate the information can be as valuable as acquiring it.
The Expert/Evangelist
Characteristics: After accumulating new insights, you might feel compelled to share them, convinced of your newfound expertise. The urge to convert others to your perspective can be strong, but this often leads to frustration when others don't share your enthusiasm or viewpoint.
Signs You're Here: You find yourself eagerly sharing your insights, often unsolicited, convinced of their importance and eager for others to acknowledge their value.
Advice: Remain open to learning and understand that true wisdom often comes with acknowledging how much you don’t know. Practice humility and listen as much as you speak, fostering a true exchange of ideas.
The Deity Identification
Characteristics: In this phase, individuals might feel an intense connection to a deity, mythical figure, or historical spiritual leader. This often stems from identifying strongly with the qualities or stories associated with these figures. While this can be a sign of deepening spiritual connection, it sometimes leads to misconceptions about one's role or importance in the world. This identification may manifest as a belief that they have a unique, grandiose destiny or possess powers akin to those of the figure they identify with. It's a period marked by elevated self-esteem and sometimes a disconnect from reality as the individual feels they are living a mythic or divinely ordained life.
Signs You're Here: Feeling uniquely powerful or historically significant, often identifying strongly with figures like Jesus or mythical gods, attributing personal insights to these identities.
Advice: Ground your experiences and insights in everyday reality. Recognize the feeling of connection to greater energies or identities as part of the journey, but maintain awareness of your human limitations and relationships.
The Perpetual Healer
Characteristics: Individuals in this stage feel a compulsive need to heal others, often putting the needs of others before their own. This drive can stem from an empathetic nature intensified by their spiritual experiences. While healing others can be fulfilling, it can become an avoidance strategy, preventing the healer from addressing their own unresolved issues. This phase is characterized by an almost missionary zeal for fixing, improving, or healing situations and people, often without considering whether such intervention is desired or effective.
Signs You're Here: A relentless focus on healing, sometimes to the detriment of personal growth or other responsibilities. You look at everything through the lens of healing and you assume everyone needs to be healed.
Advice: Ensure that you aren't neglecting your own needs while trying to heal others. Balance your healing activities with activities that replenish your own energy and bring you joy.
The Conspiracy Theorist
Characteristics: During this phase, skepticism towards mainstream narratives and established authorities becomes predominant. Individuals may begin to see connections and patterns that suggest hidden truths or agendas. While healthy skepticism can lead to greater awareness, in this stage, it can tip into paranoia and a tendency to reject any information from traditional sources, regardless of its validity. This can lead to isolation and a communication gap between the individual and those not sharing their views, as they often feel that others are naïve or manipulated.
Signs You're Here: Questioning everything around you, often feeling alienated because of how you see things.
Advice: Seek diverse perspectives and verify information through multiple reliable sources. This phase requires discernment to differentiate between critical thinking and falling into unhelpful paranoia.
The Nihilism Phase
Characteristics: Nihilism in the context of spiritual awakening often arises from disillusionment. After recognizing the constructs of society and questioning long-held beliefs, individuals might feel that nothing holds true value or meaning. This can lead to feelings of emptiness and existential despair. While it can be a liberating realization, allowing for freedom from attachments, it can also be disorienting and lead to a lack of motivation or purpose if not navigated thoughtfully.
Signs You're Here: Feeling that nothing matters, which can be both liberating and disorienting as you reassess life’s purpose.
Advice: Allow yourself to explore these feelings without judgment, but also seek out activities and relationships that provide meaning and connection. It’s often in the deepest questioning that new forms of understanding and purpose emerge.
The Spiritual Ego
Characteristics: After significant spiritual experiences or accumulations of knowledge, individuals might develop what's called a "spiritual ego." This is marked by an internal narrative that one's spiritual experiences or understanding elevates them above others. This can manifest as a subtle sense of superiority or a belief that they have access to truths that others don’t. While initially, it may not be overt, it can lead to judgmental attitudes towards those who are perceived to be less enlightened or aware.
Signs You're Here: Believing that your spiritual journey sets you apart, often manifesting as a subtle form of ego that contrasts with genuine spiritual humility. You made also be trying to “kill” your ego or convince yourself (and others) that you have transcended your ego. These are all aspects of the spiritual ego.
Advice: Cultivate humility and remember that spiritual growth is an ongoing process. Engaging with community activities that emphasize service and listening to others' experiences can help temper the spiritual ego.
Conclusion
Each stage of awakening presents its own set of challenges and opportunities for growth. By understanding the stage you're in, you can better navigate the complexities of this transformative process. Embrace each phase with patience and openness, allowing the journey to enrich and deepen your understanding of yourself and the universe.