What The Hell Is Happening To Me? The Seven Phases of Spiritual Awakening
Now that you know what a spiritual awakening is, you might be wondering when it will be over. Trust me, for those of us that have been through them, we’ve all asked that question at least once, if not more. Before we dive in, I want to get one thing out of the way. This isn’t the guide to spiritual awakening, and I’m definitely not claiming to have all the answers. If I did, I’d have figured out why the universe communicates in riddles half the time. This is simply what happened to me. It’s the good, the bad, and the completely unhinged, “What the hell is happening to me?” moments. Looking back, I started noticing patterns, and those patterns naturally became the seven phases you’ll read about here. One thing I do want to point out before we jump in though, is that these phases aren’t a neat little checklist. You might see yourself in multiple phases at the same time, you might bounce back and forth between them, or revisit one you thought you’d already moved through. My experience wasn’t linear, and yours might not be either, which is completely normal. Will your journey look exactly like mine? Probably not. Honestly, I’d be a little concerned if it did. Spiritual awakenings aren’t one-size-fits-all, and I don’t think they’re supposed to be. Take what resonates, leave what doesn’t, and trust your own experience over anyone else’s… including mine. If this helps you feel a little less alone, gives you language for something you’ve been struggling to explain, or saves you from spending hours on ChatGPT wondering if you’ve completely lost your mind, then writing it was worth it. Now… onto the phases!
The first phase is called “The Catalyst”. I gave it this nickname because this phase usually involves an event that shifts your perception and causes you to awaken; hence, a catalyst. Many people experience this as a traumatic event, such as the loss of a job or loved one, but it doesn’t have to happen that way. As more people on the planet are going through awakenings, I’m hearing about more spontaneity and less trauma. Personally, I lost everything that was important to me, which became the catalyst for my spiritual awakening. It unfolded slowly, though. I didn’t realize I was going through a spiritual awakening until four years later. I discussed in my last post that the soul decides when it is time for you to awaken, but sometimes, it isn’t obvious. I was focused on working through my grief and trying to move on with my life, which was exactly what I needed at the time. Had I known that it was part of a much larger spiritual plan that my soul had orchestrated, I don’t think I would’ve been able to handle it. So, my soul said, “Feel the grief, get back on track, & then we’ll do this”, to which I’m extremely grateful. Back to the awakening… when an event like this happens (or if it’s a spontaneous awakening), your energy system is flooded with higher vibrational energy or “light”, if you want to call it that. This causes a shift in perception, which in turn, causes one’s consciousness to expand. This phase may be very short or it could be like mine (four years). It just depends on your mental, emotional, and physical state at the time. For those of us that endured deep levels of grief, it will last longer because you have to be stable enough to handle everything that a spiritual awakening throws at you in the next few phases.
The second phase is what I like to call “Synchronicities” because this is when the magic starts to happen. It is when you become aware that the puzzle of life has more pieces and, in my own experience, it was a shorter phase. It lasted for a few weeks. I had a very profound moment of complete clarity during this phase and I still can’t put into words what I felt, but it was as if everything in that moment was crystal clear and for about a minute, I was at peace. It was a moment that I’ll never forget. I’ve heard of others having a revelatory moment like this as well, but if you don’t (or didn’t), that doesn’t mean that you haven’t awakened or that you haven’t reached this phase. Your moment may not include sunlit epiphanies, and that’s ok. But, you will become aware that something inside you has shifted. You’ll begin to see life from a different angle. If you haven’t started seeing things related to spiritual awakenings, you will now. Energetically, your consciousness has expanded, and when that happens, your vibrational frequency rises. This is called ascension, and each time your vibration increases, you might experience some physical symptoms. Energetic changes happen at a quantum level and usually, you won’t be aware of when that happens, but since your physical body is made up of dense matter, it takes time for it to catch up to where you are energetically. Physically, you may experience headaches, body aches, fatigue, and the famous ear ringing. People will tell you it’s tinnitus, and it very well may be, BUT if you’ve never experience ear ringing before, more than likely it’s your physical body adjusting to a higher energetic dimension. You might also experience what is known as ascension flu, which are mild flu symptoms you may feel as your body is adjusting to higher-level energy. Emotionally, you may experience severe anxiety because your nervous system is like, “What the actual fuck?!?!”. You might feel emotionally exhausted or you may experience your entire emotional range in two hours, which might have you start believing that you’ve had a psychotic break. Don’t worry, you haven’t. Basically, your brain is opening up to a whole new level that you may not even believe exists, and that can take some time to adjust to. Mentally, you’ll want to begin to research things like meditation and energy, even if you’ve never believed in those things before. If you’re still wondering if you are even having a spiritual awakening, this is how you know for sure. If you find yourself reading blog posts, becoming interested in crystals, or listening to meditations, this is your Higher Self’s way of letting you know that you’re not going crazy; you’re waking up to the way the universe actually exists. This phase might also include an introduction to your clairs, which I’ll discuss in a separate blog post. But, here’s the short version… clairs are your spiritual senses, and once developed, can lead to amazing psychic abilities. You might also start noticing synchronicities or “meaningful coincidences” during this time. I remember mentioning to my best friend that I thought I might be psychic OR I was going crazy, but either way, I was experiencing things that I hadn’t before. Thankfully, she had already been through this phase and was there to reassure and guide me. If you don’t have anyone in your life that you can talk to, feel free to send me a message. That’s what I’m here for! If you don’t feel brave enough to speak out yet, just know that you’re not alone in this.
Phase three… “Shadow Work”. I’m not going to sugarcoat it; this is going to be the hardest phase of your spiritual awakening. It’s messy, uncomfortable, and at times, it can feel downright brutal. But, it’s also the phase that creates the deepest healing and the greatest transformation. You can’t heal what you’re unwilling to acknowledge, and shadow work asks you to finally face the parts of yourself you’ve spent years trying to avoid. Your shadow is the hidden side of who you are. It includes the parts of your personality you’ve suppressed, rejected, or denied because you learned they weren’t acceptable. It can also include qualities and patterns that everyone else can clearly see in you, but you’ve never recognized in yourself. For example, imagine you were a very sensitive child who cried easily. Whenever you became emotional, your father told you to “toughen up” or “stop crying.” Over time, you may have learned that showing emotion wasn’t safe or acceptable, so you buried that sensitive part of yourself. As an adult, you might come across as emotionally distant, guarded, or even uncaring… not because that’s who you truly are, but because it’s who you learned you had to become to protect yourself. The people around you may recognize that something deeper is going on long before you’re able to see it yourself. Until you’re ready to acknowledge that old wound, it’s common to deny that anything is wrong. I’ve seen it over and over again, especially in people that I’m close to. Another way to think about this is through the lens of the ego. In the context of a spiritual awakening, the ego is the protective identity you’ve built over the years to keep yourself emotionally safe. It isn’t your enemy; it developed for a reason. But eventually, the defenses that once protected you begin to hold you back. During shadow work, those protective layers begin to crack. It can feel like you’re losing a part of yourself, but in reality, you’re shedding the version of yourself that was created out of fear, pain, and survival so your authentic self can begin to sparkle. Now, the example I shared is just one of countless ways trauma can shape a person’s life. During this phase of your awakening, you’ll come face to face with the parts of yourself you’ve been running away from. It can be scary, painful, and exhausting in every way imaginable. There will be days when you want to shut the whole spiritual awakening thing down, and honestly, that’s normal. But, healing begins the moment you stop resisting. When you allow yourself to sit with your pain instead of pushing it away, something begins to change. You realize that emotions aren’t meant to be buried forever. They’re meant to be acknowledged, felt, and eventually released. Feeling it isn’t optional; it’s required. If you don’t feel it, you can’t heal it. Cliche? Maybe. True? Absolutely. So, how do you know what kind of wounds you have? This may seem like an obvious question because some types of trauma are unforgettable, like abuse or abandonment. But, some types operate in the background and you aren’t aware of them until you are. But, here is the best way I’ve found to discover my own shadow… triggers. You’ve probably heard of a trigger before, but let me explain it for those that haven’t. A trigger is something that “causes” you to react in a negative way. I put the word “causes” in quotes because no one can cause a reaction out of you. Your reaction is a reflection of your own inner wounds, not the person who triggered you. If you get angry or disgusted at something another person says or does, that’s basically a bright red flashing sign that says, “Hey… pay attention to this! There’s a wound here.” For instance, I have abandonment wounds which I’ve been aware of since I was a teenager. It’s obvious and that wound has always been pretty apparent to myself and others, but my abandonment trauma caused a much deeper self-worth wound that I wasn’t aware of. It wasn’t until the universe put me back in the same situation I was in before my spiritual awakening that I started to see my self-worth wound. Once that became visible, random things that seemingly didn’t relate to self-worth suddenly started triggering me and that’s when I started connecting the dots. It was like I went, “OHHHH… I see it now.” My shadow work phase began about five years after my catalytic event and it lasted for three and a half years… yes, you read that right. This can be a long phase, depending on how many wounds you’ve been carrying around. Also, wounds are layered, and they will keep resurfacing in different ways and completely different situations until you feel the emotions, learn the lesson, and heal them. In my experience, this was one of the most difficult things to grasp because every time my self-worth wound would resurface, I would think, “Damn… didn’t I heal this already?” You’ll ask yourself that question over and over during this phase. But, here’s the good news… each time a wound resurfaces, it will be less painful, easier to work through, and won’t last as long as it did before. Trust me, I’ve been through it. This phase sucks, and it can bring up a lot of unresolved negative emotions and traumatic events, so if you need mental or emotional help during this time, please don’t hesitate to see a professional. There are qualified spiritual mental health practitioners out there. You just have to do your research to find them. You don’t have to go through this alone.
Ok, now that you’ve healed your shadow work, you’ll enter phase four, “The Void”. This is when everything goes silent. You’ve released your trauma and now it’s time to rest and recover. During this phase, you’ll notice that things seem to slow down in your life. Physically, you may feel like you want to sleep for three months straight because healing your trauma will absolutely have that effect. It’s like your body says, “We just did a crap ton of work and now we need to sleep”. That is completely normal. It’s like recovering from surgery. Your body is going to need some time to recalibrate. Emotionally, you may feel relieved that things seemed to have settled down, but for others, this may be short-lived and they may begin to feel restless. I experienced the latter because I knew that I had done the majority of my shadow work and I was beginning to come out of it. I was ready to move on, but my spirit team was like, “No, that’s not how this works. You need time.” I felt stuck in between chapters, like I wanted to move, but couldn’t, and it drove me crazy. I hated that feeling. For many people, their spirit team seems to go off the grid and they feel completely disconnected and alone. Back in phase two, you start to experience the connection with higher realms and dimensions, and that connection continues to increase as you get further along in your awakening. During this phase, that connection may seem to disappear temporarily. Don’t worry, you’re still connected and your spirit team didn’t leave you. They never do. They just go quiet during this time because they know you need time to rest and reflect on all of the healing work you did. If you’re asking for guidance and you’re not receiving it, this is their way of showing you that your physical reality is taking precedence over your spiritual connection right now and you need to prioritize your physical well-being and utilize your self-care methods. During my awakening, I jumped in and out of this phase for about a year. It is completely dependent on how much shadow work you had to do. So, if you are having a hard time connecting to your spirit team, or if your universal connection seems to have suddenly disappeared, it usually returns as this phase nears the end.
I like to call phase five “Alignment” because you are starting fresh after having completed your shadow work and recovery. This phase feels like a celebration, because technically, it is! You’ve done the work and now it’s time for you to begin working toward your life purpose. Since every soul incarnates with “goals” in mind, you’ll hear spiritual teachers refer to it as your life purpose. This is basically what your soul wants to accomplish during this lifetime. Many people spend most of their lives searching for their purpose, as have I. But, somewhere along the way, I realized that the more I healed, the more I discovered about myself, which lead to me finding my purpose. It’s a natural by-product of healing. After releasing the heavy energetic blockages during the shadow work phase, your vibration will naturally increase, which will “align” you with your soul’s purpose. You’ll naturally begin doing this work because it was planned out by you before you were born, from what I believe. All you had to do was reach that frequency. For me, alignment wasn’t some dramatic lightning-bolt moment where the clouds parted and the universe handed me a detailed five-year plan. That would’ve been nice though, lol. It was much quieter than that. I just… knew. I couldn’t explain why, and honestly, that drove me a little crazy at first because I’m a Gemini. I literally research everything and having to just trust myself was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. But, deep down, there was this calm certainty that I hadn’t felt before. I was happier and lighter. Life stopped feeling like I was forcing every single thing. From my perspective, it also felt like something was happening behind the scenes. I couldn’t necessarily see it, but I could feel it. It was almost as if the puzzle pieces were starting to fit together. I’ve also said out loud that it felt like different timelines were gradually converging. Whether that’s the language you’d use or not, that’s the closest description I have for what it felt like. The funny thing is, I stopped needing to know every single detail. I didn’t have all the answers, and I still don’t, but I trusted that I was headed in the right direction. That quiet knowing was enough. For years, I thought finding my purpose meant figuring it out. You know… researching, analyzing, taking 437 personality tests, reading my astrology chart for the millionth time, diving into Human Design, the MBTI, the Enneagram… basically anything that promised to tell me who I was and what I was supposed to be doing with my life. And honestly? None of those things gave me the answer. What they did give me were clues. Each one showed me a different piece of myself. Astrology reminded me that communication comes naturally to me. Human Design helped me understand how I move through the world. Personality tests highlighted strengths I’d had all along but hadn’t fully appreciated. Then there were the people who kept telling me, “You know, you’re a really good teacher.” At some point, I had to stop collecting clues and actually pay attention to what they were pointing toward. I’ve always been obsessed with spirituality and metaphysical topics. I genuinely love learning about them, and maybe even more than that, I love explaining them in a way that makes people think, “That actually makes sense.” Maybe my purpose wasn’t hiding from me. Maybe it had been following me around my entire life, patiently waiting for me to stop overthinking it. The more I healed, the quieter the self-doubt became, and the easier it was to hear that little voice inside saying, “This is it. Keep going.” People love to say they “felt called”, and I know how that sounds, but honestly? That’s exactly what it felt like. Not loud, not dramatic; just a quiet, persistent knowing that this was what I was meant to be doing. I know I’ve written a lot about my experience during this phase, but it’s for a reason, I promise. So, with that being said… how do you find your calling? I believe it’s a result of what you had to heal during your shadow work. Every time you heal a wound, you learn something about yourself. Every trigger has something to teach you, assuming you’re willing to stop blaming everyone else for five minutes and actually look at it. I know, easier said than done. Sometimes you uncover a fear you didn’t realize you were carrying. Sometimes you discover a belief you’ve been dragging around for years that wasn’t even yours to begin with. Sometimes, you realize you’ve been playing a role that you outgrew a long time ago. Every time you heal one of those things, another layer comes off. Eventually, you stop making decisions based on fear, guilt, people-pleasing, or who you think you’re supposed to be. You start making decisions based on who you actually are. That’s a HUGE difference. Personally, I don’t think your purpose suddenly appears one random Tuesday like, “Hey girl!” I think it’s been there the whole time, waiting for you to see it. From my own experience, our souls come into this lifetime with certain experiences, lessons, and goals they hope to accomplish. Healing doesn’t magically create your purpose. It removes enough of the noise for you to recognize what has been quietly calling you all along. The more you uncover your authentic self, the easier it becomes to live an authentic life. When you’re living authentically, I believe you’re naturally moving closer to the reason you came here in the first place.
Phase six is called “Life Purpose” because you’ve figured out exactly what you came here to do and you’re doing it. Whether it’s teaching, helping others, creating, etc., you’re doing it and you’re living the life that you want. This is the phase where you’ve done most of the hard work and now you’re reaping the benefits of just being your awesome, authentic self, YAY!!! So, what does living your purpose actually feel like? Honestly? It feels freaking AWESOME!!! For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m finally doing what I came here to do. At 43 years old, that’s an incredibly satisfying feeling. I’ve always known I was supposed to help people. I just had the wrong description. For years, I thought “helping people” meant working in the medical field. I thought maybe I was supposed to become a doctor, then a physician’s assistant, then an optometrist. Honestly, I’ve changed my mind so much that I felt like I was super behind in my life. Don’t get me wrong… those careers absolutely help people and I’m incredibly grateful that I was able to help as many people as I have. They just weren’t my way of helping people. Every single job I’ve had has taught me different skills and every single one of those skills are needed for what I’m doing now. It wasn’t until I healed enough to really know myself that I realized I don’t have to help people by fitting into someone else’s definition of what that should look like. I help people by being myself. I write, I teach, and I share what I’ve learned. That’s what comes naturally to me, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. The same is true for you. Your purpose doesn’t have to be teaching, or healing, or even have to involve helping people. Maybe your soul came here to create beautiful things. Maybe it’s raising amazing kids, caring for animals, restoring ecosystems, building businesses, exploring the world, or just living a quiet life. From everything that I’ve learned, your purpose is whatever your soul hoped to experience and express during this lifetime. It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else and it doesn’t have to impress anyone else either. It just has to feel like home to you. I want to share something my all-time favorite tarot reader on YouTube, Chris Reck, says. I’m paraphrasing, but it goes something like this: “So what if people think you’re crazy? If you want to start an ant farm, then start an ant farm.” I laugh every time I hear him say it, but there’s a lot of wisdom packed into that one sentence. That’s his way of saying, “Fuck everyone else. You be you.” It’s not really about ant farms. It’s about giving yourself permission to stop living your life according to everyone else’s expectations. If something genuinely lights you up, who cares if other people don’t understand it? They’re not the ones who live your life. That mindset has really stuck with me. I don’t need to start an ant farm, but I do need to help people… in my own way, and you need to do what lights you up and makes you sparkle. If you take anything away from this blog post, I hope it’s that! Ok, TED talk over. This is the phase that most unawakened people think the spiritual awakening actually is… love and light. This IS a happy, peaceful phase and it does involve a lot of love and light, but just because it comes after the shadow work doesn’t mean it’s going to be all rainbows, unicorns, and glitter. Bills still show up. People still disappoint you. Bad days still happen. You still get hurt. You still lose people. You still have moments where you’ll think, “Seriously?!?! Again???” The difference isn’t that life stops happening. The difference is that you stop letting every storm convince you the sky is falling. Negative things will still happen, but you’re vibration will be much higher and you’ll be much more self-aware by the time you get here, so you’ll be able to process the negativity from a much higher perspective, which will make it seem like “love and light” to others. What they don’t see is all of the painful healing work you did to get to this place. For most people, this is where the journey settles into a new normal… unless you’re planning to reach Buddha-level enlightenment, lol. Finding your purpose doesn’t mean you’ve finished growing. It just means you’ve finally stopped fighting yourself long enough to start living it.
Now, the seventh phase is technically the last phase of my spiritual awakening framework, but I honestly don’t think most people ever reach it. I call it “Enlightenment” because, from my perspective, it’s when you’ve done so much inner work and become so incredibly self-aware that you live from a place of deep inner peace. You’ve mastered the art of responding instead of reacting, and other people’s negativity doesn’t have the power to throw you off your center anymore. I’m talking like Buddha-level zen. Many spiritual traditions describe enlightened beings, like Buddha, Jesus Christ, and other ascended masters, as examples of this level of consciousness. Whether you see those stories as literal or symbolic is completely up to you, but they’ve become examples of what is possible when someone dedicates themselves to a lifetime of inner growth. This phase is considered extremely rare, and honestly, it’s not because only a chosen few are capable of reaching it. I think it’s because getting there is hard as hell. It takes years of looking at yourself in the mirror, owning your crap, healing your wounds, letting go of your ego, and choosing growth over what is comfortable. Most people eventually get to a place where life feels pretty damn good and decide they’re happy there, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Just so we’re clear, enlightenment doesn’t mean you’re perfect. It doesn’t mean you never get angry, sad, frustrated, or have a bad day. It means those emotions don’t own you anymore. You experience them, learn from them, and let them go instead of letting them run your life. Do I think it’s attainable? Absolutely. Do I think it’s easy? Hell no. It just takes an incredible amount of dedication and a willingness to keep showing up for yourself every single day.
Now that we’ve gone through all seven phases, I want to leave you with one last thing. Just because I explained these phases in order doesn’t mean that is how you’re going to experience them. Spiritual awakenings are messy as hell. They don’t come with an instruction manual, a checklist, or some magical timeline where you finish one phase and move neatly into the next. Trust me… I’ve looked. You might spend months doing shadow work, suddenly get hit with a huge realization about your life purpose, realize you’re completely burnt out and need to rest, then somehow end up right back in another round of healing. It may feel like it’s this chaotic, neverending cycle for a while, but you just have to trust that everything is happening the way it is intended to, and go with the flow. In my experience, spiritual growth doesn’t follow the nice, neat, linear timeline our brains wish it did. Sometimes, you feel like you’re making huge progress and other times, it feels like you’ve been knocked on your ass and shoved right back to where you started. Here’s the thing though… you didn’t actually go backward. Sometimes you have to revisit an old lesson because you’re ready to understand it on a deeper level. Sometimes life throws something at you that exposes another layer you didn’t even know was there. That doesn’t mean you’re failing; it means you’re growing. So stop worrying so much about what phase you’re “supposed” to be in. There isn’t a gold medal for finishing first… this isn’t the Spiritual Awakening Olympics. Just keep showing up. Keep doing the work. Keep being honest with yourself. The rest will happen when it’s supposed to. Also, if you ever find yourself thinking, “What the actual hell is happening to me?”... congratulations! You’re growing.
Now, I want to hear from you! Which phase, or maybe phases, do you think you’re in right now? Tell me in the comments. I’d genuinely love to hear your story. No matter where you are on your journey… don’t forget to show your sparkle! ✨