Following up to my post titled “What Is Awakening?”, I wanted to address the down side of soul awakening, because it’s very real and, for many people, it is a very confusing and painful time.
First let me say that it isn’t always traumatic, especially for someone who’s “hit the snooze” a few times and because of it, has started to become aware of what’s going on; or for someone who is fortunate enough to have an experienced teacher capable of answering questions and guiding them through the experience. (If there’s one need in this world I’m certain of, it’s the need for compassionate, wise, strong spiritual teachers who are not in it for mere ego gratification…) Some people do experience it as a predominantly joyful and exciting time, or they feel relief because things make so much more sense now.
However, living in a world where there *is* a dearth of real teachers, where religions have become politicized bureaucracies, where there are few remaining rites of passage and our public rituals have become commercialized within an inch of their lives, and where there’s so much information with so many competing agendas, most of us are left feeling alone and bewildered. We hack our lonely way through that wilderness, often frustrated, eager for any tiny sign that anyone has gone ahead and left a path. And when something extraordinary happens within us, we may not know how to handle it.
Remember the movie Carrie? For a girl who’s never been taught about her own maturation, her first menses is terrifying. She thinks she’s bleeding to death from some unseen injury. It’s a normal biological process, an initiation into womanhood, yet because she was not taught what it is or how to handle it, all she has to go on is her existing knowledge that blood equals pain and death.
When an awakening happens spontaneously, in someone who has not been prepared for it and doesn’t know what’s happening, in many cases all they can see is the outward manifestations, the emotional upheavals, the unexpected life changes, even physical symptoms that manifest seemingly out of nowhere. Without a context or a support network, they may feel “cursed” or think they’re going crazy, when in fact, it’s the exact opposite.
It’s not limited to those who are caught totally off guard. Even those who have been taught about awakening in some form, who have sought it and expect it, may find the experience much bumpier than they’d been prepared for. After all, it’s one thing to contemplate something intellectually, and quite another to experience it with one’s whole self. Initiations are birth processes, and like births, they are often messy, painful, frightening, disorienting– moreso if there is no one to midwife them, but sometimes even if there is.
I want to talk a little first about some of the “symptoms” that awakening can cause, and then talk about why something that is ultimately so positive and beneficial should cause so many problems.
Each person will experience awakening differently, so there isn’t a single checklist of symptoms that everyone deals with. However, there are many common ones, and many similarities in the types of things that happen.
Physical effects are fairly common, and not all of them are troubling. Fluctuations in appetite and sleep patterns, tingling or heat along the spine or at the top of the head, twitches or tics frequently occur. But there may also be extreme jitteriness, racing heart, or trembling (often accompanied by anxiety), or conversely, extreme exhaustion. There may be mysterious pains or sudden sensitivities to particular foods or substances. There may be a dramatic change in perceived temperature, feeling often far too hot or cold for comfort. Sensations of lightheadedness or clumsiness may result in the body feeling oddly alien, heavy, to oneself. There may be unusually frequent breakouts on the skin– pimples, boils, rashes. There may be metabolic shifts, especially in women, who may also experience changes in their menstrual cycle.
There are two things that are extremely important to note about these physical symptoms. First is that awakening usually has some kind of triggering event; at the very least, a moment of awareness that “something” has happened or changed. Someone who is experiencing these kinds of physical effects and thinks they might be related to awakening should try to think back and see if they can remember something like that. Second, and more importantly, physical experiences like this must still be checked by a medical doctor. In many cases, someone experiencing an awakening will present symptoms that completely baffle their doctors because there’s no obvious physical cause. Discovering an existing medical cause doesn’t necessarily mean that the sudden onset of the symptoms isn’t related to the awakening, however it DOES still mean that the condition should be treated medically! Take a wholistic approach, please, and treat the physical and spiritual sides alike.
Also common, and sometimes even more frightening, are the unexpected emotional and psychic effects. Some people may begin having extremely vivid or even lucid dreams, experience moments of psychic awareness, or feel prompted or compelled to do or say things that don’t seem to make a lot of sense yet seem terribly important. Some people who have strong spiritual faith may suddenly feel alone or abandoned. Some may have very strange experiences in the world– strangers saying odd things to them, or very noticeable chains of coincidence.
In many cases their lives may seem to be falling apart. They may end relationships, or discover that they have been ended. They may have unusual trouble with electronics– their car breaks down, their computer shorts out, their phone dies. They may suddenly move, or change jobs, or lose their job, or become more stressed by work. If they are dealing with any kind of addiction or recovery, those issues may suddenly surge. Old or existing emotional issues also may come blazing to the surface– bad relationship patterns, old traumas, negative attitudes, strange fears. They may experience periods of free-floating anxiety or deep melancholy, may even feel despair. They may find themselves overwhelmed with sobbing for no reason, or consumed with irrational rage. There’s often a sense with these things of “I just can’t take it anymore!”, whatever “it” may be. Things they once cared deeply about doing may seem futile, pointless. There’s a sense of needing to re-evaluate absolutely everything, but accompanied by a feeling of being utterly overwhelmed by the idea and with no notion what criteria are worth using as a standard against which to measure.
Oftentimes, especially for someone who is consciously trying to make positive changes to make the circumstances of their life align with their awakening, the experience of a rash of seeming misfortunes ranging from petty and annoying, to major and frightening, may seem like a punishment. You’ll hear them say it. “God/the Universe/the world is punishing me for thinking I could do better in life. I should just give up and accept a sucky little life.”
A similar, and similarly frustrating, experience comes when the universe seems to be throwing down old challenges right in one’s path. For example, someone who has often suffered from falling in love with unavailable people may suddenly become consumed with desire for someone who’s married, at a point where they thought they’d gotten past that and become ready for a more fulfilling love. This, too, can cause feelings of despondence and helplessness, a fear that the universe is trying to shove them back into an endless cycle of dysfunctional patterns for some unknown but cruel reason.
(Again, people mystified by these experiences should look for a trigger, and again, professional help should still be sought. It is entirely possible to be both undergoing an awakening, *and* a recovering abuse victim or bipolar or an alcoholic, and awareness of the former does not eliminate the need to treat the latter.)
So, if awakening is such a great thing, why should it cause so much pain?
I suppose I should acknowledge my own bias first, that *I* think awakening is a great thing, in that “how did I ever get by without this before” sort of way. I see it as a positive, even priceless, step in one’s journey through life. Ultimately, though, like most initiatory experiences, it simply is. Whether it’s a positive or negative depends more on how one integrates the experience afterward. It’s like the act of marriage; we tend to perceive marriage as a beautiful and positive thing, but really it has the potential to be either glorious or terrible– or simply blah. It is what we make of it. To me, if you’re going to expend so much time and energy on something, you might as well try to make it into an experience that feeds your soul.
But to return to the question–
First of all, any major life event is inherently stressful. Have you ever seen one of those psychological checklists designed to assess how stressful your life is? You check off every item that applies to your life at this time, including “change jobs”, “death of a loved one”, and “money worries”. But you ALSO check off “new house”, “getting married”, “graduating school”, things we tend to see as positive. Awakening is no less stressful, and it can be even moreso when we consider how much more limited our understanding and support network for it is likely to be. The simplest explanation is that any source of stress tends to manifest in other areas of our lives, cropping up in strange illnesses or rippling outwards to affect our jobs, relationships, states of mind.
On a deeper level, a soul awakening is a new state of heightened spiritual sensitivity. Just the way that people who’ve had laser eye surgery go through a period of serious photosensitivity before they adjust to their new vision, a newly awakened person sees their life, and the state of their soul, in often-painfully stark relief. Things that seemed mildly irritating or oppressive before become unendurable. Areas of life that need serious change or repair are impossible to ignore any longer.
At the same time, a component of awakening is a surge of clear, strong spiritual energy that occurs when the conduits between the individual and the Universe are suddenly cleared, a surge that also stimulates dormant energy centers within the individual. That energy fills their being, and (sometimes slowly, sometimes abruptly) begins to force out old blockages, unresolved traumas, limiting beliefs, anything that isn’t congruent with that energy flow. This happens at all levels of the individual’s sphere of existence, the changes reflecting both externally and internally. Therefore, issues left unresolved and long-buried are put square in front of them demanding attention, and at the same time, they find them particularly painful to face. Think of it as the soul detoxing.
Too, someone who is unprepared for an experience like this may be quite literally overwhelmed by the magnitude of it, unable to manage the energy surges or to contain the changes. It may drive them to ever more extreme coping behaviors, or it may quite literally drive them mad. This is why most teachers experienced in raising kundalini, for example, will not help just any old one to do it. Awakening requires truth, a stark unadorned look into the mirror of the soul. It calls one to do some difficult work in order to integrate its energy, and to be willing to face some painful or simply transcendent things in order to do that. (As I wrote in an earlier post, it can be just as traumatic for someone to honestly see their own glory as their own shortcomings.) It is a beautiful act of courage to meet that initiation and to agree to the things it asks of you. But it is also courageous to know your limitations and to say “not yet”. In truth, there’s never a perfect time to throw your life into a tailspin, but some times are more perfect than others. And in my experience, once the call has come the first time, something changes. The universe will keep circling back, ever more insistently, to see if you’re ready to get up yet.
Sometimes, however, all of these seemingly terrible things are meant to be genuine gifts. The Divine Wow saw the spark of hope and excitement and awareness that flared in you when you glimpsed the true possibilities of your existence and saw who you are meant to be. And then you backed off a little, wishful but afraid, wanting to take it slow, to think things through, afraid of what you might lose if you followed that call. Instinctively you surrounded yourself with all the obstacles in your life that you believe will prevent you from going towards your true self. However, what you saw as insurmountable, the Universe sees as merely inconvenient, and reaches out to knock them out of your way. On a Soul level, things like jobs and cars and relationships, money and home repairs and chores are just Ego-constructs of an illusory reality; to the Universe, the greater benefit of eliminating obstacles to your soul’s growth outweighs the temporary pain that your human Ego suffers from their loss. (This idea is very well explained in this post in Paul Piotrowski’s blog as well.)
But part of any initiation experience is the presentation of a set of challenges for the initiate to overcome. And so we find circumstances cropping up in our lives that demand action and response, that refuse to allow us to passively drift along anymore. This is all the more true when the circumstances are ones reflecting old repeating patterns that may or may not have been resolved in our lives. We do have to do the work. We quest towards our true selves by proving we are willing to meet challenges; and we prove to our Selves that we are genuinely ready to integrate the experience of awakening by facing the patterns and people and situations that used to have so much control over us, and by responding to them, this time, as the true selves we are striving towards would respond to them. We overcome the challenge by proving that we have broken those bonds for good, that we have the wisdom to act differently and not be sucked back into old cycles, that we are learning to steward our energy in smarter and healthier ways.
What should you do if you find yourself in the aftermath of an awakening, experiencing all kinds of strange symptoms and upheaval, when it’s already too late to choose whether or not to accept the experience? We are, after all, at a point in time where more and more people are spontaneously awakening and finding themselves alone, adrift, and desperate for understanding and guidance; and I believe that our world needs all the awakened and healthily integrated souls in existence.
Aside from finding medical and/or mental health professionals to deal with the particular manifestations of the experience, a good first step is to read everything you can get your hands on relating to awakening (enlightenment, transcendence, samadhi, fana and baqa, kundalini rising, dark night of the soul). There’s a lot of garbage information out there, but after a while, patterns emerge. You will begin to see sensible, straightforward people saying very similar things, things that ring true on a deep, intuitive level, even if you initially feel resistance. Listen deeply to your innermost voice. It may not always be easy to interpret, but it will never steer you wrong.
If you know someone personally whom you believe has already undergone and integrated an awakening, seek them out and ask for guidance, or simply ask them to be someone you can talk to about your experiences. If not, form an intention to bring someone into your life who can guide you and teach you. Sometimes you’ll get a little guidance from a lot of people, like a pinball bouncing off numerous bumpers and paddles before zooming up the bonus ramp.
Try to see this time as an opportunity for deep, positive transformation in your life, rather than a punishment to be endured. We all have wounds in our souls to heal; it’s part of making our way through human life. This is a time to work on healing those raw and broken places, and though it may not be easy, it will ultimately be worth it. Meet the challenges. Do the work. Stop reacting the same old way and expecting a different outcome. It’s time to take a new course and learn new solutions. How would your true self overcome these challenges?
Be gentle with yourself. There is no need to compound your pain by being harsh and unforgiving towards yourself. Try to feel compassion for the self you see in the mirror of the soul; as ugly and weird and broken as you may seem, as wasted and messed-up as your life appears, as ashamed as you might feel, you are, as it says in the Desiderata, “a child of the universe, as much as the trees and the stars/you have a right to be here.” You have needed every moment, every choice and experience, to arrive at this point, even if its gifts and lessons are still mysterious to you. Trust in that, and give yourself time and space to work through everything that has been thrust upon you with this awakening. Stay with it, patiently, lovingly; these things will all pass, in time, and you will come out the other side more the person you were meant to be. Remember to breathe. Remember to make time to have fun and to laugh.
Seek for purpose. Awakening happens to bring you into better alignment with the meaning in your life, to give you better tools to do the things you came here to do. Its attendant chaos and pain is easier to process and live through if you are spurred to explore the great mystery of your life, the mission coded deep in your soul. As you discover your purpose, and dedicate yourself to it, you will also discover a context and meaning for all the joyful and difficult things in your past alike. It will help you make peace with things you could never previously comprehend.
Approach the world with love and hope. This may seem absurdly difficult, pointless, hopelessly naive. But it will be your lifeline, the golden thread that you follow through the labyrinth of your awakening out into the sunlight of a new awareness. Love the world, and it will love you back. Love this opportunity you have been given, let your hope light your path, and each step will be revealed to you.
You will eventually complete this part of the journey, and you will find that, after all, you were never truly alone.
Note: This is the second in a short series of posts about spiritual awakening. You can find the first post here.
I just found this blog and have been amazed at the congruence with my own life. It’s so weird how I’ve been stumbling over these things without connecting them to each other, and now I’ve got a new framework to view them through.
For instance a few months ago I had a bad insomniac episode and woke up the next day with COME BACK written on my ceiling in permanent marker, right where I’m looking at it when I open my eyes in the morning. Some part of me trying to wake me up.
Hi
Enjoyed your insightful post and can relate to many parts of it. Thank you for BEing of service.
Ilumine Ao,
Al Diaz
http://www.thetitusconcept.com
http://ilumine-ao.blogspot.com
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Ilumine-Ao
[…] This article is part of an ongoing series on the topic of spiritual awakening. You can read the previous article in the series here. […]
I love this explanation. I am goign through my second Soul awakening, have been attuned in Reiki I and II and can relate to all of this. Keep up the good work. Your words are comforting. I was terrified, sometimes still am with the changes that I am going through. I’ve been to the dr’s for numerous pains, aches, etc. and my health is fine. I freaked out everytime I had a pain in my chest and head. It got to the point I felt foolish and said “send out the intention to be well and you shall be”…well I did just that and I am just that….friends tell me I am a healer and I am using my gifts to heal those around me whether they know it or not.
Stop being afraid of your Soul awakening. Mine’s been silent a long time; she is opening up and loving life. My ego, on the other hand, is not so happy about this, but for now, the two are learning to live as one.
Ria
anyone would hate those pimples specially if they lead to scarring of the skin. the bigger the pimples, the greater the chance of scarring.-
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This is extremely helpful to me. I’ve been experiencing many physical symptoms, especially with my eyes. It has freaked me the hell out but when I went to the doctor, all he could attribute it to was allergies. There were 2 days I was completely blind. I could go on, bit that is what led me to you. Yay google.
Thank you for this. I look forward to more of your perspective.
I have been about 3 months into a seriously fast inlightenment……this may sound a lil different, I was wondering why or how come the words aubundance and muchness, a lot, great ,amount…..I feel this! WHY?
Chiming in with a comment nearly a decade later…I’m glad I found this post. I’ve read a lot of material on this subject, but this is one of the only posts I’ve read that really hit me in a good spot. I’ve interpreted a lot of the literature out there as either too authoritarian (“you’re awakening wrong! If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen! “) or too airy-fairy (“you must dance with the shadow so that your inner-light can radiate from within and expand to the 5th dimension!”). This post was straightforward and compassionate, and I’m glad I found it. Thanks.
This is the most beautiful article i have ever found of the subject of awakening. I cannot thank ‘Meditative Rose’ enough for writing it. I am emotional, having now just read it. I am 6 months into my kundalini awakening with relentless symptoms of energy rising up inside me, challenging me, clearing me. I have been really stuck in my life the last few years and now the k energy has awoken and it is cleansing what has been holding me back. I have spent so much time online looking for help, information etc and this page has explained so perfectly what is happening to me. I will get thru this and live as a newer version of myself. Jeremy 2.0 . Thank you again. xx