Three Signs you’re Having a Spiritual Awakening

You feel down.

You feel like your life is a mess and nothing makes sense anymore.

You feel lonely and that the people around you don't get it.

It may not be depression or anxiety.

Rather, you may be undergoing a spiritual awakening.

A spiritual awakening is a particular kind of Gate Passage.

They are messy. They make you feel crazy. They make you feel like you're in the middle of a tsunami and hanging on for dear life.

photo by Christian Lue

Aside from the planetary awakening we’re all in now, here are 3 things that are clues that you’re in a spiritual awakening: 

1. The shit hits the fan. 

You get fired. Your lover leaves you. You’re diagnosed with a life threatening illness. These are some of the heavy-duty things that suddenly bring your spiritual life into sharp focus. They shake up the very core of who you think you are, what’s important, and why you're here on the planet. 

You might feel angry that life’s handing you a shit sandwich. You may have a strong impulse to run from it. You may want to distance yourself from it with alcohol, substances, shopping, etc.

What I’ve noticed, however, is that shit hittin' the fan is usually a necessary course correction along your spiritual journey.

Think of it as a GPS re-calculating your route after you’ve veered off the map.

2. You want more.

You may have no clue what's going on or why, but you look around and want more.

Less stuff, more meaning.

Less holding back, more arms-wide-open vulnerability.

Less superficial relationships, more true connecting.

No longer satisfied with the usual offerings, your soul is hungry and needs to be fed. So you go looking (and you usually find it). 

3. A teacher appears.

Have you heard the saying,  "When the student is ready, the teacher appears?"

The teacher can be someone who you bump into on the check-out line at the market. It can be an experience you keep having over and over. It can be a book that finds its way to you in such a way that you can’t deny that it has a message for you.

I had a book fall into my hands like that.

It was 1996, and I was spending my first winter volunteering and living at Kripalu Yoga Center. I was in chronic pain from my previous job as a newspaper reporter. I had no direction. I had no plan. I heard about Kripalu from a friend, who said you could live there in exchange for working.

So I went.

I cleaned toilets and showers. I used my writing skills to help edit newsletters. I pitched in wherever I was needed. 

One night, I was wandering alone through the library on the top floor. A book literally fell out of the stacks and into my hands. It was A Path with Heart by Jack Kornfield. As soon as I opened its pages, it began to sing to my heart. As I continued reading, I could feel the words start to stitch together places inside that were raw and painful.

Since then, I read it every few years. It still teaches me things. 

Let me know if this is ever happened to you.