The 4 Stages of Spiritual Awakening 

Spiritual awakening is not for everyone. Indeed, Abraham Hicks calls us the three percent. 

They estimate that only approximately three percent of the global population is awake to a larger purpose in human life, open to a higher consciousness, and prepared to work with the natural laws of the Universe. 

That’s humbling. 

Three percent is small. 

It can also be lonely. 

But take heart. 

Three percent is actually still a lot of people. 

Think about it. 

If there are 7 billion people on earth, three percent is still 210 million people. 

So while we are in a minority, we are still in good company.

Now you’re wondering how to even know if you’re having a spiritual awakening. 

What even is a spiritual awakening? 

What Is Spiritual Awakening?

A spiritual awakening is the part of life you step into when you realize you are more than you think you are. 

More than you always thought you were. 

When you know, on a deep level, that you are not your body. 

You are not your thoughts. 

That you are connected to all of life on the planet and in the Universe. 

A spiritual awakening happens when you accept that love is the only thing that really matters, that you can detach from the illusions of good and bad, and that this, too, shall pass. 

Spiritual awakenings are hard at first, then they get easier, and then they get hard an intermittent points as you grow and progress through it. 

And a spiritual awakening lasts for the rest of your life. 

You are never “awakened.” 

You are always waking up in increasing measure. 

You are never “enlightened.” 

You are always achieving greater states of enlightenment. 

Why is this so? 

Because we are humans. 

When you die, and you return to your spirit form, fully at one with the Universe again, then you are fully awakened and enlightened. 

But as humans, we are limited. 

We are contained in these temporary vessels of flesh and bone, dust and dirt. 

And our consciousness is limited by our minds. 

Our minds contain a subconscious and an ego, both of which are constantly trying to keep us safe and survive. 

Awakening requires a level of fearless and curiosity that our subconscious and ego will constantly be at war with. 

It is an interesting dance we must engage in, where we respect and value our subconscious and ego who want to drive this vessel while also firmly and lovingly telling them “No.” 

You can and should allow your subconscious and ego to have a seat in the car, but you should never let them drive. 

The Subconscious

The subconscious is the part of you that records everything that happens and then drives your vessel around on autopilot based on what it has learned from those recordings. 

Dr. Bruce Lipton, cellular biologist and author of You, Happier, tells us that for the first 7 years of our lives, our subconscious is on record, taking a record for how to live. 

Then, for the rest of our lives, it is on playback, repeating cycles, responding to triggers, and living a pretty mindless life. 

The trick, he says, is not to stop the subconscious from driving us around on autopilot, but to retrain the subconscious so that the autopilot is intentional, mindful. 

This process of retraining our subconscious is a huge step in the spiritual awakening. 

Once you wake up to the fact that you have been living a mindless, numbed life, you can decide to change that. 

The Ego

The ego is the part of us that keeps us alive and functioning in society. 

It tells us how to dress, how to behave, when to be ashamed or guilty. 

We need it or we would walk down the streets naked and spouting all kinds of madness that circulates in our heads. 

But the ego will also try to reinforce hierarchies, make you feel superior, and do anything to survive, like hurt others. 

Again, it’s all about balance. 

We want the ego’s input. 

But we need to train it to do as we say, not vice versa. 

The Four Stages of Spiritual Awakening

The first signs of an impending spiritual awakening usually include either total chaos or total numbness. 

If you or someone you know is completely overwhelmed at all times, takes no breaks or time for rest, and seems to be going a mile a minute, you can see the wakeup call coming from miles away. 

On the flip side, you might see someone who can never be alone, can never sit with their thoughts, must always have music or a podcast on, the television on, spends hours on social media or the internet, and usually either eats, drinks, does drugs, or exercises to excess. 

Either of these situations usually precede the first wake-up call. 

The Wake-Up Call

The wake-up call is the first stage of a spiritual awakening. 

Caroline Myss talks about this stage in her book The Anatomy of Spirit. 

It could be an illness, a divorce, the loss of a job, the loss of everything you know and are familiar with in life. 

It will be something cataclysmic. 

A tower moment in tarot. 

It feels like it’s all falling apart, and you may feel you are at rock bottom. 

This is the moment that, if you are going to enter spiritual awakening, it will happen. 

You have nothing left to lose. 

Drugs and alcohol, or any other external medium or medicine, no longer seem to help, and your only choice is to look inward. 

There’s this great moment in the book The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho where the narrator says that the Universe is always calling you, your destiny is always calling you, your soul purpose is always calling you. 

And there will be some times in life where the call is a loud bang bang bang on your door. 

And other times it will be soft whisper. 

Typically, the banging comes when you have ignored the whisper for too long. 

I don’t know if it is possible to have a spiritual awakening without a wake-up call. 

We humans are wound so tightly and conditioned to be so numb and caught up in the material, that I have never heard of a single person who has come to their spiritual awakening through a peaceful transition. 

I have only ever heard the hundreds of stories of everything falling apart first. 

And look, still some people will not wake up, no matter how loud the call. 

Indeed, most do not. 

They simply live in misery, seeking what comfort they can from the material world until they die. 

Or they rally, they suck it up, they strive to climb out of the pit of darkness, and they go back to the mediocre, material life they lived before, until the next wake-up call comes along. 

The choice, as they say, is yours. 

The Tip Toe

For those who do heed the call, the first steps are usually tip-toes. 

You might get therapy. 

Maybe you go to church. 

You might get a life coach. 

Maybe you go to an AA meeting. 

For me, it started with personal development books rooted in spirituality. 

I read Gabrielle Bernstein and Rebecca Campbell. 

I listened to Jordan Peterson podcasts and Tony Robbins’ books. 

I watched Wayne Dyer documentaries and movies based on true stories of overcoming and finding greatness after despair. 

And it opened me up, a little bit. 

Little by little, I released anger and frustration, I began to witness myself, to honor the larger part of myself, and to forgive myself for all of my trespasses, as I forgave others for theirs. 

This first tip-toe experience is all about recognizing that you are not alone. 

And that you are so much more, so much greater, than you think you are. And it helps so much!

The Lapse

But then, things start to feel normal again. 

You feel good again. 

Your life starts to fall into place again. 

And you forget your practice. 

This third stage of spiritual awakening is essential to everyone who deep dives. 

You will lapse into mediocrity again. 

You will allow yourself to fall back into old bad habits and practices. 

It is normal. 

Totally normal. 

Then something comes along and shakes you up again, wakes you up again. 

And this time it does not have to be total destruction. 

This time, the tower in your tarot can simply be an opportunity to pay closer attention to your intuition. 

Your wake-up call can be your own inner voice speaking, and you listening. 

The Surrender

Until you finally surrender. 

And then, you spend the rest of your life in surrender, again and again. 

You will forget, but surrender will come upon you again. 

This is the fourth and final stage of a spiritual awakening, and the one you will spend the rest of your life practicing. 

Once you learn to surrender to the will of the divine, of your higher consciousness, you are in a state of ongoing awakening, and you can be a model for others. 

Happy manifesting!