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Spiritual Awakening Anxiety: Why It Happens & How To Overcome It

November 7, 2023

Spiritual awakening is often thought of as a glorious and mystical event full of bliss and happiness. And yes, that can be true. But the truth is that a spiritual awakening can leave you feeling anxious beyond belief. The path to awakening is NOT as easy and glorious as you might initially think. Yes, the process will eventually lead you to a better version of yourself and a better understanding of reality. But it will also be reality shattering. And let me tell you, reality shattering experiences can be mistaken for reality ending experiences. I’ve spent several sleepless nights dealing with the mind, body, and reality altering effects of spiritual awakenings. If you’re experiencing heightened anxiety from a spiritual awakening know that you’re not alone in this experience. With time you will come back to a normal state of mind. Understanding Spiritual Awakening Anxiety: Normal or Not? Let’s first determine if this is normal anxiety or spiritual awakening anxiety. Anxiety isn’t a single factor phenomena, meaning lots of things can trigger it. Not just spiritual awakening. Anxiety is characterized by: Having just these symptoms alone doesn’t mean you’re going through spiritual awakening anxiety. If you’re already prone to anxiety your spiritual awakening may just be exacerbating already present symptoms. However if you recently had a spiritual awakening and these symptoms are directly stemming from that experience, you’re most likely going through spiritual awakening anxiety. Identifying the Two Types of Awakenings To know how to work through your spiritual awakening anxiety you must know about the two main types of awakening: 1. Consciousness breakthroughs – spiritual awakenings that occur from heightened states of consciousness forcing you to see reality from a completely new paradigm. 2. Energetic awakenings – activation of powerful spiritual energy in our body such as kundalini awakenings and chakra opening. Both of these types of awakenings can cause anxiety. The first type of awakening (consciousness breakthroughs) will most likely cause general feelings of anxiety, fear, and uncertainty over your life and reality. While the second type of awakening (energetic awakenings) can be mistaken for full blown panic attacks. The symptoms of a kundalini awakening and a panic attack are nearly identical: If you believe you’re going through an energetic or kundalini awakening see my guide to handling an unexpected kundalini awakening. Why Spiritual Awakenings May Cause Anxiety ‎ 1. Surges Of Divine Energy Certain types of awakenings can create a lot of divine energy in your body. Energetic awakenings can be incredibly unsettling if you’re not expecting one. The sudden surge of Shakti energy through your body can be an unwelcome surprise to many. Some negative symptoms from this type of awakening include: Learn more about Kundalini Syndrome here. 2. Your Ego Is Dying One of the most terrifying experiences of spiritual awakening is ego death. Ego death is a very common experience during psychedelic use, but can happen for any number of reasons. Your literal sense of self is under threat of death. As you wake up, your ego starts to dissolve. But it won’t go down without a fight. This ego resistance causes fear and anxiety because it does not want to die. It’s important to realize this fear is all an illusion. Once the ego is finished off once and for all there lays only peace, love, and unity. 3. Awakening Can Be Shocking Some spiritual realizations can turn your world upside down. Everything you once thought to be true is now turned on its head. Insights realized from spiritual awakening can be reality-breaking. You may be forced to come face to face with a new reality that you weren’t expecting or even thought possible. These intense perspective shifts can cause a lot of personal and mental distress. 4. Heightened Sensory Perception Spiritual awakenings can put you into a state of high sensitivity. You may be vibrating at such a high level of divine energy that your consciousness is extremely sharp. Sights, sounds, and feelings can become overwhelming as you’re able to tune into every little detail with your heightened awareness. This can easily overload your brain and cause anxiety. 5. Healing Past Trauma Sometimes profound spiritual experiences will bring up past traumas that need to be healed. This is especially the case during difficult psychedelic trips. Though they may be extremely distressing, it is for your greater healing. To transcend into your highest self you need to dissolve many things holding you back. One of these things may be traumas. When traumas arise to be worked with and healed you may feel a lot of anxiety and resistance. See also “Struggling With Spiritual Awakening? Why It Can Be Lonely And Hard” Understanding Psychological Distress and Spiritual Awakening The #1 cause of spiritual awakenings happen to be psychological distress. Spiritual awakenings don’t just happen when we’re happy and cozy in life. They often hit us during our lowest points like a life preserver thrown to a drowning sailor. Spiritual awakening is the mind’s last resort in many cases. Life can get so painful that a break from reality is actually necessary. According to a research survey by Steve Taylor, psychological turmoil causes spiritual awakening more than anything else. More than prayer, meditation, and even psychedelics. Anxiety, distress, and psychological turmoil are often intertwined with spiritual awakening experiences. Spiritual awakenings and their reality-altering effects may offer some relief to those suffering from mental distress. But if your spiritual awakening experience is causing you extra anxiety there are a few things you can do to help. Coping Strategies For Awakening Anxiety ‎ The anxiety you encounter during your spiritual ascension is all part of the process. It will not harm you, it’s just really really uncomfortable. It’s important to realize that you’re not actually in any danger. You may feel like something dangerous is happening inside your mind or body, but I promise you will be okay. Let’s talk about how you can best deal with this awakening anxiety. 1. Surrender The first piece of advice

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Struggling With Spiritual Awakening? Why It Can Be Lonely & Hard

August 9, 2023

Have you ever felt like as you pursued your spiritual journey no one else understood what you were going through? That was my experience when I went through a spiritual awakening a while back. While my spiritual awakening was a beautiful and transformative process, it was also a time of loneliness and struggle. In this article, I want to share my personal experience of why spiritual awakening can be lonely and hard, and how I navigated it. Spiritual awakening can be difficult and lonely because it is such a personal and unique experience. You may want to share your profound experiences and insights with others, but the truth is most people may never truly understand. Painful symptoms of spiritual awakening When you think about awakening spiritually, you may think of something positive and beautiful. This is not always the case in the beginning. Sometimes a spiritual awakening can manifest in negative ways when we resist it or don’t know how to handle it. > check out my full list of symptoms here “20 Signs of Spiritual Awakening” 1. Heightened emotions A spiritual awakening can leave you with an open heart and increased sensitivity. As spiritual energy flows through you it can open up a lot emotions. Sometimes this can look like intense crying for seemingly no reason. To others this may turn into anxiety. The important thing to remember if this happens to you is that you surrender. Let the emotions flow and run their course. It is all part of the process. See also “Anxious After Spiritual Awakening? Here’s Why” 2. Losing relationships As you begin to wake up, you may find that some friends and family aren’t good for your life. This may cause you to distance yourself from those negative relationships. However this can create a sense of loss and grief. It’s important to find people you can talk to about your spiritual journey. Foster new and beneficial relationships that nurture your spirit and grow you as a person. 3. Awareness of your shadow A spiritual awakening can bring up lots of junk in your psyche that need to be sorted out. If you have a large shadow, this can be a particularly difficult process. Spiritual awakening, though difficult, will cleanse and heal these parts of you. This process will bring up internal issues and parts of yourself you dislike. This is happening so you can become aware of it and heal it. But when it comes up, it can be particularly painful. Why spiritual awakening can be so lonely and difficult There are few struggles inner struggles that can occur when you have a spiritual awakening. A profound spiritual insight could change your perspective so much that it feels like you’re in totally new territory with a ton of new struggles despite the beautiful transformation that it is. Here are some common difficulties after spiritual awakening and some personal examples. 1. Feeling disconnected from loved ones During my spiritual awakening, I felt like I was on a completely different wavelength than my friends and family. I wanted to talk about things like consciousness and the universe, but they didn’t seem interested or didn’t understand what I was saying. I felt like I was speaking a different language and no one really new what I was talking about. At best, I’d get supportive nods. This can leave you feeling isolated and disconnected. 2. Spiritual awakening leaves you questioning everything Another challenge of my spiritual awakening was the constant questioning of everything I had ever believed or known. After I came to the direct and startling realization that I am not my body, I started to question what else I had wrong about myself and reality. I started to question my job, my relationships, my habits, and even my identity. This was a deeply unsettling process, but at the same time I became excited. My curiosity switched into high gear. All of the sudden it felt like I needed more answers. 3. You don’t care about the same things after a spiritual awakening To some this might be a blessing, to others it will be a struggle. There was a lot that seemed irrelevant after my spiritual awakening. Priorities shifted after my spiritual awakening. This meant that I cared less about unimportant things, but this also posed a problem. For example, I cared less about school when my family expected me to really give that my all. This then created conflict between what I was expected to do and my new values. That’s just one example, but there are plenty of other places in life this can happen. 4. A profound spiritual awakening can leave you feeling nihilistic On your journey towards waking up and spiritual awakening, you may come to some startling realizations. One very common realization you may have is that nothing really matters. This may lead to a spiritual depression or confusion for why anything exists at all. The good news is that there is light at the end of that belief. You can either choose to see that truth with a negative light or a positive light. If you think nothing matters and that’s bad, then you’ll fall into a depression and believe there’s no reason to go on doing anything. But imagine… nothing matters, and you can do ANYTHING. That’s very much a good thing in my opinion. It’s all a matter of perspective, but the struggle to get there is definitely real. > see my article “20 Signs Of Spiritual Awakening & How To Know You’re Waking Up” How do you navigate the struggle of a spiritual journey? The biggest thing that transformed my loneliness during my journey was having an insight into the difference between loneliness and aloneness. Loneliness is a feeling of emptiness and lack of connection. It was what I felt for a while as I longed to share my spiritual experiences with those close to me. Aloneness on the other hand is simply being alone. The key

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How to Use The Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT Tapping)

August 30, 2022

What is EFT? EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Technique. The Emotional Freedom Technique is a therapeutic method developed by Gary Craig that releases emotional energy and trauma by tapping specific acupressure points around the body. The tapping is often accompanied with a repeated mantra. EFT has roots in the ancient Chinese practice of “chi” and other “energy psychologies” often regarded as pseudoscience. However, EFT has been proven effective with hard empirical evidence from several well known studies. What is EFT tapping used for? EFT can be used for any emotional issue in your life. If there is an emotional charge behind it, EFT can be used. Some of the things EFT tapping can help resolve are: Some scientific studies found EFT to be particularly useful for relieving anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Although some practitioners claim it can even relieve physical pain. How to use the Emotional Freedom Technique This 5 step process is directly modeled after Gary Craig’s 5 steps for EFT Step 1) Identify the issue you want to work through In this step the individual should choose an issue or difficult emotion they’d like to work on. The issue should be specific and solitary. Don’t try to work on several issues at the same time. An example of an emotionally charged issue could be feeling anxious about an upcoming event such as a graduation or family gathering. Step 2) Test the intensity of the issue Start this step by asking the participant how intense the issue is in their mind on a scale of 0-10. 0 being no issue at all, 10 being the most intense it could possibly be. A memory or thought of the issue should be held vividly in the mind when rating the intensity. This number will serve as bench mark for later. The goal of EFT is to have the issue get as close to 0 as possible. We will continue to ask where the individual is on the 0-10 scale after every round of EFT. Step 3) Setting up the process Before you start going through a full round of EFT you have a little prep work to do. We must create a two part mantra/ phrase that will be used during the tapping: This looks a little something like this: “Even though I have (blank issue), I deeply and completely love and accept myself”. Using the example from step 1, this would look like: “Even though I have anxiety about my graduation, I deeply and completely love and accept myself”. Step 4) The tapping sequence The tapping sequence is the order of pressure points that you will tap on 5-7 times as you repeat the mantra created in the step 3. The tapping sequence is as follows: Before your start tapping repeat your mantra. Then as you tap each point, say out loud the issue. For example say “anxiety” or “anxiety about graduation” as you tap each of the 9 pressure points. Step 5) Test the intensity again After a full round of tapping, assign a number to the level of intensity around the issue from 0-10. This should show you if any and how much progress is being made with relieving the issue. Repeat the steps until the number reaches 0 or until it plateaus at the same number several times. If this happens it’s best to revisit the issue again later. Does EFT really work? Yes. Although many scientists have their skepticism over EFT, as any good scientist should, there have been many studies reporting statistically significant positive results from the Emotional Freedom Technique. One study found EFT helped reduce anxiety by 40%, depression by 35%, and cravings by 74%. Another scientific study showed that clinical usage of EFT was “highly effective in reducing depressive symptoms in a variety of populations and settings”. The results speak for themselves when it comes to the efficacy of EFT. EFT in PEAT The EFT tapping is sometimes merged with other therapeutic practices. One of these methods that sometimes uses EFT is PEAT. PEAT is a therapeutic technique that can heal and alleviate emotional conflicts (inner or outer). Both EFT and PEAT focus on relieving emotional charges around personal issues. The tapping of EFT can easily be used to heighten other talk therapies or psychological relief methods. Conclusion The Emotional Freedom Technique is a therapeutic method that releases emotional energy and trauma by tapping pressure points around the body while repeating a specialized mantra. How do you practice EFT? The Emotional Freedom Technique has been proven to be effective at relieving emotional issues by several academic and scientific studies.

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Deep PEAT: What is Primordial Energy Activation & Transcendence?

August 25, 2022

What is deep PEAT? PEAT stands for Primordial Energy Activation & Transcendence. Deep PEAT is a therapeutic technique that can alleviate emotional conflicts and raise an individual’s conscious awareness, pioneered by Serbian psychologist and spiritual leader Živorad Mihajlović Slavinski. Before you get completely scared away by the mystical sounding name of PEAT let me assure you it is deeply grounded in reality. PEAT is just a fancy name for practicing non-duality. PEAT also goes by the names: “end of words”, “end of thought”, &”Satori Protocol”. The deep PEAT technique can help you process and overcome any situation or conflict that has emotional charge. It is especially useful for healing and accepting traumas. The Non-dual Nature of PEAT PEAT is founded upon a centuries old idea with roots in Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity. Despite its religious roots, PEAT really has nothing to do with religion and can be practiced by any individual of any culture or religious background. Deep PEAT is based on the philosophy of non-duality. Non-duality is the philosophy that everything in reality is one. The only separations and conflicts that we encounter are made up by the human mind. In a state of no-mind there are no separations, there is just the universe as a whole. PEAT takes into account this truth of non-duality and seeks to dissolve the conflict that is encountered by the individual. We as humans separate reality into polarities which inherently cause conflicts: These are examples of some basic polarities that cause a whole host of conflicts in most human beings lives. PEAT is amazing because it allows the individual using it to start to merge these polarities one by one. The PEAT process shows you the illusion of these polarities. With this new perspective and understanding, the conflict caused by the polarity starts to dissolve. Individuals who practice the deep PEAT technique start to release strong emotional charges in their life, leading to a greater sense of peace and well being. PEAT practice leads to a greater feeling of unity within the world and one’s life. Check out lifewithoutacentre.com’s deep dive into non-duality to learn more about non-duality if you’re a bit confused on the topic. How Does PEAT Work? Step 1 (Defining The Issue) Traditional PEAT is done with a PEAT processor. A processor is someone who has been trained in guiding others through PEAT. The PEAT processor starts the session by identifying the issue that the client wants to work on. For example the client might say they want to work on their self-consciousness. Step 2 (Identifying The Polarities) The next step in the PEAT process is identifying the opposite polarities of the problem. Every emotional conflict has 2 conflicting sides. You see, In order for there to be any conflict at all there must 2 sides fighting each other. We do this with ourselves in our own mind. For the issue of self-consciousness, the 2 sides could simply be: The key here is that they are opposite polarities. Step 3 (Taking Mental Snapshots) Using these 2 polarities, the client must take a mental snapshot of a moment in time where they felt each polarity. Ideally, the snapshot should be detailed and be highly emotionally charged. An example of the “being self-conscious” snapshot might be a memory of when the client felt especially self-conscious when they were bullied in high school. An example of “freedom from self-consciousness” could be a memory when they felt especially confident on a date a few weeks ago. The memory should be a specific moment in time. It’s important to set these snapshots up in as much detail as possible as we will be revisiting them quite a lot in the next steps. Step 4 (Feeling Both Polarities) Step 4 is the longest and most involved part of PEAT. The processor will guide the client back and forth between the polarities and snapshots associated with them. The PEAT processor will ask the client things like “what comes up in the self-conscious snapshot?” and “what does freedom from self-consciousness feel like in that moment?” The client will continually go back and forth between these polarities continually saying what comes up and what they see, think, and feel about each scenario. This may last a few minutes for basic issues or could go on hours for particularly deep problems. Step 5 (Things Start Changing) At some point the polarities or snapshots start to change in the mind. The snapshots might feel somehow different than they did before. This may be confusing or surprising for PEAT first timers Common things that happen during this step are: Step 6 (Merging Polarities) The end result of a PEAT processing session is the complete unification of the original polarities. Think of a Venn diagram. PEAT’s goal is to have both circles of the diagram to cross over each other more and more until they become one circle in the mind. This leads to a greater holistic understanding of the original issue at hand. The emotional charge behind both polarities (good and bad charges) are gone. PEAT leaves you in a pleasantly peaceful & neutral state. People that successfully merge their polarities around an issue are able to better deal with the issue in the future and from a more neutral and less (or not all) emotionally charged place. The original polarities are an illusion that the human mind creates. PEAT helps the human mind see the issue at hand completely. Here is a great example of a PEAT processing by certified PEAT processor Ivana: Variations of PEAT Self-processing PEAT does not have to be a guided experience. This is something that you can learn to do on your own (although it may be more difficult to learn on your own at first). Many choose this option for the sake of saving money and as a self exploration journey. At the end of the day, you know yourself best. Meridian points Some versions of PEAT involve using something called meridian points around

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