What Exactly is Spiritual Awakening?

Spiritual Awakening is a term that seems to be everywhere at the moment. Hop on TikTok and there are 1000s of videos about it, but what actually is Spiritual Awakening??

We thought we’d drop in and add our voices to the collective mix. Spiritual Awakening isn’t really a new term–it’s been around forever–but it’s definitely gained popularity in the last few years. When we were starting our development journey, “spiritual awakening” didn’t really pop up as something to know about, whereas today it seems like it’s become synonymous with everything from intuitive development to mediumship. So let’s dive in and talk a little bit about it.

And after watching some TikTok and Youtube videos, we’re not sure the collective as a whole really gets what it is either. And we’re going to be honest with you, the term Spiritual Awakening triggers us a bit. We think this is because it’s such a loaded term and could mean so many things. (Seriously, we have had entire business meetings on it!)

Here are a few ideas of what we think it could mean:

• When you remember that there’s more than just yourself. This is where you start to really understand and take in the concept that we are all one. Perhaps that’s what an awakening is–a realization that what you do and don’t do ripples across the collective.
• When you realize that you’re a soul having a human experience. Ok, admittedly this one is broad, but we translate that as understanding that you existed before now and you will exist again (and that you never ceased to exist in the first place)–and that all those journeys build on each other. It could also mean that there’s more to life than what we see with our physical eyes. 

There are so many more definitions out there than the two we listed, but we can tell you that a spiritual awakening is different from intuitive development. We noticed that some folks were using those terms interchangeably. Neither of us feel like you have to be “spiritually awakened” to develop your intuition or vice versa. And as for all the physical symptoms that are listed with it? Sure, we guess that could happen, but for us, it feels more like a growing awareness, a transformation, a connectedness, rather than a specific physical symptom.

We also noticed a weaponization of the term or a toxic expression of it existed in some of the videos. What do we mean by this?

• The pedestal difference. I’m “spiritually awakened” and I deem that you’re not, so I’m up here and you’re down there. This is BS. We’re not even going to go into that one. But, spoiler alert, if someone is doing that–they’re not “spiritually awakened”. That’s ego on a power trip.
• If your awakening hasn’t been profound, horrible, dark and traumatic it isn’t really an awakening. Once again we call BS. Neither of us has had horrible, dark traumatic things trigger us into awakening and yet, I suppose we must have had some kind of ah-ha moment because, well, here we are.
• You can’t have a spiritual awakening without a dark night of the soul. Ok, so here’s the deal with this one. We think spiritual awakening does happen for some people in the dark night of the soul moments. However, we don’t think it’s a required thing. We will say this–we have learned a lot about who we are and what we believe after some of the most challenging life experiences, but we wouldn’t term this as an awakening for us per se though we imagine it could happen.
• You need to be spiritually awakened to develop intuition. Nope. No you don’t. They aren’t a matching gift set.
• After spiritually awakening, nothing can get you down and you feel good all the time even in the most difficult situations. Hahahahahahahahahahaha! No. You’re still going to feel like crap if something crappy happens to you, but you may be able to tap into the bigger picture more easily, if you’ve spent time reflecting on who you are and what life means to you.
• Spiritual Awakening means detachment from the physical world and all that it entails. No because even if you “spiritually awaken” you are still human. Which means you still have to operate in the human world and deal with everything that comes with it.

Listen, spiritual awakening is going to look different for everyone. It will be based on your culture and your own personal beliefs. It’s not a finite, one time only event. It’s something that continues to unfold over time. We actually prefer the term Spiritual Evolution. This fits better for us personally because like we said above, it’s something that continues to unfold throughout your whole life. You’re constantly learning and understanding things in a different way. It’s that process–that evolution–that defines us and how we move through the world. So if Spiritual Awakening triggers you a bit too, then maybe play with the idea of Spiritual Evolution.

“The moment the voices showed up–the moment I knew you could have voices show up–maybe that’s when it happened? I think it’s a blanket term for a bunch of stuff and whatever that process is, it can’t be labeled.” –Andrea

“For me, I think it’s something that’s been happening my whole life and I was just following my curiosity.” –Jessica