The Many Paths of Awakening

Jun 11, 2025

“What’s your awakening story?”

It’s a common question in spiritual spaces — the assumption being that if you’re “awake,” something big must have happened. A veil-ripping moment. A dark night of the soul. A kundalini rising. A mystical near-death experience. Something cinematic and impossible to ignore. Something… dramatic, inspiring, titillating.

But what if your journey doesn’t look like that? Mine didn’t. And I’ll call BS on any suggestion that makes the quieter path feel less valid.

Here’s the truth: Not everyone wakes up through trauma or transcendence. Some people awaken slowly — through paradox, through pattern recognition, through frustration. Some awaken through heartbreak. Or boredom. Or the quiet ache of “this can’t be all there is.”

Plato called it Anamnesis — the soul’s remembering. Not ego-learning. Not spiritual achievement. Just the quiet resurfacing of what was always there.

That idea speaks to me very deeply.

For me, awakening has felt less like a revelation and more like a slow coming online — like tuning into frequencies I couldn’t fully hold before. Like memories that waited until I was stable enough to let them re-arrange me.

My Journey: A Spiral of Remembering

I hear stories of people who saw spirits, read auras, or felt the presence of guides from an early age. Others walked through fire — abuse, illness, devastating loss — experiences that cracked them open and launched their awakening.

That wasn’t my story.

My childhood was… normal. No trauma. No spiritual fireworks. Just a slightly off-beat kid with a sense that she was tuned to a frequency no one else seemed to hear.

That said, there were some signs. For example, I remember thinking the world didn’t really exist unless I was looking at it — like a video game rendering in real time. I would dash around corners, trying to catch what I called “The Builders” in the act of constructing reality. My mom found it amusing. A teacher eventually told me I was wrong — “The world is always there, even when you aren’t looking.” I remember being so sad and disappointed by this, as if the magic of existence were being siphoned out of the world. Decades later, when the Nobel Prize was awarded for proving local realism false, I just laughed, and the like that, the magic was back.

That’s the kind of awakening I know best. Not the thunderclap. The click. A subtle shift in awareness where something ancient inside of you goes, “Yes. This. I’ve always known this.”

But even in those moments of clarity, I often felt out of place. I didn’t fully realize just how different my perspective and thinking was until I opened my mouth. Until words fell out — things I hadn’t studied or consciously thought — and then people looked at me like I had three heads.

One memory sticks out: sitting at a middle school lunch table, listening to kids mock the idea of past lives. “If I’ve lived before,” someone scoffed, “why can’t I remember it?” Without thinking, I interrupted: “Would you really want to remember all the ways you’ve died? Hung, burned, tortured, stabbed, sick, dismembered…?”

Silence.

In that moment, I realized I was living from a different map. And I didn’t even know how I’d drawn it. That difference — that strange, inward knowing which guided me so completely yet unrecognized — didn’t feel enlightening. It felt isolating.

By the time I reached high school, I had almost no real friends. I couldn’t connect with my peers — not because I didn’t want to, but because I couldn’t find anyone who lived in the same reality. Where they were emotionally, mentally, spiritually was just not where I was. I couldn’t relate to my peers, and they couldn’t relate to me. For me, it all felt… out of sync.

And yeah, that’s effing lonely. No one tells you that part about remembering early. That sometimes the price of knowing differently is belonging nowhere.

It wasn’t until college that I finally found others who could walk beside me. Kindred minds. People willing to push into the metaphysical not just with curiosity, but with commitment. We experimented with practices that cracked the veil wide open — though I’ll save all those stories for another time. (If you’re curious, check out the episode Secrets and Mysteries — I do share two of my most transformative direct experiences there.)

What I’ve learned over time is that my journey hasn’t been a single awakening — it’s been a spiral of anamnesis. Truths returning in fragments. Symbols repeating. A sense of “Ohhh… this again. But now I see it differently.”

Sometimes I hear spiritual leaders today saying things I remember speaking aloud in the early ’90s. And yet, I don’t feel ahead of anything. Because here’s the thing: I’ve been just as much a work-in-progress as everyone.

The ideas that surfaced early have deepened. Been reworked. Broken down and rebuilt. They’ve evolved as I’ve evolved.

That’s actually one of the reasons I started this podcast. Not as a platform but as a practice. A way to explore out loud. To walk the spiral of evolution deliberately. To hold space for the ideas and memories that don’t come in linear timelines.

As I’ve said before: our issues don’t resolve — they evolve. The same is true for our understanding. We circle back to the same truths again and again — but if we’ve grown, we meet them with new eyes, new hands, new selves.

So no, I don’t have a single awakening story. I have hundreds of moments. Each one a return. Each one a petal unfurling in the spiral of what I’ve always been becoming.

Whisper or Hammer, Choose

Some awakenings come like whispers. Others arrive like a sledgehammer.

When the ego is balanced — permeable and attuned — soul truth can rise from within like morning fog lifting. The outer world may shift, but only because something deep inside has already stirred. This is the path of gentle emergence: an inward recognition that reshapes outward perception. Anamnesis. The soul’s whisper.

But when the ego has been trained to ignore the inner world — when it’s armored with identity and roles and survival strategies — the soul takes another route.

Enter the sledgehammer. Loss. Illness. Collapse. Revelation.

External interventions meant to reach the part of you that still remembers. Intended to crack the shell to let truth in. Ideally, that rupture becomes a doorway — one that allows the path of anamnesis to flourish in its wake.

Both paths are sacred. One arrives by invitation. The other by interruption.

Woke, an Awakening in Slow Motion

“Woke” began as a call to awareness — a collective pulling back of the curtain. It named systems of harm that had been long normalized or ignored. It asked people to notice what wasn’t being taught, said, or seen. At its best, it was a kind of awakening: painful, clarifying, necessary.

But over time, something constricted. The clarity hardened into performance. The invitation became a rigid framework — a checklist of what could and couldn’t be perceived. What began as a lens of compassion and justice narrowed into a script: complete with coded language, rules of conduct, and moral dress codes. In many spaces, it became more about looking right than becoming real. More about proving awareness of specific issues than expanding into holistic presence. And healing? Rarely part of the conversation.

The world, instead of opening, shrank. Everything was viewed through the same tight lenses: race, gender, identity, historical trauma. Important lenses — deeply important — but insufficient on their own. There was no joy. No soul. No off-ramp.

In most woke spaces, belief in mystery — God, spirit, the unseen — is often viewed as irrelevant at best, and dangerous at worst. There is no path for redemption. No paradox. No poetry. Just outrage. And recursion. And exile.

Woke consciousness reveals what’s broken. Awakened consciousness reveals what’s also possible. Woke often speaks in labels and binaries — right and wrong, us and them, oppressed and oppressor. Awakening moves beyond labels. Binaries soften into paradox. Nuance stops being weakness and becomes wisdom.

We had a friend who was absolutely “woke” for a long time. I want to speak from her shoes for a moment — Not to judge, but to embody. To feel what she felt. To show what it’s like from the inside. We all have this capacity — the ability to step into someone else’s position and speak from it with honesty and care. In fact, that’s what compassion is. It’s not often practiced, but it’s deeply human.

So here’s how it felt, in her voice:

Being woke felt like waking up from the dream I had believed to be real. I thought I had finally seen the truth — and no one could convince me otherwise. I saw the distortions that were pointed to. I learned the language outlined for me. I used it to challenge the powers that were pointed out for me. And it felt righteous. I believed I was helping. Changing the world for the better.

But slowly, things began to shift. I started noticing how everything had been… curated. The outrage was preloaded. The answers were rehearsed. Even the questions I was allowed to ask had already been shaped by someone else’s design. Insight became talking points. And curiosity? Became the risk of excommunication from the Good Guys.

And when I finally allowed a sliver of doubt — just a whisper of ‘but that doesn’t make sense?’ – everything cracked.

The story I’d called my awakening turned out to be someone else’s narrative. Not all of it was false. But enough to shake me. Enough to actually wake me up.

That was the true awakening moment, the transition from Woke to Awake. I blinked, and the world was different.

And if this part stirred something in you — congratulations. That’s how it begins, and triggers are a kind of awakening too. I’ve got a whole post on how triggers are invitations — go find that when you’re ready. Because that feeling? That’s the soul nudging you toward what wants to be seen.

Realms of Awakening

That moment — “I blinked, and the world was different” — that’s an awakening.

It’s the moment the dreamer stirs – whether from the sledgehammer or the whisper. It’s when something deeper begins to press through. You see something you can’t unsee. You know something you can’t unknow.

Those blinking moments come in many forms. But here’s a truth that often gets left out of the conversation: Awakening isn’t just spiritual.

You can be awake to the soul and still sleepwalk through the systems you live inside.
You can be awake to the political landscape and be numb to the spirit behind it.
You can pierce through illusion in one domain, and remain fully embedded in another.

Awakening happens in layers. Domains. Dimensions. So when someone asks, “What’s your awakening story?” — I want to ask back: “Awake to what?” And maybe more importantly: “Where are you still asleep?”

For me, the spiritual doors opened early. I was awake to archetypes, metaphysical truths, and soul memory long before I was awake to the way this world actually runs. I had to wake up — sometimes painfully — to food systems, media illusions, symptom-based medicine, and more. And I’m still waking up!

Each time, it’s the same moment: a blink — and the world is different because something in me was finally ready to see. For those who have eyes, let them see.

Every awakening brings a choice: Will you carry what you’ve seen into how you live?

Awakening as Activation

We can be hit with a sledgehammer awakening — and still choose to sleep. We can glimpse the truth… and go back to pretending we didn’t see it. Like Cipher in the movie “Matrix” wanting to be put back in so he can just go about his life blissfully ignorant of the truth. When that happens, nothing changes. The same choices are made. The same patterns continue.

But when an awakening sticks — when it pierces not just the mind but the heart — everything begins to shift. It changes your decisions. It shifts your stance. It rewrites what you’re willing to tolerate — in yourself, and in the world. That’s when an awakening moment becomes the activation point.

Awakening doesn’t mean you’ve arrived. It means you’ve stepped into the real questions. It invites inquiry. Demands discernment. Engages curiosity. It asks you to stay awake — to keep looking, to keep listening, to expand.

It’s the moment you stop drifting through what’s been handed to you — and start choosing what’s true for you. It’s the shift from passive to active. That is the when awakening becomes an Activation. From accepting to discerning. From waiting to co-creating.

It’s the moment when you remember: I am not here just to survive in the world. I’m here to participate in it, to become part of what it’s becoming.

It’s the moment the soul stands up and says: “I know who I am in Truth.”

And from that place, something bigger begins to move through you.

Yes — awakening is an invitation. However it’s delivered. And when it’s accepted — when its truths are carried into the body, into the breath, into daily choice — that’s when the real changes begin. That’s when you step up. Not just to what you know — but to who you are.

Let the real journey begin.

TL;DR

Loud or quiet, crisis or click — if your awakening leads to activation, it counts. An awakening becomes real the moment it changes your choices.

About the Image

This was taken at the historical site in Ollantaytambo, Peru. While I absolutely love taking pictures of walkways, apparently I only take pictures of a single path. I loved this sign because it’s one of those ‘duh’ signs placed at the terminus of a T junction, and you can see that behind the sign is a rock wall. Obviously the visitor can only go in those 2 directions, but nothing really differentiates the 2 choices beyond what you find most appealing. I thought the whole image was marvelously symbolic of this episode.

Audio

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Stepping Up to Your Potential: Personal Growth · Many Paths of Awakening

Video

Video is also available through the YouTube Channel. The background features my mini-food forest and the Sainfoin plant I have there. This plant has multiple roles which is why I chose it for this location. First off, it’s a nitrogen fixer. Having this surrounded by fruit trees which a no brainer. It’s also perennial and drought tolerant, always a plus. And the bees LOVE it! If necessary, it can be used as a forage crop. And lastly, it’s got several strong medicinal uses. One plant, many uses. Like many paths…