How to Embrace Your Spiritual Awakening Journey When Everything Feels Like It’s Falling Apart

The quiet here at my desk feels differently once the house finally settles for the night. It’s that stillness where you can’t hide from your own thoughts anymore. Funny how that works, right? When the world goes silent, the internal chatter just turns up the volume.

Now, sitting here in these quiet moments, I think back to the years I resented my past and the girl I used to be. I was so embarrassed by the version of me that hyperventilated during school orals, or fumbled her way through auditions—the one who couldn’t “make it” in acting. I felt like a fraud walking around with a secret weight in my chest, watching everyone else glide through life confidently. I just wanted to erase that insecure, scared part of me.

I spent years trying to forget her, pretending like she never existed. I treated that girl like she was an embarrassment, a liability to the successful, award-winning copywriter I was trying so hard to become. I thought if I just worked hard enough, if I read enough books, if I meditated until my legs went numb, I could force her to disappear. I wanted to replace her with a version of me that was fearless, confident, and perfectly aligned. 

But here is the thing I had to learn the hard way: you cannot become your highest self while you don’t love yourself fully; and you can’t love yourself fully if you are still at war with the things that molded you.

If you are currently in the middle of your own dark night of the soul, not knowing how to embrace your spiritual awakening, you know exactly what I mean. It feels like your life is being dismantled piece by piece. Everything you thought you were, everything you were taught to value—your religion, your career, your identity—it all starts to feel like a costume that no longer fits.

During my own spiritual collapse, I felt like I was losing my mind. I was a farm girl who had been taught to follow a very specific map. When that map stopped working, I didn't know how to navigate. I spent countless nights scouring the internet for anyone who could tell me why I felt so hollow. 

That’s when I stumbled upon Alex Ferrari and the Next Level Soul podcast. Hearing other people share their near-death experiences and their profound awakenings made me feel like I wasn't just falling apart; I was being put back together differently. It was the first time I realized that my pain had a purpose, even if it felt like a cruel one at the time.

We often think that healing is about fixing the broken parts, but I’ve realized it’s actually about holding space for those parts with compassion, about integrating the lessons learnt, the wisdom. 

Those insecurities and shyness wasn't me failing. That was my brain doing its job. It was my nervous system trying to keep me safe in a world that felt overwhelming. When you grow up in certain environments, or when you face rejection over and over, you build walls. You learn to make yourself small so you don't get hurt. When you start your awakening, you start to see those walls, and your first instinct is to smash them down because you want to be free.

But you can't just destroy your defenses without understanding why you built them in the first place. This is where I found so much grace in the teachings of Dr. Joe Dispenza. He talks about how we are essentially living in the past, replaying the same emotional loops over and over. I was living in the loop of "I’m not good enough to be seen" because that’s what I told myself after every failed audition. I was addicted to the feeling of inadequacy because it was familiar. To change my reality, I had to change how I felt about that past version of me.

I started practicing Ho'oponopono, that beautiful, ancient Hawaiian practice. It’s so simple—I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you. At first, I felt ridiculous saying those words to my own reflection. But then I started saying them to the girl who used to dread school orals weeks in advance, who used to cry in her dorm room after an audition. I love you. I’m sorry I treated you like a burden. Please forgive me for trying to erase you. Thank you for trying to keep me safe.

It helped my healing. When you stop fighting and resisting the messy parts of your story, they lose their power to haunt you. They just become chapters. You start to see that the very things that kept you small were the things that were forging your capacity for empathy, for depth, and for eventually alchemizing that pain into power; something that can serve others.

Neale Donald Walsch writes in Conversations with God about how our soul is here to experience itself, not to be perfect. We are not meant to be polished marble statues. We are meant to be living, breathing, evolving human beings who know the dark so that we can appreciate the light. If you are struggling right now, if you feel like you are losing your religion or your grip on who you thought you were, just know that you aren't losing yourself. You are stripping away the illusions.

It’s scary as hell. I know. Awakening is messy and it’s uncomfortable, and some days you will want to go back to who you were before you woke up. I designed my The Awakening is Messy doodle shirt because I wanted to wear that truth on my chest. It’s a reminder that there is beauty in the middle of the chaos.

When you start to offer yourself that radical, unconditional forgiveness and love, everything shifts. You stop needing the world to validate you, because you’ve finally accepted yourself. You stop needing to prove yourself or apologise for who you are or what you’ve been through.

You aren't fixed because you weren't broken. You were just remembering who you’ve always been underneath all the layers of conditioning and hurt—then, you are becoming who you have always been. 

I’ve had to learn to treat my past with the same tenderness I’d offer a child. If you are still feeling that pull to hide, or if you still feel shame about the parts of your life that didn't go as planned, put on my Grace for the girl I used to be shirt. Let it be your armor. It’s a reminder that you don't have to be perfect to be worthy of your own love. And you don’t have to resent your past.

There is a whole collection of spiritual shirts I’ve created that reflects this journey—from the Protea healing collection which represents survival and courage, including the From Ashes We Bloom and the Fire Made Me Bloom designs. Each one is a piece of my own healing process.  When I designed them, I thought about how we often walk through fire, yet still stand—but not only that, we are forged into something much more beautiful.

You’re doing the inner work, even on the days you feel like you’re failing. You’re doing it when you choose to look at your past with compassion instead of judgment. You’re doing it when you finally decide to pull up a chair for your shadow and tell it, "I see you. You were just trying to survive."

If you’re looking for a community that gets it, or if you just want to read the rest of my story and how I found my way out of the darkness, check out my article, The Farm Girl Who Lost Her Religion. 

We are in this together. And trust me—the other side is worth every bit of the struggle.