It's impossible to get it wrong.
The path of awakening is more a process of removal than anything. Removing all the ways in which we forget our true Self. The thoughts, beliefs, programs, resistance, and attachments that block us from living from that place within that is clarity, love, truth, wisdom, peace, freedom, creativity.
I’ve struggled with the belief that this path would be amazing and lovely and uplifting and enlightening all the time. And I’m not saying anything groundbreaking when I share that this isn’t how it goes. If anything happened in my life that didn’t meet those descriptions, I thought I was doing something wrong.
On some level, we’ve likely all experienced moments of expansion, lightness, clarity, joy, peace, and freedom in our lives. And at some point, the feeling slips from us. It feels like we’ve lost it. A common response is to grasp at that “high” feeling again and resist any discomfort we might feel. Thinking that we must be doing something wrong. But the opportunity for us in those moments is to allow the present discomfort to be. To give it space, to invite it into our home. To simply allow it to exist without stiff-arming it away. To listen intently to what it is trying to show us.
A hard lesson I’ve had to learn repeatedly is that this path isn’t about maintaining a high, elevated state. Not grasping the highs or pushing away the lows. It’s about not standing anywhere. Just viewing it all as another experience. And not adding our layers of judgment, shame, or guilt on top of it.
I went to Costa Rica earlier this year for two months. My intention was to treat it like a meditation retreat. Meditate a couple of times a day, get away from screens, spend time in nature, leave my phone in the room, go for walks while emptying my mind, and keep turning inward. But when I got there, I immediately felt an immense amount of fear coursing through my system. As I’d walk to the beach, I’d jump at the sound of a small lizard rustling in the leaves on the ground next to me. I’d dart my eyes away from anyone who walked by and felt tons of judgment toward everyone I saw. I felt an electric, sandpaper-like feeling throughout my body.
At first, I was shocked this was happening and thought something was wrong. How am I feeling so much fear in such a calming, serene environment? Where is this all coming from?
Then it hit me.
This is all coming up at the perfect time for me to work with. What better place for such deep, unconscious fear to surface than in a safe and peaceful setting? It was clear that Costa Rica wasn’t creating the fear but was instead providing an environment that felt safe enough for this unconscious fear to surface. So I turned toward it. Upon doing so, I sensed that I had to simplify everything I had planned to do while I was there and simply focus on my breath. I slowed down and brought my awareness to my lower belly over and over and over for two months. I allowed the fear to exist and gave it space to ultimately be felt and welcomed. And after a few weeks, it all but went away. I could look people in the eye again, and I stopped jumping at the sound of rustling leaves.
Nothing was ever “wrong” with me. What was coming up was there for my benefit. I had to stop pushing it away and stop believing that any uncomfortable sensation means I’m failing in some way.
See, that’s the trap for us. Because there is nothing wrong. On a deeper level, I’ve come to realize that there is no such thing as “doing it wrong.” There is simply what is happening. This is the next part of our path, and everything life presents us with is the very thing we need in that moment to expand our consciousness. To awaken to our true nature. This realization has been liberating.
When the experience of growth and expansion fades, it’s important to know that we have not backtracked. And that our growth was not a fluke. What may have left us is the feeling of expansion, but the growth we experienced remains. As we shed things that no longer serve us, we become increasingly attuned to the deeper blocks within that are keeping us stuck. The programs and patterns that we have been unconscious of.
Awakening will always seek out the un-awake areas within us. So once it clears an un-awake section and we feel the rewards of it, it turns itself toward the parts within us that are still asleep. The ones that are still not free. The ones keeping us in suffering, resistance, and fear.
And as this refinement continues, we begin to realize there are consequences of our own awakening. We begin to get pulled toward the natural law of things: truth, love, freedom, joy, creativity, authenticity. Toward the fullest expression of our being. And when we act or think in ways that are incongruent with that, suffering returns. And it often returns with more intensity than before. What an amazing built-in homing device. As if awakening itself is doing what it can to let us know that we are not acting in alignment with our true Self.
The consequences aren’t what you might think. “Wrong” is a mental judgment based on how we think the experience should be. Misalignment is a felt sense of incongruence between our actions and what we know to be true in our hearts. And misalignment doesn’t judge us either. It nudges us in the direction that feels true to the deeper part within us. Becoming conscious of misalignment is a signal that awakening is working. Not that we’ve failed or that we’re wrong.
Consequences like these: We feel more pain when we don’t speak truth. We notice an inner disturbance when we aren’t kind, loving, compassionate, or present. When we distract ourselves or when we numb and suppress what we feel. When we ignore our inner knowing. We feel more pain when we don’t honor the truth of our experience in any given moment. When we act from a place of fear and scarcity.
The term that comes to mind for me here is grace. I think about it in two ways: soft grace and fierce grace.
Soft grace: bliss, joy, love, oneness, compassion. Things just falling into place. Synchronicities. Sometimes preferences reorganize naturally—more silence, less stimulation, different relationships, simpler food, more presence.
Fierce grace: misalignment, fear, grief, numbing, withholding truth, and old conditioning become harder to ignore. The type of challenge that we typically only become grateful for after we’ve made it through the muck and have enough perspective to understand why it happened. And to feel—to know—that it was all for a reason. That it was all perfect in its own way. That it all played a role in our growth.
The former draws us toward alignment, while the latter makes misalignment increasingly difficult to tolerate.
Over the years, I’ve noticed shifts in my interests, too. Turning the volume down, driving in silence, preferring sunlight over artificial light, putting screens away, selling the TV, getting off social media.
Many of these just happened on their own. Like I wasn’t the one controlling or deciding. They just felt right. Like it was in the natural way of things.
It’s one of the most beautiful parts of this whole journey. This internal homing device guides us toward living in alignment with the nature of things. Toward God, Source, Spirit, All-that-is. Or whatever term you want to use for the ineffable.
And the Life intelligence that runs through everything knows that we are ready for the next lesson. Even if our minds think we aren’t.
This awakening is patient and ever-present, nonjudgmental, noncritical, guiding us with grace to realize our true Self.
When discomfort resurfaces after a period of expansion, it doesn’t mean that we have regressed. It likely means something else is now ready to become visible enough to work with. To awaken that which is asleep. Which is beautiful in itself because it is a sign that we are expanding.
We never lose the path we’re on. Because all that we experience is the path.
Tim
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