2020 and 2021 were challenging years for a lot of people because of the pandemic and the many social reactions to the Covid-19.
Through 2022 and 2023, inflation and costs of living along with more strife and war in parts of the world created additional tensions. Environmental crises are spurring more fear and anxiety.
Now artificial intelligence (AI) is disrupting the economy, demanding tons of energy and water, and changing how we relate to technology talks.
Authoritarian leaders like Donald Trump and a cadre of other elites are attacking democracy, taking money from the poor to give to the rich, and fanning the flames for violence.
Holy cow. We need a break!
I imagine some of you are reading this post for hopeful predictions for 2026 and the coming years. Well, I have 4 predictions at the end.
Additionally, I’m focusing on hope.
Where is that hope?
It’s you.
Awakening to the Power of Your Choice
With so much going on, it only makes choosing this path more urgent.
You choosing this path urgent.
Despite how this culture can make people feel small and worthless, it is important to understand that YOU MATTER.
YOUR CHOICES MATTER.
There is no time like the present moment to DO YOUR SPIRITUAL INNER WORK.
I know that there are big issues at play. But these issues grew up out of lots of tiny little actions. We can change the tide, but we have to both do it collectively and one drop at a time.
Will you join your little droplet with mine to help change this cultural flow towards peace and kindness?
Spiritual Awakening and Hope Are Now
This post and this spiritual awakening process blog are about surrendering to the Now. This is where the awakened/conscious awareness Is.
Originally, I first wrote this post in 2012. Back then there was a different kind of enthusiasm going.
It was defined by naive hope.
Spiritual Hope: Turning Darkness to Light
People were excited about the idea of peace, love, and harmony entering all of humanity in one fell swoop. People did what they usually do, which was to look for an external event to make life all better.
Yes, in 2012, many spiritual quests, techniques, and journeys were the latest sugar pill. Take two, and you’ll feel better in the morning; the unconscious ego always looks outside of itself for fulfillment.
And of course, nothing really changed.
At the end of the pandemic in 2022, people hoped differently. They hoped to return to some idea of normalcy and ultimately safety.
That didn’t happen.
Instead, inflation, more climate change disasters, faster technological changes, political strife and authoritarianism, and war.
That’s the problem with naive hope. It does nothing. It can very easily turn to despair.
Discovering Reality and Real Empowerment–Mike C.’s Testimonial
Empowered hope is different. Empowered hope requires you to see what is real and in many instances take action.
Going Within for a Timeless Event
Here’s the big truth about the awakened space: it is timeless. The awakened presence within you is always here in the moment. You can’t get to it, and you can’t lose it.
Now this may sound counter to what I blog about, but what I am discussing is
dissolving attachments and illusions that hide and distract from
the present reality.
The person on the path to spiritual freedom isn’t trying to get to awareness. They’re learning to let go of their ego that is distracted by false beliefs and resists present moment realities.
For this blog, I define a spiritual awakening as a sustained movement of the ego dissolving. It is a continuing collapse of the constant remembering to not see what is REAL.
This is what I help my students with.
Awakening Out of Illusion
The ego is a lens that skews reality, but sometimes, a part of us quits creating illusions. It’s like we are so exhausted that something stops, and a view of life from pure awareness begins to be revealed. That’s an awakening or at the very least, a spiritual opening.
Something changes in a person.
Maybe something changed in you!
Maybe you no longer want to put the focus you once did into remembering your ego self.
Since an ego is a constant state of action in remembering who you are,
it has to fall away if
you stop giving it attention.
In general, a spiritual awakening as I describe it is rare. So too is a serious drive to become conscious. The latter can and should be cultivated. More often than not, it is that drive to let go and become conscious that is more important than any singular experience or event called “spiritual awakening.”
How to Be More Spiritually Conscious
We’re Still Human
Even when someone does awaken, they are still human. Awakening doesn’t erase all problems, but it seems like a lot of people think that it will. That’s why the furor that we had going on in 2012 was silly. Some people presumed that all of humanity’s difficulties would be washed out of this world by the end of that year. I certainly was open to that possibility.
But the prediction I made at the end of that year was this: we would all still be human.
And that has been the truth. We all still have attachments.
We love.
We get angry.
We get scared.
We grieve because all of these emotions and experiences are part of the great tapestry of human life. It is part of the whole, and the awakened space has no preference over any part.
It’s all sacred.
Choosing to accept this humanness is a doorway into our inner work. Our inner work is a doorway out of suffering. Our release from suffering empowers us to consciously engage with the very real problems of the modern world.
Becoming a Phoenix Rising After Your Spiritual Awakening
The Great Hope for a Better World
In past updates to this post I suggested that if there is one great hope for a more conscious global human society, it is you.
Yes, you.
That’s still true as I write today.
You are the only one in charge of you no matter what year it is nor what spiritual vortex is opening nor what psychic event is supposedly happening nor who is president/leader of your country.
You are the only one who can embrace all of you.
If you don’t do this, no one else will. If you don’t chose to live life from a conscious state, no one else will. There’s no time to wait for someone else or for a wave of global awakening energy to wash you along to a better or “perfect” life (whatever that means for you).
But this is 2025 when I’m updating this post, and I would guess that global transformation is a little less interesting. You’re probably hoping for a world that is a little less terrified and a world with less social uproar and strife.
Awakening won’t give you that.
Rather, you can go within to dissolve your ego that is creating fear. For all the external ups and downs, the suffering people experience is self-caused. This, in and of itself, is a humbling realization. But if you accept that, then you can get to work in letting go of your ego.
Waiting for a Big “Ah-ha!” Spiritual Moment
5 Misunderstandings About Humility
The Bigger Picture & Thank God 2025 Is Over
When 2012 was over, people went on. 2013 came, and then it went. Other years have come and gone. The fundamentals of our human beings have been largely unchanged even as new technologies and situations are created. Western Culture seems Hell-bent on cultivating a kind of hyper-individualism, continual striving and action, comfort-seeking, and selfishness in people.
These characteristics don’t bode well for what human civilization is becoming.
Depending on when you are reading this, they will be here when 2026 is over. Specific challenges of society like disease may shift, but certain cultural trends are on the rise.
Like artificial intelligence.
It’s one more technological change that we are implementing, and of which, we have no idea the long-term ramifications.
Just consider our changing perspective on social media in the last twenty years.
Years ago, it felt amazing to reconnect with former school classmates and childhood friends on social media. Now, social media feeds the most extreme conversations or the most inane. It is being linked to the mental health crisis.
Human beings are inventing things faster than they can understand the consequences of their inventions.
Books like Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari (the error of farming) and Breath by James Nestor (the loss of jaw structure because of soft foods/lack of chewing) can open your mind to thinking on the larger scale of the consequences of change.
So while a lot of people will want to thank God, the Universe, or whoever for 2025 being over, there are much more fundamental issues going on.
Yet, consciousness embraces them all.
We are allowed to be where we are and do whatever we want.
That’s the nature of freedom.
Despite being free, we limit ourselves. We limit ourselves to the same types of suffering over and over again because it is what we know to do.
So, if 2025 has been a challenging time for you, perhaps it’s time to look at yourself and how your ego attachments have and are creating your suffering.
Learning to Address Ego Blocks Correctly
The Ego Desire for a Safe Future
Spiritual Awakening 2026 and 2027
If you start or renew or deepen your spiritual practice, you can turn 2026 into a year of rebirth. That is what a spiritual awakening often is–it’s a rebirth into something new by returning to the truth of who you truly ARE.
Spiritual Rebirth: The Arising of Natural Living
And let’s not stop with this new year. Let’s make 2027, 2028, 2029, and every year an excuse to make space for spiritual awakening and consciously dissolve ego attachments. Let’s do the work to clear away the old ego attachments structures and patterns in our lives and societies.
With that said, the awakened space is not waiting for us in future years.
It is still here now.
It is always here now.
In this present moment, this is where you can find your truest revelations, which are almost always about yourself.
Slowing Down and Removing Expectations
The awakened space can’t be at any other moment than now. Yes. I said this just a moment ago and a few moments before then.
It bears repeating.
It also bears repeating that discipline and regular practice are vital to becoming more conscious and dissolving the ego. The ego is a creature of habit. It won’t go without regular work. This reality is another reason why hoping for external world changes is naïve. Things that happen in the external world can impact us, but the real impact is if they inspire us to go within and regularly work on letting go of attachments.
And the ego will put up a fight.
In whatever year you are doing this work be it 2026, 2027, 2028, 2029, 2033, 2038, 2040, or 2050 if blogs still exist, the ego will hold on to its attachments. It’ll make you question this whole conscious path. This is where you find out how serious you are about becoming spiritually free.
This is where you find empowerment.
This is where you can choose to become a beacon of hope.
How to Handle the Pain of Ego Death (video)
Letting Go of 2025, Coming Into the Moment
I know that 2025 was a very triggering year after five other triggering years, and it wasn’t a bed of roses before that. The desire to hope for different world events in 2026 is strong, but current trends suggest greater desperation, division, and violence.
Again, people seek the external to fix their internal emotions.
More than a few are turning “fixing” into “attacking” the external.
It is scary.
Do your best to go within instead. Go towards the emotional triggers inside you that want life to be better. Bring your attention back to awareness and let go of your attachments. And remember:
You are not your thoughts;
You are not your emotions;
You are not even your body;
You are consciousness;
You are.
This video is from last year. Feel free to leave a comment to let me know how I did.
Jim’s 4 Predictions for 2026
Thanks for reading everything. Now, I’m going to actually offer predictions.
Along with that, I’m going to offer guidance on what we need to change.
I’ve studied people probably for my whole life, but definitely since I got serious about this path in 2006. I’ve been a teacher since 2010. I’ve watched a lot of social trends grow, and I’m deeply disturbed by what I see.
Prediction 1: Increased Social Violence and Acts of Desperation
In the last couple of years, I’ve predicted more individualism and social fragmentation. I’ve definitely seen that bare out.
We used to be deeply connected to our hunter-gather groups. If we were migratory, we traveled together because together is a lot easier to survive than alone. Then we had the agricultural revolution, and we were all deeply tied to the land.
Now, we are scattering in every direction like leaves in the wind. That wind may be a job, the whim of curiosity about a different place, a romantic partnership, the insane cost of living in a place, or something else.
The growing climate catastrophe on the planet is driving necessary and voluntary migration as well. If a farm no longer produces because of drought and lack of ground water from over-pumping, farmers leave. Others are seeking safer areas to dwell as scientists now predict a global increase of 3 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
But each time someone leaves a space, they leave in-person community. Online community does not replace that. It is not even remotely a good substitute for in-person, in-real-time connections.
But van life, online jobs/remote working, and the general hope that things will feel better some place else is breaking apart our communities more.
The result I’m predicting:
All of this will lead to more political turmoil, war, and acts of desperation.
I said that in 2024.
As I update this post in 2025, that has happened. Political figures have been assassinated in the U.S.
Some of those acts of desperation will also include suicide and self-harming in general.
As I’ve predicted in other years, there will continue to be more loneliness, mental health problems, pleasure-seeking/self-medication, and desperation. And AI will be used to help people feel better and will have problematic results. More on AI below.
The way out:
There are multiple issues at play. Some of them will have to be solved by communities.
But a couple ways to help yourself is to give up the idea that another place or another job or another relationship is better.
1. Stop moving and rest.
If you can’t sit still in meditation, that’s a sign that you are over-working your nervous system already.
2. Make time for people in your life.
If you want friends or romance or better relationships in general, stop moving so fast and be where you are. Create space for connection.
3. Learn to compromise.
We can’t all have everything all the time. That mentality is part of the problem as well.
People crave community, but it’s also hard work. And community can start as we learn to take care of ourselves and make space for having people consistently in our lives IN-PERSON.
A Path Back to Having Community
Prediction 2: More Greed and Higher Costs of Living
I don’t remember which year (2022 or 2023) when I wrote this, but inflation has proven this past prediction.
I’m not sure how we did in 2025, but I don’t get the sense that people feel anymore financially able now than in 2024.
I expect financial inequality will get worse in 2026.
The Big Beautiful Bill in the United States is driving a massive wealth shift to the wealthiest people. That will create desperation in the most vulnerable communities.
Desperation leads to more clinging and grasping.
Since the dominant social beliefs say that money is happiness and safety, people will grab for more. That will drive up more costs, and the spiral will continue in addition to political turmoil, climate change disruptions to supply chains, migrations, and so forth.
Unfortunately, some people and institutions have ways to monopolize resources, and their power and wealth will likely increase at the expense of the less powerful in society.
Did you hear about the shooting that happened in my hometown of Bend, OR in 2022? That happened at a Safeway two blocks from my apartment at the time. A shooting was planned for Smith Rock in October 2023 but was stopped by law enforcement before it happened.
This desperation, of course, isn’t new or only happening in the U.S.
Do you think this trend will stop?
The more desperate and lonely people become, the more people will reach breaking points.
The Result I’m Predicting
Locking up wealth with fewer and fewer powerful people and putting more pressure on people to pay higher amounts for everything will fuel violence and political extremism. The erratic and destructive policies of Donald Trump will create more uncertainty. That uncertainty will lead more people to desperate acts.
The Way Out
We need more community builders as well as political activists.
Community builders bring people together and back to the things that matter most–being seen and supported by other people. The more supported people feel, the less they focus on consuming stuff and wasting their money and resources. Nor do they care as much about the next business deal or getting more money.
They also feel less desperate because they know they are cared for.
Politics is the nature of social discussion on what is important. Apathy took over for years, and it is still there. But people around the world need to be more active and improve at this magical thing called COMPROMISE to solve a variety of communal problems that are being ignored. Solving unresolved problems can also help to reduce the sense of desperation and feeling unheard.
You can be a political activist or community-builder. Anyone can do these things at any level of society, and they are needed at ALL levels of society.
Greed and the Urgency of Caring for Each Other
Prediction 3: Explosion of Self-medications and Distractions
I have been blown away at the explosion of distractions and self-medications since 2010. It’s been particularly crazy in the spiritual world. People are praying for spirituality to fix things that it will never fix, and they are using every substance, technique, space, and relationship that they can to get that fix.
The bigger the set of issues, the more we hope for some magical fix.
You can see it in our movies. These are the hopeful stories we tell ourselves. We want to believe that putting a magic stone back into a special place will fix the environment (Moana) or that we can snap our fingers to bring back everything we lost (Avengers: Endgame).
We can’t.
But since human beings seek comfort and ease, the industries–including spirituality and self-help–that offer self-medications and distractions of all kinds will continue to grow. This will be to our detriment. Because like an untended 3-alarm house fire, not dealing with the real issues will grow to a 4-alarm house fire.
The Result I’m Predicting
More addictive behaviors.
The way people cling to their phones as their only friends is one of the most hidden in plain sight addictions.
It is another way that technology interrupts social behavior.
That degrades social ability–simply put, people don’t practice being social. They practice interacting with their phones.
Try this New Spiritual Tool: A Regular Media Free Day
In the mix will be more complicated, expensive, and dramatic solutions that will likely still avoid the main problem or just treat symptoms.
Like liposuction. Or GLP1 drugs.
Instead of doing the hard work of healing a person’s emotions and mind that have caused poor lifestyle choices and then changing that lifestyle, people will choose a dramatic operation like liposuction to remove the fat.
And many love the idea of popping a pill to lose weight. That industry will continue to explode.
But then the issue returns, and there invariably will be complications from doing whatever dramatic thing was done.
The Way Out
Wanting to see what is real.
And
Inner work.
And
the hard work of changing lifestyles.
The upside is you feel amazing when you listen to your body’s natural intelligence.
7-Day Jim Tolles Breakfast Challenge
Prediction 4: Artificial Intelligence (AI) Degrading Social Interaction and Big Impacts on Resources
Finally, AI has swept the US, and it is already changing how people find and consume information.
AI is showing up in so many of the tools I use.
I don’t use it at this time, and I have little interest in it.
AI and the data centers powering it are demanding tons of electricity and water. This is a massive issue to confront.
The Result I’m Predicting
In 2024, it will be used in some way to influence the elections.
I don’t know if that came true. Everyone is analyzing what happened in the U.S. Presidential election. But it’s hard to imagine that AI didn’t have some kind of impact as everyone is rushing to get an edge.
Just like social media, AI will become a thing that the people who have the time and resources and power will most bend to their will.
It is going to impact the costs of water and electricity.
Data centers are grabbing electricity any way that they can.
That means more money goes into renewable energies and developing clean fusion energy–and it is.
But it also means billions more for all the fossil fuel energies and everything else in between.
The Way Out
Don’t use consumer-facing AI.
AI that solves advanced computations is something else. That’s a powerful tool.
AI Spiritual Awakening: What Is Real?
But becoming friends with AI and not learning how to evaluate information are two real impacts that are happening now.
People need to learn how to think.
AI is stripping away thinking from people, and people are learning to create dangerous ecosystems of self-indoctrination when they train chatbots.
Don’t do that.
Learn to let go of ego, and your mind can expand in ways you can’t possibly imagine.
Be The Hope
All these trends can be reversed collectively, but it will take us all individually choosing to change. Otherwise, things can and will get worse in 2026 and beyond.
What is it that you will choose?
Will you choose to be hope?
You can.
You matter.
And we can bring balance and kindness back to our communities together.
Thanks for reading. If you enjoy my writing, I encourage you to check out my ebook:
Everyday Spirituality: Cultivating an Awakening
updated 11/10/2025
11 Comments
Amen!
Well said!
So true!
🙂 Thanks for the comment, Roberta.
So let go of the prophecies and predictions. Don't worry about what energies are moving in 2019. They're just ego games to put your hope for yourself, for life, and for this world into the future and into external phenomena. Bring your hope and your happiness to this moment. Bring your awareness to this moment. Be here now.
Yes. That's basically it. 🙂
I realize I am held hostage by fear and ego.
Now, observe the fear and the ego. At which point, you have stepped out of the hostage situation.
2012 was the most remarkable year of my life.I had internenet, so had no idea there were predictions and prohesies. I also had no Idea what was happening to me , untill my friend had Eckhart speaking on opra and bought me his book, a new earth. Reading that book made me realize I was not crazy or loosing my mind. spiritually I was reborn and started on a journey I have been on ever since .
Thank you for sharing!
Loving this post, thank you for sharing! 🙂