It’s pretty common for people to want to know what to do after awakening. But there are a couple of key elements that we need to be clear about to answer this question properly. One of which is, “What is awakening?” The other is around the timeframe. Are we talking about immediately after awakening? Are we talking about three years after awakening?
So let me take a moment to answer these different questions so that you can get clear guidance.
After reading this post, please be sure to check out this post as well if you have had a spiritual awakening:
Spiritual Awakening Help and Tips Guide
What Is a Spiritual Awakening?
I am very specific about this term. When I use it, I am talking about an involuntary, sustained movement to reunion with the Divine. During a spiritual awakening, things move on their own. It doesn’t matter if you try or not. It embodies the heart, mind, body, and subtle energy. Everything is ignited and moving as inconvenient as that may be.
By and large, spiritual awakening is not what most people experience when they use this term. And that’s okay! There are huge numbers of spiritual shifts, and our modern day English language doesn’t offer us much definition. People can have spiritual realizations and experiences in the mind, body, subtle energy, or heart. But in many of these other spiritual shifts, things stop moving. There’s just this experience, and then not much more. Or the energetic movement winds down fairly quickly.
The person needs to do more work and be diligent to continue to develop from the realizations that they’ve discovered and to stoke the fires of transformation. Otherwise, they’ll settle back into their usual ego habits and patterns.
For more thoughts on what a spiritual awakening is, please check out this blog post:
What Is a Spiritual Awakening?
What Do I Do After Having one of these Other Shifts?
If you have not had a spiritual awakening, thank you for being honest enough to admit that. Many egos cling to an “awakened identity,” which is really something that is very hard to do after a true awakening. True awakening grinds you to dust. It grinds you into nobody, and in that space, you find spiritual freedom.
However, as I said, there are lots of other spiritual shifts. My advice is to apply what you learn. Use it to inspire you to go deeper. Question more deeply held beliefs and assumptions. Dig into the messiness of the untended heart space. Build a spiritual practice if you don’t already have one. But most of all, trust what you discover in every new spiritual realization, and let it guide you. You cannot control this process. It will not be convenient to your ego. You have to surrender, and if you do, it will tend to take you to new and unexpected spaces and places. It will take you where you need to go, and that may not be where your ego thinks you should go.
Spiritual Awakenings, Openings, Revelations, Oh My!
What Do I Do Immediately After Awakening?
Immediately after a spiritual awakening, you need to make space, and you need to assess where you are in life. Some people wake up in a situation where they can be a hot mess for 3 years. Maybe they have a spouse who can support them. Maybe they have good close friends. Maybe they have a lot of savings. Others don’t have that luxury. Thus, they have more work ahead of them to create space to fall apart and be reborn.
Creating long-term financial solutions are important for people so that they don’t end up in unnecessary financial and basic needs distress. There tends to be enough ego distress through the initial years as the ego is melted down.
Building a spiritual practice, it should go without saying, is also vitally important.
Also, the initial years when the energy is really moving is an awesome gift. Doing your best to surrender as much as possible is a way to take advantage of this energy because energy, like all human experiences, will eventually change. Use the energetic boost to help you get started moving towards spiritual freedom.
Below, I’ve offered several important strategies to figure out what to do in the initial time after awakening.
5 Practical Spiritual Awakening Strategies
What Do I Do in the Later Years After Awakening?
Some of you are much further along in your spiritual growth, and that’s awesome. As the intensity of the initial years of energy subside, it often is important to more actively intensify or re-intensify the energy. The floodwaters of awakening tend to knock down a few things, but it seems rare that they remove every obstacle and leave someone in a state of pure nobodyness and freedom. Instead, awakening is kind of like resetting the system. It’s a new beginning.
The clarity and freedom earned from dissolving and doing the necessary inner work during the early years offers a person the ability to intentionally dive deeper to break stronger and more powerful attachments. However, going further towards freedom is a choice. Many people are happy to plateau. Some people land in a place of ongoing, awakened flow, and you don’t have to go deeper or further than your soul’s desire. Hopefully if you get into these later years, it’s pretty clear if your soul truly wants freedom or something else, and hopefully, you now can surrender to and live from this truth within you.
For more help in the after years, you can check out these blog posts:
Getting off the Spiritual Plateau
Losing More Desires and Interests After Awakening
How to Rebuild Your Life After Awakening
Here’s a collection of blog posts about the later years after a spiritual awakening:
After the Awakening Blog Posts
Here’s a video about intensifying awakening. Enjoy!
13 Comments
I don't really understand why someone would be a "mess" or fall apart necessarily. My "painbody" seems to have just vanished and I feel actual inner peace, and acceptance. I have experienced changes, but nothing dramatic. I am pretty chill, although ego and thought stuff are still going on (and I can see it happening). I wonder what I should be doing now, but on the other hand if you really live in the now, why even ask? My ego keeps trying to get me to identify with stuff and I don't want to. I feel like I am really "nobody" but part of me is daunted by the prospect too. I feel empty, deeply peaceful but also a bit disillusioned. Profoundly alive, but I almost feel like I lost something. Not anything of value, but some of the bullcrap was comforting! Sorry for waffling, it helps to really say exactly how I am feeling. I am finding this blog useful 🙂
You sound like you're still in some early phases of the shift. I would point you towards the inner work of understanding why your ego feels disillusioned and that it lost something. Doing the inner now while you are peaceful helps the peace continue. If the inner work is neglected, there's usually some attachment that rises up to pull you out of the peaceful state at some point in the future (months or even years from now).
Just because there aren't any issues rising right now doesn't mean they're all gone. It usually means that you feel like things are good and aren't reacting too much to disturb the peaceful experience.
Thanks Jim! Your blog is making a lot of sense (generally, not just this particular post) 🙂
You're welcome. I'm glad my work can help.
I was totally clue less on what was happing i started with so much live and saw beauty like throuvh a childs eyes then stages where i thought i was differnt people and i took everything personal. I ended up being admited and am just now getting to a piint where i know what happned everyone told me i was crazy.
I feel like everything is still…slow motion…i feel like i don't need to control anyting…i feel like nothing of this world is my business anymore and i scared of this feeling…
Have no fear. I recommend watching eckhart tolle's videos, especially the ones on death / ego death. Seeing how calm and collected he is gives me hope and calms my nerves.
Remember to surrender and swim in this ocean. stay strong
Come back to your breathing. Focus on simply observing the breath rather than focusing on the different feelings and thoughts that may arise. All thoughts and feelings come and go. Stay as the observer that is timeless instead.
Since my shift I have seemed to lost my tears. I understand that everything happens for a reason be it good or bad and I am just perceiving my world and accepting it for what it is. I can't help but feel like a coldish person in situations where everyone around me is sad and crying and I have no emotions. Any thoughts on this?
You'd have to tell me more about your shift and how you are now perceiving the present moment. When we lose attachments, we often respond very differently to situations, and being upset just because we think we're supposed to be upset about something is just a form of suffering. You can follow the instructions on my contact form if you want to be in touch.
Contact Jim
Hi Jim, I just E-mailed you regarding my shift and I should add that I have a whole lot of real compassion and understanding, just no tears. When I look at people now, I only see/listen to their soul, their physical attributes means nothing to me anymore.
The work is to go within, not to keep looking at others in the external world. Learn to develop a mind that does self-inquiry to continue to remove the veils of illusion that blind you to yourself.
Hi Guys,
What the gentleman with unknown name just described and Enchantress 69 is exactly where I am now and I have no clue what to do with it or how to develop this so called spiritual path …… Sometimes I feel like I'm on the right track, but then this whole rat race of our society pulls me back to the ego, materialism, career, and God knows what else … it is really hard to live by these rules and still focus on the spiritual path. I realized that the spiritual path is the only way to gain self-acceptance, inner freedom, and happiness that you will never acquire with material opulence, even though we need some material opulence to feel comfort and stability. 🙂