Better Understanding Spiritual Awakenings
Spiritual Awakening is the perceived direct experience of the underpinnings of reality as we see it, feel it, smell it, touch it, taste it. It is the noetic revelation of the very fabric of existence, if you will. Experiencers often report the quality of the experience being “realer than real”, and subjective recounts, as well as increasing scientific data, are beginning to shed light on how these experiences not only increase mental and physical wellbeing, but also promote the pro-social and pro-environmental behaviours necessary for the development of a more just, empathetic and united society. Despite all of this, the experience of SA is still largely misunderstood and misinterpreted in today’s society, particularly in the west.
Rejecting religion and spirituality prior to my own spontaneous awakening a little over 6 years ago, I found myself stripped of all pre-existing concepts of self and of the world around me in the weeks and months following my experience, without an appropriate framework through which to make sense of it. Whilst it was the most important/blissful experience of my life, and whilst I intuitively knew what was happening to me, I struggled to make sense of it through the lens of the life I was living, and was afraid that if I opened up about it I’d either be misunderstood at best, or have my experience invalidated and pathologised at worst. Several months after the peak of my "altered state” I started to question: “Why were we not being taught this as a possibility of human existence at school?” “Why was there so little research on the topic?” “Why were so many people claiming to have reached SA being diagnosed with a mental health disorder, even though their experience transformed them for the better (in some cases even freeing them from addictions and aggressive/antisocial behaviours)”. I felt a strong desire to connect with a community of people who would understand, accept and validate my experience - and who would perhaps be asking themselves similar questions. I longed for a community to support me when the physical, mental and emotional aspects of my experience became too intense, or when I started to feel a sense of “longing" as my direct experience of "oneness" started to wane.
I turned to spiritual literature and to the "online community” for answers, and realised not only that I was not alone in having had this type of experience, but that these experiences could be extremely challenging and even debilitating for some. I joined an online group to share with and listen to, and whilst I didn’t engage with the group too frequently, to know that my peers were there for me was enough for me to feel safe enough to sink into my own journey through self-exploration, and deepen the integration of my experience more fully.
There are many “spiritual” groups out there, but what I liked the most about the one I joined (and what I’ve since tried to recreate in my own circles), was the neutrality, groundedness and lack of dogma associated with it. This meant it could be welcoming to people from all walk of lives, all religious and non-religious backgrounds, and all cultures. It also meant that all experiences could be accepted and validated with the same level of respect, and this could allow people to share their experiences more openly, without fear of judgement or of having their subjective experiences interpreted through someone else’s lens. This also encouraged a deeper level of listening, something so rare to find in today’s society.
A little later on my path, particularly during my research on spontaneous spiritual awakenings, I encountered and interviewed dozens of people who revealed that it was the first time they’d ever discussed their experience openly. Like me, they said they had been longing to talk about it, but were afraid to be misunderstood, shunned, pathologised or even medicated by default despite it being the most meaningful, and oftentimes most positive, experience of their lives. In parallel, I started to develop a more profound understanding of the importance of community, peer-support, and validation for the prediction of better mental health outcomes in cases of spiritual emergence/y. And finally, I realised that if I could encourage people to safely come out of the “spiritual closet”, this might encourage them to do the same for others, causing a chain reaction which could further contribute to the de-stigmatisation and normalisation of these experiences within a more mainstream society.
And so the Spiritual Awakening Sharing Circle was birthed… both from a desire to normalise the experience of awakening, and to create a safe, non-judgemental, and grounding space for people to express themselves in the entirety of their beings - in support to integration, to the flow and actualisation of human potential, and ultimately, for the encouragement of a more accepting society in the face of spiritual experiences.