Cause and Effects of Awakening

By Lori Lines

Awakening is a journey of spiritual transformation that can occur in a moment, across a series of events, or over a lifetime.  The first process of awakening is the expansion and intensification of our awareness.  We begin to see beyond day-to-day mundane trivialities, as we move away from low vibrational mentalities and towards transcendence.  Our experiences can become both more vibrant and otherworldly as well as starker and jarring.


It is then we enter the second phase of awakening, when we begin to observe and examine the distorted societal mores, relational patterns, and inner processes more perceptively and questioningly.  At some point during this secondary process, we may feel we have lost ourselves, lost our way, and lost our connection to reality. This can also be a phase of the dark night of the soul, as perplexing circumstances in which things have never made less sense and so much sense all at the same time.  It is a confusing time where we may find our belief systems crumbling.

To adjust to our higher, clearer vision, we must explore the next phase of awakening, forgiveness, and surrender.  We are challenged to forgive ourselves and others for the wrongs we feel have been committed and to surrender to this transformative and, at times, disillusioning transition.  We must be willing to take responsibility for our thoughts and actions.  No need to harshly judge yourself, you may not have known better, so you could not have done better.  Guilt and responsibility are not the same.  In fact, if we assume too much guilt, we will be more reluctant to accept responsibility and bypass it altogether, rendering us stuck in a pattern until the lesson rolls around again for us to understand.

Similarly, we need to hold others accountable for their thoughts and actions.  The objective is to do so from a place of love, or at least neutrality.  Anger and resentment may arise, but ultimately one should allow people to accept responsibility from a place of non attachment.  For instance, if a parent abandoned you as a child, you should hold the parent responsible.  Healing comes from acknowledging they were wrong for what they did, whether the one responsible is ready to admit that or not, understanding that you are not responsible for the effects the abandonment had, and accepting while what they did was not right, you choose to work towards releasing anger and resentment for the sake of your own healing and growth. 

It is here where we must surrender to the process of realization, acceptance, and release as the cycle will arise many times throughout the process of awakening, in my opinion, to test our resolve and to hold us accountable for our own shift into healing.

Step 4 is alignment.  As we forgive and release repeatedly, we untether ourselves from the limitations of victimhood and raise our vibration, aligning more with our Spirit and higher planes of realities.  As we find greater alignment, we become more united with our true selves.  This often leads to changes in perspectives, attitudes, values, goals, careers, lifestyles, and relationships.  This can lead to those we are close to feeling shut out, alienated, and unloved.  While some relationships will not mesh with our newly awakened consciousness, many can continue to grow and benefit from the healing energy we now embody at this stage.

The one caveat being our loved ones must accept the heightened vibration we bring to the relationship.  Instead of yearning for the relational energies that were, they must learn to accept the new energetic alchemy the shared  connection holds.  This doesn't mean they must find awakening at the same time and at the same intensity we do.  It means those you love must respect your path, must accept that you and the relationship will change, and must be willing to acknowledge past transgressions.

The process of awakening is currently being presented simultaneously for many on the individual and societal level.  The same steps and understanding of awareness, examination and observation, forgiveness and surrender, and alignment can manifest healing across the social landscape.  As we grow increasingly aware of what is wrong with the world, we must each own our part in how it came to be, we need to extend grace and forgiveness to ourselves and others and be willing to align with higher principles and perspectives.

By doing so on the micro and macro level, we can achieve the final stage of the awakening process, unity, with Spirit, our higher selves, and each other.  Unity is where we find enlightenment through love, acceptance, peace and freedom.  It is liberty from hatred, judgement and all low vibrational energy. 

Furthermore, it is the realization that Godly resonance resides in ourselves and  every member of humanity.  An enlightened world is where we all receive respect, acceptance, and love.  Some may say it is heaven on earth, and as Abraham Maslow famously states, "a single glimpse of heaven is enough to confirm its existence."  

In love and truth to you and all,

Lori Lines

---