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Spiritual awakening isn’t a checklist. It’s not something you achieve once and for all, like finishing a course or climbing a ladder. It’s more like a series of thresholds - moments when your inner world begins to shift in ways your outer world can’t quite explain yet.
Some people move through the seven stages of spiritual awakening like seasons. Others loop through them again and again, spiraling deeper each time. There’s no right way to awaken. But naming the stages can help you orient yourself to where you are. Especially when things feel foggy, messy, or strangely still.
Whether you’re just beginning, deep in the unraveling, or resting in remembrance, may these words reflect something you already know deep down. And may they remind you: you’re not behind. You’re exactly where your soul chose to be.
How Many Stages of Spiritual Awakening Are There?
There’s no single answer to this question, and that’s kind of the point. Different teachers, lineages, and traditions describe the spiritual awakening process in different ways. Some speak of 5 stages. Others describe 6, 7, or 12. You might’ve heard of Dolores Cannon’s 12 stages, or Christina Lopes’ 6. Some frameworks are linear. Others spiral. Some feel like checklists. Others feel like tides.
All of them offer something. But none of them are absolute.
The truth is, your soul doesn’t follow a numbered path. It follows resonance. It moves through what it needs to move through. And sometimes that looks like a textbook unfolding. Other times it’s messy, nonlinear, or beautifully out of order.
7 Stages of Spiritual Awakening
This guide offers 7 stages of spiritual awakening not because it’s the model, but because it’s a map. A way to name the terrain many of us pass through. A way to recognize where you are, even if only for a moment.
So if you’ve been wondering What stage of spiritual awakening am I in? - you don’t need a label to find your way. But a little naming can go a long way in helping you feel less alone.
Stage 1: The Cracking Open
Something begins to stir.
You might not recognize it at first. It could be subtle - a moment of stillness, a strange dream, a quiet sense that something’s off. Or it might come as a disruption: a breakup, a health scare, a loss that shakes the ground beneath you. Either way, something breaks through the surface of your life.
This is the beginning. Not always beautiful, but necessary. The soul often needs a fracture in the known for the unknown to reach us. This isn’t punishment or chaos, it’s initiation.
You may feel confused, restless, or suddenly dissatisfied with the things that used to comfort you. Relationships, work, routines - everything begins to feel a little hollow. You may not know where you're going yet, but you know you can’t stay where you are.
This stage asks nothing of you but honesty. Can you allow yourself to feel the pull? Can you let the questions rise without rushing to answer them?
Most people don’t realize they’re in a spiritual awakening at this point. But something real has begun. The path is opening. And your soul is listening.
Stage 2: The Search Begins
You start reaching beyond what you've known.
After the initial crack, something in you starts looking for more. More depth. More meaning. More truth. You may not know what you’re searching for, but you know this isn’t it.
This stage often brings a quiet kind of hunger. You might start exploring spiritual teachings, listening to new voices, or rereading old things that suddenly land differently. Synchronicities appear. You notice signs - numbers, feathers, dreams, déjà vu. Maybe for the first time, you ask questions like Who am I? Why am I here?
This isn’t about following a specific path, it’s about remembering that one exists.
For some, this phase feels exciting. Like discovering a secret world just beneath the surface. For others, it’s lonely. Friends and family may not understand what’s shifting in you. That’s okay. Awakening often begins in solitude.
The invitation here is to stay curious without needing to define everything. Let the seeking be sacred. Let wonder be enough. Your mind may want answers, but your soul is here for the experience.
And the more you search, the more you begin to feel: you’re not just looking for truth, you’re looking for yourself.
Stage 3: The Unraveling
Old identities begin to fall away.
This is where things start to shift on a deeper level. What once felt solid - your beliefs, roles, relationships, even your sense of self - begins to dissolve. It can be painful. Confusing. Exhausting. But it’s not falling apart for no reason. It’s falling apart because something truer is trying to come through.
You may feel like you’re losing yourself. And in a way, you are, but only the version of you that was built from fear, conditioning, or survival. The unraveling strips away what no longer serves your soul’s path.
You might find yourself grieving things you never expected to lose. Jobs that once felt secure. People you once built your life around. Even spiritual ideas you once clung to. It can feel like everything is in question.
This is not a breakdown. It’s a breakthrough in disguise. But it can feel like the dark side of spiritual awakening.
The key here is compassion. Not just for others, but for yourself. You’re not meant to have it all figured out right now. You’re meant to let go. To soften. To allow the shedding, even when you don’t understand what’s coming next.
This is the sacred undoing. And it’s more than okay to not feel okay here.
Stage 4: The Void
A sacred space of nothing - and everything.
The Void isn’t a mistake. It’s not the absence of growth, it’s where growth reorganizes itself. After the shedding and unraveling, you may find yourself in a strange stillness. Life becomes quiet. Time stretches. Your thoughts don’t land like they used to. And the parts of you that once felt certain… begin to dissolve.
It can feel like disconnection, but something deeper is happening: you’re resting inside pure potential.
This is the part of awakening that spiritual teachings often gloss over, but it’s vital. In the Void, the old has been stripped away, but the new hasn’t yet formed. It’s a pause between versions of you. And while it might feel disorienting, emotionally intense, or even boring, this space is profoundly alive.
You may sense past wounds surfacing, waves of emotion moving through, or subtle energetic shifts in the body. You may also feel nothing at all. And that, too, is part of the clearing.
The invitation here is to surrender. To stop trying to understand everything. To rest in the unknown. Because within this emptiness, your soul is listening, healing, and preparing to begin again, differently this time.
The Void doesn’t want you to fix it. It wants you to let it reshape you.
Stage 5: The Remembrance
Something inside you begins to feel familiar again, only deeper.
You may not be able to explain it, but there’s a quiet recognition starting to unfold. It’s not a grand revelation or a lightning bolt of clarity. It’s softer than that. Quieter. A knowing that rises from somewhere beyond the mind.
This is the stage where your soul starts to come back online.
You might feel drawn to certain people, places, or practices without knowing why. Your intuition strengthens. You trust your inner yes - and your inner no. You begin to notice how your energy responds to truth, how your body pulses when something aligns. You remember what peace feels like. Not because your life is perfect, but because something within you has landed.
Old patterns may still surface. You’re still human. But you’re starting to relate to them differently. With less judgment. More curiosity. More grace.
The remembrance doesn’t mean you’ve arrived. It means you’re attuning. Tuning back into the frequency of your soul. You’re no longer just awakening, you’re remembering who you’ve been all along.
And from this place, the world begins to look different. Not because it’s changed, but because you have.
Stage 6: The Reclaiming
You begin to live from what you now know.
Awakening isn’t just a feeling, it starts becoming a way of being. In this stage, the insights you’ve touched begin to take form in your everyday life. It’s not about being “fully healed” or getting everything right. It’s about honoring what feels true, and letting that truth shape your choices.
You might find yourself speaking more clearly. Setting boundaries with less guilt. Saying yes to things that nourish you, and walking away from what drains your energy, even when it’s uncomfortable.
This is where the remembering turns into embodiment.
You’re reclaiming parts of yourself you once abandoned - your voice, your intuition, your softness, your power. You no longer ask for permission to be who you are. And though fear may still arise, you don’t let it run the show anymore.
People around you may notice the shift, even if they don’t have the words for it. You might feel more centered, more honest, more you (even in messy moments).
This stage doesn’t promise ease, but it brings a kind of steadiness. You’re not just glimpsing alignment, you’re beginning to live it.
Stage 7: The Living Alignment
You begin to move through the world as your truest self.
This isn’t the end of the journey, just a new rhythm within it. In this stage, spiritual awakening stops being something you’re doing and starts becoming who you are. Not because you’ve figured everything out, but because you’re no longer trying to be anything other than you.
You’re more present. More attuned. You listen before you react. You create from intention, not impulse. And when life throws you off balance (as it still will) you return to yourself with more ease and less drama.
Living in alignment doesn’t mean you’re always calm or clear. It means you’re honest. You’re rooted in your values. You speak from your heart. And your outer life starts to reflect the deeper truths you’ve uncovered.
You might feel called to guide others, to create differently, or simply to rest more often. Whatever it looks like, it comes from resonance, not pressure.
This stage is less about milestones and more about movement. A softer, steadier way of walking through the world. You’ve remembered who you are. And now you’re living it.
Not perfectly. But fully.
Which Spiritual Awakening Stage Are You In?
Maybe you see yourself in one of these stages. Maybe you see yourself in all of them. The truth is, awakening isn’t a ladder you climb. More often it’s a spiral.
You might be in the unraveling today and the void tomorrow. You might feel clear one morning and confused the next. That doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. It means you’re in it.
If you’re wondering what stage of spiritual awakening am I in right now, the most honest answer might be: the one that’s asking something of you. The one that’s inviting you to soften, listen, and stay present.
There’s no finish line here. No need to arrive. Just a gentle unfolding into more of who you are.
So breathe. Rest. Let yourself be exactly where you are.
