Our spirit yearns for a connection with God, and we are born with a body, soul, and spirit. We are created in God's image, with abilities that mirror some of His characteristics, such as self-awareness, intelligence, creativity, moral responsibility, and a need for connection. Everyone has the capacity for love and good deeds, as well as a general desire to go our own way independent from God, or to sin and do evil. Every person has their own personality, temperament, and strengths. We are all reared in a specific environment, such as our family of origin or household, and as a result, each of us has a unique background that continues to impact us now.
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God Takes the Initiative
God's initiative to reveal Himself to us is the beginning of the spiritual awakening path. What is true about God can be discerned in the physical world's beauty, symmetry, intricacy, and amazement. We are born with an understanding of God's majesty, creative power, and existence, while language gives us the words to express what we already know. Scripture also describes a morality that is innate and points to God. Despite our human repression of God's inherent knowledge, He stirs or awakens a spiritual need or want for knowledge of Him.
Our Response to God
Dissatisfaction and desperation characterize the next stage of spiritual awakening. We become unhappy with our ability to live life on our own terms and recognize our need for God. The drive for responding to His invitation to life, forgiveness, and meaning in Jesus Christ comes from our desperate need for peace and fellowship with Him. Once we've established a relationship with Christ, His explanations, interpretations, and understandings become indisputable to us. I actually know myself as I know and live with Christ.
Growth in Deeper Intimacy with God
Suffering is a common catalyst for our progress into a deeper relationship with God. This may be due to our own or others' actions, yet processing our disappointments and losses can lead to healing, freedom, redemption, and the discovery of a greater meaning in life. God's continual initiative, as well as our participation in spiritual practices such as mentorship, community, and spiritual companionship, all of which lead to greater connection with God, all contribute to our growth.
Christian Counseling to Find Your True Self
Christian therapy can be a helpful tool in the process of self-discovery. A Christian counselor can assist in posing important questions, rephrasing findings, and providing alternative perspectives. The therapy room can provide a safe and supportive environment in which you can try out a new way of interacting, name and grieve your wounds, and work through your process.
What is the spiritual awakening process?
Spiritual awakening, contrary to popular belief, does not entail a literal transformation “Awakening.”
You don't wake up one day feeling like you have a powerful energy within of you beckoning for change.
Spiritual awakening is a long process in which a person realizes that their existence extends beyond the physical realm “I” refers to the ego.
Eastern spiritualists refer to the ego, or everyday self, as the acquired mind in Taoist philosophy.
Our current selves our likes, actions, preferences, and convictions are the result of years of socialization.
These particular features we pick up, however unusual they may be, do not yet make up a whole self.
Humans are a self-preserving species as a result of evolution; it's in our DNA to resist change.
Humans are innately egoistic beings, therefore we can't help but form a bubble around ourselves and do everything we can to keep it safe.
While a firm belief in who you are and what you believe in may appear to be the very definition of the full “self,” philosophers such as Carl Jung argue that separating the “I” from the rest of the world is harmful because we inevitably begin to limit what counts as good and righteous to those qualities unique to us.
Consider this: your Spirit lives alongside your ego. The ego acquires things you enjoy and don't like, as well as convictions that distinguish what's good from what's evil, during the years of learning and interacting.
As the ego takes control, your Spirit becomes confined and inert, rather than moving beyond it.
What the Bible says about spirituality?
Biblical spirituality entails being born of God (John 1:1213; John 3:58; 1 John 4:7), being transformed by the grace of Jesus Christ (Rom 12:12), surrendered and obedient to the Spirit, living according to the Spirit (Rom 8:411), and being empowered by the Spirit to draw others to find life in the Spirit.
How do you know if you are spiritually awakened?
You've developed a fresh sense of wonder. Richardson says that “being able to be fascinated about your life and the people in it, even while you're feeling emotional” is a sign of spiritual awakening.
What are the five stages of spiritual awakening?
The hero's journey, an evolutionary process of growth and transformation woven into all great myths and stories, was outlined by renowned mythologist Joseph Campbell: “A genuinely heroic shift of awareness occurs when we stop worrying about ourselves and our own self-preservation.”
The primary pushing off point for any hero's quest is known as the call to adventure. The call to adventure is a break from regular life, a signal that comes from deep inside, grabs your attention, and drives you in a new direction. The spark that sets off a spiritual awakening is a call to adventure. Every life has a moment that, if grasped, will change it forever. The call to adventure is a reawakening experience, a shift in perspective that forces you to reconsider your perspective on life. A travel to a strange location, the loss of innocence, an illness, a challenge, the death of a close friend, a near-death experience, or the loss of a job are all examples of spiritual experiences. Regardless of the specifics, the experience alters your perspective and causes you to see the world through fresh eyes. You've been given the task of living an ordinary life in an extraordinary way.
At this critical juncture, Joseph Campbell advises that you must choose whether or not to accept the call to adventure. In truth, though, ignoring the call isn't an option because your soul is inviting you to change on a deeper level. If you ignore the call, the opportunity will recycle itself like a skip on a record, patiently waiting for you to embrace the call to a new existence, thanks to your unique karmic influences. Furthermore, there is no going back once a transforming and deeply waking incident has occurred. Your eyes have been opened, and no matter how much you try to reject it, you can't turn away from the image of a greater reality calling to you.
You enter a broader universe once you've answered the call to adventure. You take an active role in your spiritual development and advancement. As you begin to manage your life toward chances that enhance your knowledge, responsibility becomes the operative word. Everything feels the same and weirdly different at the same time, thanks to a tiny alteration in perspective.
What does a spiritual awakening feel like?
Psychological research on spiritual and kundalini awakenings is still in its early stages, and it has tended to ignore events that occur suddenly and unexpectedly. Studies on the impact of mystical experiences, such as spiritual and kundalini awakenings, on well-being have identified the predominantly positive, healing effects of these experiences, as well as some of the more challenging aspects brought on both by their disruptive nature and by their typically biased clinical interpretations. Despite a greater number of research addressing the powerful physical aspect of kundalini awakenings compared to spiritual awakenings, the subtle phenomenological variations between spiritual and kundalini awakenings have rarely been studied. The interchangeable use of these terminology could make it difficult to comprehend these experiences and their effects, especially as stronger bodily feelings may imply more difficult outcomes. Some of the phenomenological and neurobiological bases of drug and non-drug induced ASCs, as well as the links between the spiritual features of ASCs and the symptoms of TLE and trait absorption, have been investigated by neuroscientific and psychological study. However, SSA/SKAs have yet to be mapped within the ASC framework, and the common predictors used to research ASCs (TLL and absorption) have not been tested as efficient predictors of SSA/SKAs.
This paper will explore the general properties of SSA/SKAs, their consequences on well-being, how they compare to other measurable ASCs, their links with TLL and absorption, and the potential phenomenological variations between them in order to fill certain gaps in the data. The authors hypothesize that Spontaneous Kundalini Awakenings (SKAs) are not only more physical than Spontaneous Spiritual Awakenings (SSAs), but also more likely to produce negative experiences, based on the prevalence of anecdotal accounts of physical and energetic experiences preceding challenging kundalini experiences. After that, the phenomenological distribution of spontaneous Spiritual and Kundalini Awakenings will be mapped within the ASC framework by comparing their phenomenological distribution to that of non-drug and drug-induced ASCs. Following a similar approach to the investigation of induced ASCs, analysis will be undertaken to evaluate the hypothesis that TLL and trait absorption predict the severity of the SSA/SKA ASC. More research will be done to see how the SSA/SKA sample's population distribution compares to the distribution of previously reported “normal” TLL and absorption samples. The short- and long-term effects of these events on one's well-being will be investigated.
Does everyone have an awakening?
The most important aspect of spiritual awakening is that it does not occur in everyone. Only a select few people have the opportunity to experience spiritual awakening. You won't be able to bring about spiritual enlightenment on your own. That's because it's the product of your soulful development. This is referred to as the growth, expansion, and inner peace process. Within the soul of a person who is experiencing spiritual awakening, they will feel enormous delight and freedom.
How do you deal with a spiritual awakening?
10 ways to deal with the symptoms of spiritual awakening:
- Begin keeping a journal or a diary. Keep a record of your spiritual awakening symptoms in a diary.
Type 2 diabetes affects approximately 25.8 million people in the United States, or 8.3 percent of the population. 1 Non-Hispanic Blacks aged 20 and up account for 4.9 million (18.7%) of the total. 1 Complications of type 2 diabetes, such as cerebrovascular illness, renal failure, and amputations, are substantially more common among African Americans than in non-Hispanic Whites.1
With proper diabetic self-care, these problems can be decreased or avoided. Diabetes therapy relies heavily on self-care knowledge, skills, and activities. The intricacy of sustaining and managing daily self-care activities, such as exercise, food change, and medication adherence, makes diabetic self-care difficult. The American Association of Diabetes Educators2 lists seven diabetes self-care behaviors: being active (physical activity and exercise); eating healthy (diet composition and caloric content); taking medications; monitoring (e.g., blood glucose, weight, blood pressure); problem solving, particularly for blood glucose (high and low levels, sick days); reducing risks (to reduce diabetes complications; smoking cessation); and healthy coping (psychosocial adaptation). These behaviors have been recognized as measurable results of effective diabetes education and should be practiced at both the individual and population level to accomplish the targeted outcomes of diabetes complications prevention and physical and psychological well-being.
Spiritual and religious beliefs and activities can either help people cope with a chronic illness by providing support, confidence, and hope, or they might obstruct successful coping by causing them to ignore self-care activities in favor of prayer and/or meditation.
3 While there is evidence of a link between spirituality and hypertension self-management4, few research have looked at the impact of spirituality on diabetes self-management.
5 As a result, less is known about how spiritual beliefs and practices, as well as social support, influence diabetic self-care among African American adults. 6 Spirituality is an important source of emotional support; God is perceived as central in providing strength to deal with daily challenges; God is frequently called upon for help in controlling diabetes; and a strong belief in God, prayer, meditation, and support from church members were all sources of support in previous studies concerning spirituality, religion, and diabetes in African Americans. 3, 5, and 8 Religion and spirituality were linked to better glycemic control in Black women with type 2 diabetes in one study,9 while religion and spirituality were linked to a lower likelihood of lifelong smoking among African Americans in another. 10
Because of the foregoing findings and a gap in the literature, we decided to look into the possibilities of incorporating spiritual and religious views into diabetic self-management. Spiritual views encompass a connection to a higher being as well as an existential outlook on life, death, and the nature of reality. 11 Religious practices/rituals such as prayer or meditation, as well as interaction with religious community members, are examples of religious beliefs. While spiritual and religious views have a lot in common, the authors decided to look into both of them because they are commonly brought up when dealing with disease. It's also necessary to look into both of these concepts because some people consider themselves spiritual but don't necessarily believe in religion. While religious beliefs and practices are more easily measured, the authors intended to look at the larger context of people's belief systems, specifically their perspectives on life's meaning, disease, and existential concerns. 13 The Systems of Belief Inventory (SBI) was chosen to measure these constructs due to the requirement to examine both spiritual and religious beliefs and practices in the process of coping with an illness.
The researchers wanted to see if there was a link between (a) spiritual and religious beliefs and practices and social support, and (b) diabetic self-care activities in African Americans with type 2 diabetes. Because African Americans have numerous diabetes inequities, this is an essential topic (i.e., highest rates of diabetes, diabetes complications, and diabetes-related mortality rates). 14
Because little is known about how spiritual and religious beliefs and practices affect diabetes self-care in African American adults, this study looked at the relationship between spirituality, religion, and diabetes self-care activities in this population, such as diet, physical activity, blood glucose self-testing, and foot care behaviors. Because some evidence suggests a link between spirituality and religion and lifetime smoking in African Americans10, a negative link between spirituality and religion and smoking was hypothesized. It was expected, in particular, that those who scored higher on spiritual and religious beliefs and practices, as well as social support, would engage in more diabetes self-care activities and smoke less.