What Is An Awakening?

Kate (00:00)

Welcome everyone to the first episode of the Awakening Conversations podcast. Amanda and I are so excited to begin this journey with you today and to start talking about awakenings. A topic that is very important and has played a very important role in both of our lives and has really led us down a very incredible path as our awakening journeys have unfolded.

 

Our aim is to really share with you some of that wisdom and experience that we’ve had over the years. And hopefully this will serve you as you navigate your own awakening journey. And so today in our first episode, we are going to start to cover what an awakening is, how awakenings can happen, how to understand if you’ve had an awakening and why so many people seem to be awakening at this time in our human history. 

So Amanda, I am so excited that we one, decided to do this, two, are doing it and that we’re having this conversation today. It’s really so much fun to be connecting with you to do this.

 

Amanda (00:55)

Yes, I am excited as well. And as you were speaking, it made me realize that this podcast is actually a part of our journeys as far as continuing our own personal growth. And as we share in this process together, we are opening ourselves up to supporting others in their process and what, and from my perspective, that’s what a lot of this time is about. So I’m glad we’re here and I’m glad we’re diving into this topic and begin to share our own stories and have conversations with other people so we can, so others can see themselves or see what an awakening journey might be about. So, so glad we’re here.

 

Kate (01:55)

Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. So am I. And so today, as I said, we’re going to begin to start to unpack what an awakening is. So what I would like to start with is exactly that. What is an awakening and what does it mean to awaken? And I’ll go first and I would say that what I think, obviously it’s called an awakening really, because there is this sensation of beginning to wake up, waking up to what is really the question.

 

And so I’ll speak from my experience to begin that one of the things that I experienced through my journey was what I woke up to was a big way, realizing that many of my thoughts, my beliefs and things that I was telling myself were not true or were not the truth of who I am. And that when I was really invested in my stories and my beliefs,they created a certain kind of experience of my life. 

 

And when I had a greater awareness of my beliefs and my thoughts and my stories that, you know, we can make these up in some ways, we can create a story about something that’s happening in our life. When I realized that I could step aside from that, I could see that actually my life was very different to what my thoughts or my beliefs or my stories might be telling me. 

 

So there was this waking up to, how our minds can flavor or create a reality for us that then becomes our experience, but may not necessarily be the full picture, the full experience. And so that is a part of what an awakening is, is this realization of how our minds in some ways may be limiting our experience of our life.

 

What I’ll say to that secondly, is that when we have a realization like that or an understanding of that, that opens a door for us to understand, well, there is a little bit more here to this human experience and that, that we in some ways may be more powerful, creative beings than we thought. What does that mean? We are actually a soul and a human. 

 

So we are consciousness and we are energy and that much of life is that as well. And when we can put those thoughts, beliefs, stories that limit that thinking in some ways, we open ourselves up to a very, very different experience of life. So we awaken to the fact that there’s actually more going on here than we thought. And then that really opens a can of worms in some ways, which we’ll probably get into because there’s a lot more available to us to know, believe, experience once we’ve had this awakening experience. 

 

And the awakening really does open the door for that. And I will say that it’s also like an awakening is really feeling like in some ways, depending on what our experience has been, and I’m sure you’ll share some other examples in a second, that we get a kind of backstage pass. This was the way I described my experience that

 

I could now see behind the curtain of the play that was being presented on the stage. I felt like rather than being in the audience or rather than being grossly, you know, aware of what was playing out in front of me, I was behind that and I could see the workings of.

 

So our awakening is a way to see that there is more going on, as I said, and that we may have a little bit more control over that than we thought. We’re not at the mercy of all the things we see playing out in front of us. So that was how I would start to describe what an awakening is and what it means to awaken. What would you add to that, Amanda?

 

Amanda (05:45)

What I would begin with is what you spoke to, I think, in that great explanation, that it is a time where we start to question. It might be an experience that prompts us to begin questioning our reality, whether that be our thoughts and our beliefs or our life circumstances. And once we see that we were, may have been existing within our reality that felt real to us and then we see that there’s a different reality than the one that we thought was truth, it creates an opening where we can then start questioning other aspects of our life in many different realms. 

 

And that was a lot of my experience is that awakenings happened on many different levels and in many different aspects of my life and how I saw that I had been influenced by my culture and society and I was really living an unconscious life. I was living on autopilot and beginning to see that I can live more consciously. I can be aware of the thoughts that are running the show, like you mentioned. I can see where I’m being influenced by external factors that I was just letting into my field that I had no awareness of, conscious awareness of before. So it’s beginning to develop this muscle to see more of the different possibilities and different realities of our experience of life.

 

So part of my awakening journey was beginning to see what areas of my life wasn’t working. And a lot of it was because I was living unconsciously. I was living on autopilot and I wasn’t connected with me and my soul and what my soul came here to do and to be. I was living in alignment more with what I thought society wanted me to be. And I was ignoring myself as a soul. And so I think beginning to recognize that we are a soul, because a lot of us aren’t aware of that. And once we recognize that that is what we are, life changes in many interesting and magical ways. So I think that’s a big part of it, seeing things from a greater perspective and the duality that runs this world.

 

Amanda (08:31)

We can see both sides from a different perspective, right? A lot of times, if we we’re on a side of an issue, we no longer, it doesn’t feel right to continue to attach to that side. And we can rise above and see that there are reasons for both sides and this can pertain to many aspects of life, right? And then finally, I would say that, I began to recognize that there’s a lot more to this life than the story that I attached to or that I unconsciously believed that I’m supposed to live, that society has created for us. 

 

And then it was easier for me. I think I always wanted to go a different path, but I felt stuck in that story, those rules, and I felt afraid to go in a different direction. And by this awakening process, it was a lot easier for me to then begin down a different path and create something different, that creatorship that you just spoke of, because it’s almost like we get permission to break the rules of what society says, how are we supposed to live our lives. So, yeah.

 

Amanda (09:54)

I’ll stop it there, but we’ll dive into more of it as we continue on this conversation.

 

Kate (10:00)

Yeah, yeah. I will also say to you that I think what, through what you’ve described there exactly is that an awakening can be a deeper question within us starting to arise sometimes maybe seemingly out of nowhere or perhaps because of the events that have unfolded in our lives. And we’re going to talk about that a little bit more in a moment, but this question feels very deep. And when I say deep, I kind of feel like I’m saying from a soul level.

 

And it kind of rises within us that creates within our, in our minds or in our bodies or in our experience of our life, a sense of discord of like, there’s something wrong here. Although maybe as you described, I’ve done, lived this life that I thought I should live, but now all of a sudden, not just that I don’t like my life anymore, it’s something much deeper feels incongruent. 

 

And so this starts to open up a questioning process that if we’re willing to look in and, and understand what that question is and find the answer to it. It is something that really allows us to kind of open up our awareness, which I really heard you say, like we’re becoming more aware of things, but in that, that wanting to understand the answer, we’re kind of expanding ourselves in some ways to think outside of normal lines of thinking, programming, conditioned ways of believing or societal expectations. It kind of starts to push boundaries and push our edges and, and really starts a bit of an unraveling process. If we really go down that rabbit hole, which is a term that you’ve used before, um, where life just starts to exactly like have this snowball effect of more and more questions. So awakening can be this deep questioning of our lives and our realities and our existence, as you said, and can really lead us to a place where we connect more deeply with the truth of who we are.

 

Kate (11:55)

And that is quite a process. It’s not something that you just, you know, have that question, seek the answer, and then all of a sudden know something. It truly is in this unraveling that more of life begins to be exposed to us. Like you said of understanding that we have a soul, maybe even that we have a greater purpose that can even be what an awakening is, feeling like I might be doing this job, but I know somewhere in my body, I’m here for something more. 

 

And then you actually start listening to that call. And so in the pursuit of that answer, life unravels a bit. And I might talk to that in my story, for you to really understand what that purpose might be. So I think, yes, awakening really is us, our eyes opening to more than what our life has been. And let’s maybe move now into how that can happen because there are a variety of ways that life can bring us to a place where things take on this shift, things take on this questioning, things start to kind of like, as I said, unravel. 

 

So what would you say, Amanda, from your experience? Cause I know that in your journey or the little bit that I know so far is that you have had many different experiences unfold in your life that have been awakenings. You’ve had a major experience, but then in retrospect, I’ve been able to look back and see, well, actually there were many small moments. What were the things that you’ve experienced so far that really were these awakening moments that, you know, either began to be what led you to start questioning life, to understand you had a soul. What were those, some of those experiences?

 

Amanda (13:38)

Yeah, as you mentioned, I have in retrospect, I can look back and see that I’ve gone through multiple awakenings in different realms of my life. And I would say a big initial awakening that I didn’t know was an awakening at the time had to do with my profession. And that was a bit of a, an identity unraveler or, it had me questioning my identity, right? I had followed a path and pursued a profession that I thought would fulfill this unconscious need that I had. 

 

And when I got to the point where I should have been happy and feeling successful, it was the most anticlimactic moment of my life. And well, of my life, but it was very anticlimactic life. Oh, I was supposed to be enjoying this more than I am.

 

And then following that were some of the most sad years and hard years of my life. And I ended up walking away and which I didn’t believe I could do in the years prior. Like I believe that that was my identity. And so to go from that, from being in this profession to just walking away, it was this process of having to, begin to question, who am I? What am I here to do? And what is it just to be a mom at home right now? Like, you know, exploring the judgments that I had of that. So that was an initial awakening. That was 2016. Then in 2018, I had my mom pass away. And that was a huge awakening that changed the course of my life. And I’ll speak more in detail about that in my story of my awakening. 

 

But that really led me to have an experience where I was in a deep sense of joy after my mom passed away, which felt very, I’ll just say weird, or like it didn’t fit in my mind what one should do after they’re, you know, a close person, you know, their mother passes away.

 

But I went through this deep process through her death that got me to see life in a different way and also how I wanted to live my life going forward. And I got to a place of acceptance for what we’re here to do in this lifetime and that we all eventually leave. And so that changed the trajectory of my own life and how I was willing to live, which then prompted me to convince my husband to leave the United States, sell our house and most of our possessions and leave the United States, which felt completely unsettling to him. But it was this experience that we needed to have for our family. And what followed was this big healing experience in Costa Rica for us, both with individually and in a relationship.

 

Amanda (17:08)

And so that, and it showed me what the energy of my society, my country, how that was affecting me. So I was, I woke up to a lot of how those, that system was contributing to my experience as a, as a person. And so I began to unpack what is me, what is not me by, and so that was another big unraveling, which took me to a lot of, through a lot of healing experiences.

 

Amanda (17:38)

Specifically, plant medicine became a big part of that. And I worked with a lot of different plant medicines in Costa Rica and beyond. And that’s a different way also to go much deeper in terms of healing and understanding who I am as a soul, what I’m here to do. And I don’t use plant medicines all the time, but it has been very useful for me and I will at times in my life continue to as it’s been a very powerful tool to begin to understand or to understand who I am and what it is I’m here to do. So.

 

Kate (18:18)

Amazing. So, so your, your, your mom’s passing was this doorway for you to, to sort of question life more deeply and how you’re living. And also you mentioned here that you had this experience of joy. So how that happened for you, how that awakening happened, would you describe that as say, you know, you touch something, you know, more deeply within you? What, what was that exactly? Like how, how that awakening, how would you describe that? What that was that happened?

 

Kate (18:46)

As an awakening experience. What were you touching there? What was bringing you joy?

 

Amanda (18:51)

Yeah. Yeah, I guess I got to the end and didn’t really speak to the process, right? So to go, it’s like I went through all the stages of grief while she was still alive. So I went through the denial and the, I don’t even know all the stages. I know denial and anger and acceptance are in there. There’s another one, but I went through this process of really being with the idea that my mom was going to die while she was still alive. And that had me exploring, like I almost retreated from my normal life to go inward and begin exploring, like, what does this all mean? Like, my mom is leaving.

 

Amanda (19:42)

So I think a lot of times in hard situations, people, we can cope with different numbing agents, right? And I didn’t numb during that experience. I felt what I was experiencing, knowing that my mom was gonna pass away. And I think because of that and being able to be with those emotions and process them, it took me to some place very interesting and special.

 

And so by being able to be at acceptance before she even passed away, it allowed us to have conversations that were very healing and were very precious that allowed me to just like make sense of how everything had transpired and just be grateful for the relationship that I did have with her.

 

So I was able to accept that she’s gonna die and therefore, and by doing that, I accepted that I’m gonna die. And by that acceptance, I can live my life differently because I was living in a state of fear. I feared dying and therefore I wasn’t living. And once I came face to face with death, I could start living again.

 

And so I was joyful because there was so much possibility. And what I wanted to speak to, the word that came to mind when you first were speaking was the word curiosity. And there’s this curiosity that can come in that can allow us to begin opening up and exploring like what is possible. Like a teacher came to me, a guide came to me that helped me on this path to move my family abroad. And different experiences and people, it was kind of like I was set off on a journey and what I needed came to me by being in that state.

 

And yeah, I think it’s that joy and I think it’s that curiosity that came about through that process.

 

Kate (22:03)

Mm -hmm. Yeah. I can’t wait to learn more about your story because that sounds like a really powerful experience that met you very deeply and, and, you know, affected you very deeply. And then the way that you, you process that and dealt with that was an incredible opportunity for you to, your, your life to open and expand and shift in a very major way. So thank you for sharing that. And I will say then to add to how awakenings can happen.

 

Uh, on my side, as I mentioned before, a big part of my journey was realizing the also like you spoke to fear, because this particular period in my life, I was, all of my thoughts were fearful. And so fear really was running the show of my life and it was informing everything I thought everything I believed and it informed all of the stories I was telling myself. And I got myself in such a state that I was so disconnected from myself, my life, and I was projecting a lot of my fear onto my husband and our situation. 

 

And so this like gross amount of fear, this exponential amount of fear, this way I was viewing my life made me feel so disconnected from it that I ended up having to leave my life to kind of figure out what was going on here. How did I, could I get rid of this fear? Which led to an experience that I’ll call or is called an ego death. 

 

And also something that can often be called a dark night of the soul, which I think is also something we can categorize your experience with your mum as as well, when our a loved one might pass and we have that deeper moment of meeting life, but the dark night of the soul, sorry, the ego death is really where this unhealthy expression of our minds and our thoughts, you have some sort of like bringing to your knees experience where that part of your way of thinking you reckon with it in some ways you recognize it’s there, but you take away its power or at least you in some ways release this fear. 

 

And I’ll go into that more in my story of how, how that happened, ego death is where and how that can happen because that part of you, when you choose it can, it no longer exists when you take your power back from those thoughts, that part of your way of thinking can no longer be. So it’s like the ego dies, our ego doesn’t actually die, but that unhealthy fear that, you know, huge amount of fear and those fearful thoughts kind of die with it.

 

So you’re then have this experience of opening up to a lot more quiet and peace, which the awakening then gives you this greater connection to what feels like you know, yourself or your soul and, and joy, like you spoke of as well, when we can get that, that those limiting beliefs out of our minds.

 

Other ways that awakenings can happen can be us really experiencing the divine and I think that may also be something that is part of your experience with your mom, you know, when we touch something like that joy. And I think that can happen in a variety of ways. It can also be essentially us, you know, using this curiosity that you mentioned as well before to really experience our life where we’re you know, deeply immersed in it. 

 

And I like to describe it as, you know, maybe we’re out somewhere in nature and we are just struck by the beauty of where we are. And we become so present in the moment that we experience something deep within us. It’s like a shift and it’s a movement and it’s a touching of something very precious inside of us that feels like maybe a joy that isn’t provided to us from our external life or love or something or gratitude that comes from within. 

 

So, you know, being deeply connected and present to our life in a way that we are really engaged with it can invoke an awakening experience by this touching and feeling of the divine. And then that really opening a question of like, what was that? How do I feel some more of that? And, you know, an opening really opens in our hearts and in our minds of like, what is that? You know, so this questioning comes back up again.

 

Um, and I would say that, you know, there’s other spiritual experiences people have where I have some friends who’ve had, um, abilities come forth through experiences that I would say were maybe, you know, some traumatic experience as well. Um, a loved one passing or potentially passing, but then being guided to use their hands to place on their body or even a pet. And so in that they’ve been, they’ve heard a voice inside of them that’s you know, something different. 

 

So there’s like a deep intuitive voice comes up and all of a sudden they’re like, what was that, that voice? So it can be through that. And then questioning that second to that, it can be the fact that they did follow that instruction, put their hands on the body. And then there’s some sort of very major benefit to the person receiving that, or in some cases is particular pet that we will have a friend of mine chatting about. And then them going on to say, well, how did that happen? Because I was a very science -based person and I’ve just had this experience that’s a bit mystical and divine. 

 

And then going on to understand that they actually can heal with energy and they can use energy to heal. So those are other ways that we can have an awakening experience where life is moving through us to show us the gifts that we have, be them intuitive or psychic or healing, which again, sets us off in another path. So I think awakening is kind of really can be this ending of something in our life or an end point in our life, the question comes up and then we start on a new trajectory in our lives. Um, so I do describe it as, you know, awakenings can happen in a way that it’s that stop point. It’s a middle point of like, well, my life up to this point doesn’t feel like the one I want to live anymore. And I don’t quite know where I’m being called, but I’m curious and I just know I have to go this way. So I’ll say,

 

That’s kind of like some ideas of how awakenings can happen. Anything else you want to add to that?

 

Amanda (28:17)

Yeah. What you’re just speaking of is coming, and I spoke to this, is this idea of accepting death, right? And because when we do go through an awakening, a death does happen. We have to let go of the old version of us to step into something new. And sometimes if we don’t want, sometimes if we cling too hard to a version of ourselves, the awakening can be more intense and more challenging, I would say. 

 

So, it is a process for us to learn to face death, whether it’s an actual physical death or a death of a phase of our life, a version of ourselves. So that’s something that we might speak to more of in our conversations. And then also I think what you’ve spoken to and we’ve spoken to and what’s underlying a lot of these ways that awakenings can happen is thinking about or coming to be aware of this spectrum of frequencies that we’re existing within from fear, all the way, you know, fear at a lower density and love at a much higher density or yeah. 

 

And recognizing that by facing our fears and allowing ourselves to process them and clear them, our frequency does raise. And so we get to begin to feel this range of energies that we’re existing within. And we’ll speak to more about this process that’s happening on this planet as far as the frequency is rising. But it’s a way for us to release and purge denser energies that exists within us physically, right?

 

By no longer living in ways that support those energies, right? By changing our lives, the lives that allow these lower energies to persist, where we are raising our frequency. And for some that might feel, if you haven’t tapped into the world of energy, energy medicine, energy healing, those concepts, it might feel a little woo woo or foreign, but as you begin to have these experiences, I think it just starts to make sense because you have these experiences that are explained by these frequencies. So that’s all I want to say about that. But I think it’s underlying a lot of what we just spoke about.

 

Kate (30:48)

And another way that we can describe that too is like our emotions that we suppress, right? We can walk around in our life. And I think, as you said too, on autopilot for a very long time, denying what we’re feeling and our emotions can be a portal to an awakening experience. If we’re willing to go into the wounded parts of ourselves, parts we don’t really want to see, parts we want to hide, and we actually are willing to open that door to heal, the transformation we can experience is very much awakening experience that can very much be an awakening experience of, of the rebirth that can come from doing healing work and facing our internal words and our emotions.

 

That’s really what you’re speaking to there of what raises our vibration and changes the experience of our life. And I will say to just to, you know, how awakenings can happen. I feel like something very modern day or something that’s really very pertinent to the times that we’re in at the moment is that everything that sort of happened since 2020, we’ve been through a very tumultuous time. And especially, I think those early years where I have a lot of friends who it really affected them deeply in a way that, you know, we’re isolated from friends and family or isolated from community and network. 

 

So that affected effects affected everybody differently, but it did ask us to question things, right? It did ask us to question our jobs as well, like, you know, we realized maybe we didn’t even like the work we were doing, how can we do it in a more effective way? What do I really want to be doing with my life? How do I want to be living? So I think essentially 2020, this decade has been a powerful time of really forcing people to look at their lives in ways that we were too busy to, or because of the ways we were then isolated, it changed how our life could operate.

 

And so in that change and whatever got taken away, maybe it was work or network or friends, you know, it’s taken us to this place of feeling like everything got stripped away from us. And now we’re like, well, now what, what do I do now? And so again, these times have opened up the door for a deeper questioning of our reality, of our lives, of the way we’ve been operating. And therefore sparking a different kind of awakening experience where people are now really sort of grappling with, what do I want?

 

Amanda (33:21)

So much has changed for a lot of people since 2020. And you spoke about it on a personal level, but also on a collective level. We began to look at who we’ve been giving our power away to for much of history, right? Who’s been running the show. 

 

And so that is part of this change that is happening right now is beginning to look at structures that we’ve given our power away to and questioning, do we want to give our power to these structures anymore? So the economic system, the school system, the food system, the government, et cetera, we’re beginning to see maybe where they haven’t had our best interests at heart and we’re in a place where we are being asked to choose. What do we want to choose going forward? What do we want to create? Do we want to continue allowing them to run the show or do we want to create something different? 

 

And so it’s all related with us on a personal level and on a micro level and a macro level, right? They’re interfacing and at the same time, it’s like we’re seeing what’s been done externally and we can fixate on that and we have to ask ourselves, do we want to give our attention to what’s not working or do we want to create what we want? And that sometimes being not no longer, once we see what’s wrong, we can acknowledge it’s wrong. We agree that we accept it. And then we can go back and decide, okay, I want to create this. And that involves the process of the work that we do with healing and, and yeah, and what’s the path we want to take going forward, knowing what we know about how things have existed, whether it’s on the larger scale or on our own personal lives.

 

Kate (35:17)

Yeah. And I think that really speaks beautifully to, you know, why more people are awakening at this time and we can go from there with that is exactly. We are going through, and I think 2020 has been a blessing for us in some ways to say, to get this kind of like rattling of the cage to say, is this really what we want in a collective level and a larger level and an individual level? 

 

And so what you’re really speaking to is, is what many say is that we’re moving out of an old paradigm way of living into a new paradigm way of living. And so this great example of what you just shared is that we are at this choice point. We can continue to be on autopilot and just letting outside world inform us of how we should be, how we should live, what is okay, what is possible for us. Or we can say, actually, that doesn’t feel right for me. I want more for myself. There feels like there’s something in me that you know, is here for me to share or be or do that is different and what is that? 

 

And so as we move from what we say is an old paradigm where we’re looking at all those structures that you speak of that aren’t really supporting lots of things and we’re making that choice point. But another way that we can describe that is we’re moving from a victim mentality into something that is a bit more freedom based. 

 

And when I say freedom based too, I think that what we’re realizing is that we can come together as a community of people, whether that be within our own local communities, creating larger connections and networks of people who are really thinking about how I think the big understanding is that we’re not all just individual like soldiers here, that we don’t all have to just get up, go to work, do the nine to five, get a mortgage, pay off that mortgage for however many, 40 years, retire, hopefully enjoy your life. Like we can break that mold. Like, is that really the life we want to be living? 

 

And, and, you know, buy all the things and have all the things and actually not be that happy. So awakening is to the fact that we are actually sovereign and we are able to make choices that really create a life for ourselves that we want. And then also a way that we can live as a society that is more harmonious for everybody, where more people get to thrive instead of struggle and that we can create that sort of way of thinking, being, living ourselves if we wish to. And of course, that’s not an easy decision to make. But awakening process, and if we’ve had an awakening, in some ways we begin to think about other people as well, I would say. Yes, we individually have an awakening.

 

Kate (38:11)

And it shifts our life. But one of the beautiful things that can come from that is that we start to think from a bigger, a higher perspective if like, well, you know, you do, you get this elevated position in some ways to see above the noise and to see how things aren’t working. And you’re in a position with a bit more personal power to choose choices that could help things work better. What do you think about that?

 

Amanda (38:36)

What you were saying at the beginning was made me think about my mom and, you know, she, and it’s, it’s a bit old paradigm, right? So she retired and less than a year later, she got a cancer diagnosis and died. And for me saying like, I no longer could put off things. And I also saw that, I also saw that if I didn’t change things, right, like I was living in a bit of a loop, right? I was repeating patterns. I was like trying really hard and things weren’t working. And basically I wasn’t owning my path. I was just letting, I was being a victim. And that it was this huge wake up call to choose to no longer do that. 

 

And it was like, okay, so how, how do I, I start asking the question, how do I no longer run this pattern? How do I change the path of my life? And so what you’re speaking to is that a lot of people in our generation are choosing alternative lifestyles because they’re choosing to no longer play by the rules. And it’s hard, right? Because there’s not a guidebook, right? There’s no rule set when you choose to deviate from the norms. 

 

But at the same time, I think we’re meant to create those pathways for other people, right? When we feel the call, some of us feel the call to take a different direction in our life from the old paradigm way, it then creates more path, like, we’re seeing it, we’re seeing it with social media. We’re seeing that people are homesteading, people are doing homeschool, people are living abroad. There’s all these alternative lifestyles that people are choosing because they’re saying the old way isn’t working, I’m gonna try something new. And then more people do it, more people share. It sparks, plant seeds for other people to say like, okay, I can choose something different too. 

 

So I think that’s how the new paradigm is coming about by each person who feels the call. And I may have deviated from this question, but this is what came through. Like by each of us, when we have an awakening and we feel this urge to live differently, it’s, you know, and by doing it, we are creating a template for an energetic or physical template for someone else to also choose that as well. And then the more that this happens on like a ripple effect becomes like it happens on an exponential level and we’re seeing it happen. It feels like it might be slow, but it’s actually we’re in it right now. People are, we’re creating a new paradigm as we speak.

 

Kate (41:34)

What I’ll say to that too, is that this time in our life is really such a choice point. I feel like we’ve really, the way we’ve been heading, you know, even before 2020, it’s, life’s become faster, more push and, and, you know, people are working harder, they’re more stressed, they’re more sick. And, you know, 2020, when everything sort of came to an abrupt halt, it was for a moment a relief, but an opportunity for us to see how much we’d been pushing and maybe overextending ourselves.

 

And so, you know, this is really happening more and more at this time, because as you said, this has been prophesied, you know, it’s been written in many ancient texts that we are as a humanity really reaching a crucible moment where we have to look at all the choices we’ve been making as a society or as societies.

 

And is this serving us? Is this serving us? One, for our human species to continue to thrive on this planet. Two, at a soul level, is this what we came here for? To be so divided, to not really enjoy our lives, for people to suffer. And so I feel like we’re seeing, especially if you watch TV, one, it’s full of fear, but how much is going on out there that we really aren’t truly happy about. And as you said, we can give our energy to that and feel disempowered, or we can see that and say, you know what, that isn’t the future I want to have. 

 

And so this, this old paradigm shift into the new paradigm and what’s often referred to as new earth as well is if you are feeling that you’re looking at that and you are feeling that isn’t what I want, then you’re really part of what’s this new earth of where we have the power to create something different for ourselves. 

 

And, what’s been prophesied is exactly that, that humanity is going to wake up to the fact that we can create a new future for ourselves. And that’s only going to happen if we each individually are able to have these awakening moments where we feel empowered to change something for ourselves, first and foremost, because we have to start with ourselves, we have to do our work that then has these ripple effects on then how we are with other people, how that affects them positively. 

And the way that I always sort of think about what the benefits of our awakening is and sort of what it might mean to create this new paradigm and this new earth is that we do, each do our own healing work. We’ve had these experiences where we look at our lives much like you did and say, well, is this truly me? Is this the authentic expression of me? Is this what my soul came here to do? Is this truly me being the best version of myself, that’s a big question I’ve asked myself. And if not, what do I need to do to heal that? How do I get to know myself in a better way? And when I am that better version of myself, how do I show up differently for people? 

 

And I think, you know, what the world really needs at the moment is more of us to wake up to the fact that we are all here for this experience, you know, this, this us and them. We have to remember we’re all one, one human race here that what affects me affects you and that’s either the negative or it’s also the positive. And so my healing and my doing the work to love myself more, to accept myself more, to appreciate myself more, gives me a greater ability to love you more, to appreciate you more, to be kinder to you, which then gives you the opportunity to love yourself more, right? 

 

And so just like we may have the news and the media and the way the world is at the moment, trying to do the opposite where we should fear more and we should stay away from those people more or we should judge this more. We have the power to actually say, well, you know, we can heal ourselves. We can heal this sense of separation within ourselves, within our world. And what would that mean if we were all really doing this inner work to be a better version of ourselves, to love more, to be more accepting, to then be willing to help others in pain in a way that could heal them.

 

Or bring them closer just to a sense of like, you know, liking who they are and maybe liking you, you know? So the new earth and this new paradigm is really helping us to, to be empowered and see that we have the ability and, you know, to create a new future for ourselves and for humanity. And so more and more of us are awakening at this time because this is something that is meant to happen for all of us. 

 

And so we may see over the coming decade, a sort of split and a lot of people talk about this, the astrology talks about this too, that there’s maybe a bit of a split where people don’t necessarily see or understand this awakening or are very much engaged with the fear that we are sort of being shown all the time and stories are being told about how bad things are and they may not be able to really pull themselves out of that.

 

And then there may be the other side where we are awakening and we are feeling that question. We are feeling that option to look at things differently. And so, you know, this is very much, I think, part of why we want to have this conversation or these conversations about awakening to support you if you really feel like you’re in that second group where you do feel like actually there’s more here. And the challenge can come when you may not be then surrounded by people who also feel that way or support those ideas or may be very much still,

 

you know, stuck in feeling powerless. So, you know, I think that’s another part of why people are awakening and, and what’s going on at this time.

 

Amanda (47:21)

Yeah, that was really well said. And what I think you were speaking to, but you didn’t actually say the word, but it’s been a term that’s been very important for me in my growth process has been the concept of self responsibility and recognizing that we are responsible for our own experiences. And when we come to terms with that and we choose to be responsible, that’s how we remove ourselves from the victim state that for a lot of us is our default if we’re unconsciously living, if we’re in the victim state. 

 

To move beyond that is claiming the power that you spoke of by no longer giving our power away to these outside entities and taking responsibility for the entirety of our lives, all of it, the good, the bad, everything in between, right? It’s all, once we begin to delve into the concept of that we are souls and recognizing that we’re souls, we recognize that we chose this life and therefore we’re responsible for it. And so living from that place begins, we create something different when we start living from, that becomes a guiding light in our process. So that’s all I want to say about that, but.

 

Kate (48:45)

Yeah, beautifully said, beautifully said. And I think that’s one of the beautiful experiences of the awakening, as you said, is that it’s realisation that there’s a human part of us and there’s a soul part of us. And that this soul part of us is actually here to learn many things and to grow and to experience life. And the more that we align ourselves to that part of ourselves, it affects our human experience. 

 

And so this is really part of our awakening journey, which I’m sure we’ll discuss in more detail as we get into conversations with other people and this really unfolds. So for now, what I’d love to do is really help people understand, you know, if they’ve had an awakening experience, what is it really like for us after those experiences and what is it like to have one? Because we are very much at a point in our lives where the initial experiences happened some time ago and we’ve done a lot of work since then to get to, ourselves to a place where we feel like where it may be like have a sense of ourselves and what that was for and where it’s directed us. 

 

But I know that initially for me, it was quite an isolating experience. I’d had this big thing happen that I didn’t really know anyone else that had had something like this. And so I didn’t have people to talk to. And so in some ways post my awakening, it felt to be somewhat of a confusing time because I didn’t really know what had happened to me. You know, I’d had, as I said, mentioned before this ego death. And so my world changed in quite a dramatic way. And when I say my world changed, my inner world changed. So there’s a sense of like trying to make sense of life and seeing it with new eyes, but not really having a real reference point for it because I was different in some ways that I couldn’t really describe how I was different.

 

But yet I looked at my same life in this different way and I was like, whoa, you know what, what’s going on here? So I think post an awakening, we can have this real sense of confusion and a bit of a disconnection from our life. We can have a disconnection from the people in our life because they’d one don’t understand the experience we’ve been through. They don’t really understand those new concepts we’re feeling. And this can potentially then affect friendships. 

 

So, we may feel like we want to withdraw from hanging out with people or having certain conversations because they don’t really feel like they feel like an alignment with this thing that we’ve touched or felt or experienced. This can also affect, you know, romantic partnerships in some ways, maybe longer term, but initially you might withdraw from them as well. I feel like too, it really does, as we said, it throws into question, like, what am I actually doing with this job? I, for me, I was coaching, but all of a sudden I didn’t want to coach in the old way and I didn’t want to have those old conversations, but I didn’t really know what kind of new conversations I wanted to have because everything’s so sort of like, oh, my world got turned upside down. So like I withdrew from my work as well. 

 

So I think there’s sort of that, as I sort of keep saying here, there’s this isolation and retreat. And I wanted to be alone because I was meeting a new part of myself. So I feel like that’s something that we can kind of experience after an awakening. What else would you add to that from your many experiences that can help someone understand what it feels like to have had an awakening and if potentially this would be a benefit to know that they have had one.

 

Amanda (52:20)

Yeah, I would agree with the confusion part. I would agree with not being able to really vocalize or describe what it was I was experiencing when I was in it because it felt, yeah, I didn’t have the vocabulary to label it or would say it felt like at one point it felt like I was in a bit of a dream state where everything felt pretty surreal in my life.

 

Yeah, and it also felt like I had seen something in various awakenings that I’ve had. It’s like I’ve seen something that I never seen before, but now that I’ve seen it, I can’t unsee it. And therefore my life is no longer the same. And so it’s like, what is my, it’s like a mix of excitement that it’s like, Oh, my life is going to change. My life is, is changing. And also there’s a little bit of nervousness or anxiousness because it’s going into unfamiliar territory. And like part of my process was like, you know, having these conversations with my husband of like, okay, we were living on, it wasn’t said in this way, but we had a lot of, we had our relationship had to change because we were living on autopilot. We were both living unconsciously and to move forward

 

Amanda (53:50)

I needed to meet me in some way. So it was like beginning to have difficult conversations of like, I’m not willing to live this way anymore. And so how can we make this work? So yeah, there’s difficult conversations to, you know, either continue relationships or, you know, maybe dissolve relationships if you can’t find a resolution based upon this new way that you feel you need to live your life.

 

Kate (53:53)

Yeah, sort of a feeling of being lost in some ways as well, I would say. And then I will also say to that too, that while I did have that sense of wanting to retreat and the confusion and the questions, that also, and I think you have had this experience as well, there’s also present some other kind of energy and this, this, this connection, you know, and I very much did, well, I maybe didn’t use the words connection to my soul in that moment until I learned a bit more, but I did have this deeper sense of, I want to say like being more in my, in my body, more in my center, um, like that I was had access to and can touch something much deeper within me that when I do touch it or go in within to access it, uh, it brings me more peace, more joy and that that peace and joy very much was independent of anything outside of me. It didn’t need to be, you know, my life didn’t have to be a sunny day or it didn’t have to be the perfect circumstances in my life to feel it. Like all of a sudden I had access to a really grounded peaceful place within me, even though my world hadn’t changed and my external challenges were still there. So that’s another thing that can really show you that an awakening may be, may be part of your experience. 

 

Another thing that I would say to that was interesting for me was that when I would look out the window after this experience and I would see nature, I was very, very much deeply moved by its beauty. It was sort of that feeling, as I said before, of experiencing the divine. And what really came to my mind or my awareness was like, this is what God is. 

 

And, you know, I’d been brought up a Catholic and rejected the idea of God, a man in the sky a very long time ago. But all of a sudden I felt like there was something bigger available to us in our life and our experience of our life. So that is another way we can maybe feel what it’s like after an awakening. Like you have a sense of this greater connection of ourselves to either the earth or other people or life in general. What else would you add to that?

 

Amanda (56:35)

I would just agree about that presence, that energy, that changes, that shifts within you. For me, I felt like I was more guided than I had previously felt. There was guidance leading me in my life. And so by opening myself up to something guiding me, it’s almost like more guidance came, more synchronicities entered my life. And so therefore, the synchronicities happened, good things happened, which led to more synchronicities. 

 

And it was just this like, this, you mentioned snowball earlier, I believe. It was like this, you know, follow the breadcrumbs. And then I was over here before, and by following those breadcrumbs, it led me to something, a very different experience that I couldn’t have planned on my own, that I couldn’t have created. Well, I created it, but not, not conscious, not intentionally. Well, maybe it was intentional, but get what I mean as far as like with the tools that I had at that moment in wouldn’t have gone from A to B logically, I’ll say. 

 

And then yes, I’ve had that experience as well as far as the connection with nature, the God where I was not connected with any sense of God previously. And that happened at different stages following my mom. But yeah, it’s this sense that we’re not alone, that we’re supported, that there’s something greater orchestrating this game of life. And in that way, I felt so much more hopeful and so much more supported to take a risk in my life. Whereas before I was very fearful. I was restricted, I was contracted, and I was not following the impulses that I had felt because I was afraid. But because I felt the sense of connectivity, of support, of guidance, I was able to take bigger leaps in my life, which has led me and have a life that has felt much more aligned than the one when I was living unconsciously.

 

Kate (58:53)

I think that’s a beautiful way to really help people understand that this awakening journey really is one once these initial experiences have happened for us that when we get to have that experience of that deeper connection, it is really such a supportive process for us to make that change and to move forward. And so allowing yourself to have all of the initial confusion or feeling lost or ot knowing because I do really feel like there’s this process of, I’ve mentioned it once before, but like unbecoming all of these things that you were or where you were and undoing of a life and then a becoming at the same time. 

 

But this happens in such a gradual way that really allow yourself to let this process unfold and just be with whatever you’re feeling and know that it’s totally fine to feel all of the crazy, strange feelings of wanting to pull out of your life or pull out of society, spend time alone, go inward, ask all these deeper questions because there’s a benefit to that, right? That this is just an initial part where having the unbecoming start and then you’ll start to do some of your healing work and that will help you unbecome more and then more of life gets revealed to you. 

 

But once you’ve really tapped into and if you feel that sense of life supporting you and then it’s there, this just grows. So letting yourself just hold that open for yourself if you’re in those early stages of your awakening that you know, life is going to change in such incredible ways and that you’re in a place where there are many other people that do understand your experience. And hopefully through our podcast, we’ll get to show you that many others have had these experiences and through their stories, it might help you understand your own as well. So Amanda, thank you for everything that you shared today. Is there anything else you’d like to say?

 

Amanda (1:00:37)

Yeah, I was just gonna say that. I know that we’re closely wrapping up, but what we just described is a whole spectrum of emotions and experiences. And that’s what we’re really opening up to is being able to experience this range of energy and feelings because that’s how we get to navigate something much more interesting in life is being able to go to places where we didn’t learn we could go through however we learned to be in the world. And so that all of these emotions that we just spoke to is an opening to a greater capacity to live a life that is much more fun, interesting, possibly purposeful and aligned with why we came here. That’s all.

 

Kate (1:01:31)

Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. Well, we hope that this first episode has really helped you understand a bit more about what awakenings are, how they can happen, what it’s like, you know, post experiencing that and really why we’re going through this at this time. There’s so much more that we want to share and have to say. And it’s, you know, looking at the clock, like we’ve already, already done so much. So we’ll save what we had, um, what else we have for another episode.

 

Kate (1:01:58)

And for now, if you enjoyed this episode, we would love for you to like or subscribe to our channel. This really helps us to get this out to more people. Amanda, what else can people do to support us?

 

Amanda (1:02:13)

So we are interested in having conversations with those of you that have gone through an awakening. We want people to be able to see a spectrum of what it’s like. So both Kate and I have had different, very different awakening experiences, but there’s a lot of themes that come up. And so having people be able to see the different ways that an awakening can happen, but also understand what are some of these universal feelings, truths, processes, in different forms. It’s just fun to listen, fun and interesting to listen to, and it will help people in their own process.

 

So if you would like to be a guest, you can go to our website. There is a tab up at the top. It says, be a guest. You can fill out the forms and we ask you some questions to get a sense of what you’re interested in sharing with us and what the conversation might be like. And then we might be able to schedule a conversation and you could be on this podcast. So if that speaks to you, go ahead and go to our website theawakeningconversations.com and we will connect with you there.

 

Kate (1:03:22)

Yeah, amazing. And then if you also have any questions about awakening or your experience, please feel free to use our contact page or leave a comment on one of the platforms that you’re listening or watching this on. And we will endeavor to answer that for you. So thank you so much, Amanda. And thank you to everyone who listened to our episode today. We look forward to sharing another episode with you very soon.