How to Recognize the Beginning of a Spiritual Awakening

It doesn’t always arrive as lightning or sudden clarity. More often, awakening shows up as a whisper you can’t ignore. A tightness in your chest. A tiredness that lingers no matter how much you sleep. A moment in the dark when you think: “Is this really it? Is this really my life?”

That’s often how awakening begins. Not with fireworks, not with a sudden plan to reinvent yourself, but with the unease you’ve been trying to outrun.

I’m not talking about dramatic pilgrimages or finding the perfect guru. More often, it sneaks in during the most ordinary moments when the kids are finally asleep, when you’re folding laundry, or when you’re sitting in the car and your thoughts refuse to quiet down. Somewhere in that moment the question slips in: “When did I stop feeling like me?”

That question can be the doorway. 

At first, you might brush it off. You tell yourself you’re just tired, or that everyone feels this way. You remind yourself of all the reasons to keep going as you are: people need you, there’s too much to do, it’s not the right time to pause.

And yet… the feeling doesn’t leave.

It shows up in the heaviness you carry in your shoulders, in the lump in your throat when you try to explain why you’re not okay, in the quiet envy you feel when you see someone else living more freely. Awakening sometimes presses you until you can’t ignore it anymore.

This isn’t about running away from your life. 

It’s about finding the part of you that’s been buried under responsibility, under being “the strong one,” under all the doing.

Sometimes that remembering comes in small ways like a breath that finally feels full, tears you didn’t expect to fall, a moment where your body unclenches just enough to remind you what ease feels like. Other times it comes when you’re held in a space where you don’t have to explain yourself, where you can rest and let the noise settle.

That’s why I hold retreats here in Gozo. Not to give you answers, but to create the kind of space where your own answers can surface. A place where you can let go of the roles for a little while and simply be.

Something in you is asking for more space, more honesty, more of you.

That’s where it begins.