The last 17 years of coaching and healing have had me working across a range of areas from workplace stress and leadership, to phobias to trauma and many things in-between. Helping people to escape the stress cycle and build resilience has been a big theme, I guess because we live in an era of stress. Interestingly though, as time has gone on, many of those resilience clients have gone through a metamorphosis. They’ve gone from major stress bunnies, some even in burnout, to balanced and aware humans making a difference in their workplace and families. They’ve become increasingly curious about themselves and others, and more inclined to be purposeful in their lives. Some of them have become uber zen. For some the journey has become a spiritual one.
As I’ve observed this journey in hundreds of people by now, and experienced my own version of it too, I’ve been mapping what it looks like; what the approximate (four) stages look like and what tends to trigger a shift in people from one to the other. I’ve also captured what it’s like to embody each stage. Today I’m going to share my map with you, to give you an overview of those stages, and what helps us keep moving forward in each of them. And moving us not just onwards, but upwards too.
That’s what gets me out of a warm bed in the mornings and has me tapping on a keyboard right now on a Sunday afternoon – the thought of each and every one of us making our beautiful upward ascent into the highest expression of ourselves. Flourishing, feeling amazing and making a difference. To perhaps even experience self actualisation – being your true self, fully expressed, shining bright.
You can tell that what I want share is spilling forth in enthusiasm here, so, let’s get into this map. Onwards! Upwards!
Map for Growth
Let’s start with a run down on each stage and then I’ll talk about what moves us forward and through them.
You may identify with one of these stages right now or even several. Please don’t feel boxed in and please don’t see these ‘definitions’ or descriptions as concrete-terms; they are simply pointers towards what you may be experiencing, or have experienced, and what may help you navigate powerfully forward. Sometimes it’s just nice to have a sense of what’s possible, so I’m going to show you that.
It usually begins with STRESS
This sounds like a rather negative beginning (!) but let’s face it, we live in a society that has normalised stress, so our journey often begins with the ‘stress’ stage. Many of us (including moi – a certifiable stress junkie back in the day) expect to have to slog our guts out, push through, live out of balance, say yes to everything, be there for everyone else, and be busy and important. Did I miss anything? You get the idea. We’re stressy peeps. And it’s still fairly fashionable to be so, at least in some circles anyway. (I have to say that the pandemic, working from home and grabbing back some liberation has moved the needle on this somewhat and our tolerance for a lack of balance and too much stress is diminishing. Halleluiah!).
So, in stress mode we’re often very much in the DOING, we’re rushing, overwhelmed or fatigued. While it varies for each of us, we’re primarily in our heads. Our nervous system is often flicking into fight, flight or freeze, or a combination of these. We’re often hot-headed or our tank is empty. We are very likely to be caught up societal norms and expectations about how we should live, work and be. We’re probably out of sync with ourselves on a few levels.
Step one: cancel stress. Decide that in fact stress is NOT normal, and that you’re no longer prepared to tolerate it. This was the decision that set me on my path to more wellbeing.
You don’t have to cancel your ‘stuff’ in order to cancel stress. You can find new ways of doing it and of being yourself while you go do awesome sh*t in the world. It’s about living full out, not full on. As one of my clients (ex-stress junkie) now says, “I simply refuse to get worked up about a busy schedule!”
Then we come into EQUILIBRIUM
This is the big breath out! An exhale and the relief of getting off the hamster wheel of the stress cycle. When I’m working with a client who’s been in the stress stage – which could mean anything from a bit too much stress in their week to chronic stress or some level of burnout – they start dropping their tolerance to stress, managing their internal state and coming into more balance. They start taking better care of themselves. They’re calmer, more grounded and centred, they’re clearer-headed and more themselves again. There’s often a sense of ‘seeing the wood for the trees’. They get more in control of their week and diary. They’re usually feeling better physically, have more energy, and have some capacity back for learning or starting new things.
It’s like hitting a reset button as they start reconnecting to all parts of themselves – physical, mental, emotional and spiritual – and what they really want for themselves in their life.
In equilibrium we start to realise we’re not at the mercy of our diary or other people’s priorities and can start living more intentionally. We start owning our internal state and the quality of our life.
We’re then able to access and live in FLOW
Flow is about realising we don’t have to do it all ourselves and that there is a natural and infinite flow to Life that is all around us and within us. Our conditioning and societal norms have disconnected us from this natural flow but we can connect back into it and live within it. That’s what happens here and it’s a game changer!
We’re not meant to do this whole human experience lark on our own! We’re meant to be plugged into Source/God/Universe and connected with others. Although we we’re raised to do it the hard way, slog it out, and try to be ‘deserving’, we’re all divinely connected to this flow, it’s actually part of who we are.
In this phase of our growth, we’re usually doing a lot clearing out of old mental and emotional patterns and believes that have been holding us back and slowing us down. Here, we’re actively grounding and connecting, and looking after our energetic self in every way. We’re in nervous system coherence more and more of the time. We’re tuning into ourselves before taking action so that it’s aligned action. We’re manifesting with increasing ease.
Instead of looking outwards for guidance, we’re taking guidance from our Higher Self more and more. Your Higher Self is 1000% there for you with all the love, grace and at-your-service support you can possibly imagine. Some might think of higher guidance coming from God or Spirit. When you start to actively tune in and work with higher guidance, life takes on a whole new quality. There is deep support, flow and ease that was incomprehensible back in the Stress stage, but increasingly imaginable and possible as we move forward and embrace our spiritual identity.
In Flow you come into sovereignty; letting go of society’s rules and being true to yourself. Living life on your own terms, think of it as getting back into your natural groove.
Flow can sound new-agey but traditions around the world refer to this innate source of life we are part of. For instance from the Christian tradition, “Jesus said our experience of the Holy Spirit would be like having ‘rivers of living water’ within us (John 7:38–39). The Spirit is the indwelling wellspring of joy in God that we experience as we ‘live by faith in the Son of God’ (Galatians 2:20)”, says pastor Jon Bloom.
Flow is about shifting into a whole new normal where we rest into this river of energy and start trusting ourselves and Life. Flow is about eventually arriving at a place of deep wellbeing within ourselves – physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
As we rise we approach ENLIGHTENMENT
As I talked about earlier, all of this forward movement takes us upwards too, out of our old emotional patterns and limiting beliefs and wounding so we are able to live in more neutrality instead of in constant emotional reactions. In developing ‘neutrality’ we’re no longer disrupted by external goings on. We maintain our equilibrium, literally ‘rising above’ all that is not in coherence with our higher frequency Being.
We embody higher states of consciousness like calmness, confidence and joy. We have the potential to move into more consistent coherence within our physical body and ideally into ongoing homeostasis. We ultimately experience the pure awareness that we are; what spiritual teacher, Mooji, calls ‘isness’. Our pure beingness. In eastern traditions it’s often referred to as Oneness. In the Christian tradition it has been described as the inherent union with God or Christ.
We literally become more soul-infused. Essentially, more and more of our spiritual self comes into us and is expressed through us. We become our True Self. We become self-actualised.
Oh, and did I mention being joyful? Light-hearted? Whilst simply being happy isn’t often emphasised in spiritual teachings (weirdly!), even the bible says “to experience the joy of the Holy Spirit is to experience the joy of ‘life indeed’.” (Timothy 6:19).
We become what Carolyn Myss calls ‘mystics out of the monastery’, where we’re able to contribute to the world in our daily life from this place of pure consciousness.
This may all sound a little highfalutin, but more and more people are moving into this higher expression of themselves in these times of dynamic change and the raising of consciousness across the whole planet. Each person who lifts into more divine embodiment helps raise the vibration of the whole planet.
What does this all mean for our growth?
So, what does all this mean for our own personal journeys? What can you expect? Some of the things I’ve observed are:
- The more prepared we are to put ourselves first, the faster we will evolve (and ironically, then be more useful to others).
- Many of the elements we build and strengthen at each stage compound on one another so we become stronger, clearer, and more in control of our lives.
- It’s more difficult to move into higher states of awareness and consciousness if you’re chronically stressed. As someone lowers their stress, they’re then able to sit back and look at the big picture such as exploring a new career path or growing their business, or step onto their spiritual path (or more deeply into it), or both!
- The stages are not mutually exclusive obviously. In any moment of the day you could find yourself in the ‘mode’ of one of these stages, and potentially in all of them over the course of a day. What shifts over time is how more embodied you are in a particular stage. Even in stress junkie mode I still felt Spirit move through me at times (when I got still and quiet enough which was usually in nature). As I got more and more connected to my Self, I began to have more frequent experiences of pure awareness and was more able to feel my soul’s promptings. Now I actively invite my highest guidance into my everyday life.
- Much of our growth happens in the middle two stages and this is where many of us journey through our 30’s or 40’s onwards.
- Of course, as our self-awareness grows, our rate of growth increases.
- We gain more perspective on our journey as we move to each stage. Hindsight is always stunning!
- Each stage can take weeks, months or years to move through. There is no one pace to go (and there is no point you have to get to either, its entirely your choice).
- Just being ‘spiritual’ isn’t enough. Health is our first wealth. With a healthy body we can do anything our heart desires, and it is then also a strong container to hold our light-body and enable us to shine the brightest.
- I know you know this, but we must honour each other’s stage and pace. The stage someone else is at is none of your business and not your responsibility. You can care about how someone is doing and whether or not they’re growing, but you can’t control or change it. It’s up to them.
- There’s nothing that says we have to make the journey all the way to enlightenment in this lifetime, it’s merely a map of possibility. It’s all optional! Don’t should on yourself about who you should or shouldn’t be. Love yourself no matter where you are and no matter what.
- We’re so very supported in this journey of growth right now. Light is pouring in from the Divine to support our upliftment, and we have enormous support from God/Spirit, our guides and ancestors in the unseen, and from so many teachers and healers here in the seen. We are all supporting each other for the good of all.
What can you do to move forward, whichever stage you may resonate with?
Here are some pointers on what helps us move through and from each stage. Again, take these lightly, pick up what resonates and leave the rest. Treat it like a menu and pick from any areas that feel right to you.
| Stress | Equilibrium | Flow | Enlighten-ment | |
| Spiritual state: | Disconnected. Restoring connection. | Starting to connect and restore wellness. | Connected. Restoring sovereignty. | Oneness. Restoring the True Self. |
| Character-ised by: | Often anchored in the head and DOING. Out of sync with oneself. Stress junkie mode. | Still in the head, but coming into the body and intuition more. Aware of the whole self now. Practising self care, Finding inner zen. | Living more in alignment with the whole self and with God/Universe. Finding your groove. Deep shadow work and transformation. | Pure awareness. Isness. Integrating our shadow. Divine-led. Deep strength. |
| Nervous system mode | Often in fight, flight, freeze. Dis-regulated.
| A more regulated nervous system. Stress comes and goes. | Regulated nervous system and well-resourced to shift stress. | Nervous system coherence.
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| The decision that moves you forward is to: | Decide to stop tolerating stress and to feel good.
| Decide to prioritise your wellbeing on all levels of self. | Decide to live connected and in the flow of life. | Decide to be your True Self; your most fully expressed self. |
| Today’s action to take: | What is one stressor you could remove from your week right now? | What is one thing you’ll do this week and onwards to support your physical health more fully? | What time will you claim for yourself this week and each week for time in nature, or meditation/communion? | How can you more fully honour your Divine promptings today? |
| A good place to start and other suggested resources: | The Start Me Up Toolkit (free download) video class and eBook. Or if you already know you’re ready to get out of the stress cycle, join my Online Resilience Series – a seven-week self-study course perfectly designed to get you back into equilibrium.
| Breath Awareness Meditation (free download). If you’re a parent, check out Mindfulness for Parents. If you’re in this stage but still fairly stressed, consider the Online Resilience Series to help you find balance again and create a new normal.
| Inner Stillness Lake Meditation (free download). Consider coaching to help you: – Understand better where and why you’re not in flow. – Shed roadblocks keeping you out of flow. – Develop or deepen self-love. – Connect with your guides and/or Higher Self, and so much more. Explore coaching journeys here. Book a free discovery call with me here. | Meditation with spiritual teacher Mooji to experience pure awareness. Also on Spotify. One-on-One coaching to support your ascent into Higher Self connection. Explore here and enquire here. |
(Please note, there is so much more to each of these stages, these are just some ‘bullet points’ that fit into an article! Also, I am a big-picture thinker, with a brain that likes broad brush strokes, hence capturing this journey in four stages. I have long appreciated Donald Epstein’s 12 Stages of Healing for explaining the healing journey with more intricacy.)
What supports us through all four stages?
There are several core strategies that help us build self-mastery and shepherd ourselves through this natural journey, including self-regulation and state management (being able to calm our emotions and nervous system down), and cultivating self-awareness and the capacity to be a wise observer of self. There are two other big ones:
Foundational health practices – There are daily and weekly ‘universal foundations’, no matter which stage we might be in, that are the basis of wellness. They are sunshine, water, whole foods, earthing, movement, quality sleep, and good breathing. Every day.
Healing the emotional self and ‘shadow’ – When we’re on a growth path, there is no way around dealing with our ingrained mental and emotional patterns and shadow aspects, but when we do we are richly rewarded. It can feel scary to address the ‘shadow’ and grisly bits, but the term ‘shadow’ is really pointing to what’s in the dark, unseen and unconscious. It doesn’t mean it’s necessarily dark and ugly. Sometimes it’s just an inner younger self needing loving guidance and care. Yes, there can be grisly bits but it’s always worth addressing them. If you’re worried about losing who you are, you’ll discover that as you liberate yourself from old emotions, patterns and beliefs you actually become more of who you REALLY are. And trust me when I say that you will love being that person. 😊
Start where you are
We can only start where we are, so having awareness of what stage you’re mostly in, what’s potentially keeping you stuck, and how to move forward is really powerful.
If you can meet yourself at your proverbial bus stop with compassion, grace and patience, you will be able to shepherd yourself beautifully along your path.
If you would like someone to walk beside you in that, feel free to reach out for a discovery call and a conversation about your path. Much of my work is guiding and supporting this journey for those wanting to know themselves more fully, get unstuck or deepen their journey.
Karen x