“There is no coming to consciousness without pain.” - Carl Jung

I’m writing this in the first few days of 2026.

It has not been an easy transition. I haven’t had anything drastic externally happen to me or my family, although I have had two very tragic events happen to people adjacent to me. My personal life has been nothing but really quiet, sweet and simple.

And yet, so much inside me is moving. Like the tectonic plates within my reality are lifting, shuddering and re-jiggering.

When an unconscious aspect of ourselves and our patterns comes into our conscious awareness, it can feel like it threatens the very fabric of our reality. I have felt this the last couple weeks. I can feel my reality changing, at its very core.

We have a few options when we’re feeling like this:

1. We can deny it. Try to push the uneasy feelings underground.

We all will do this for awhile. It’s human nature to deny change. I personally don’t know anyone who feels a whisper of change on the horizon and just willingly surrenders to it right away without any denial. But, the longer we shove it away, the more uncomfortable it gets.

It’s like trying to hold a lid on boiling water, eventually it’s going to spill and get all over everything.

We can find all sorts of ways to release a little steam here and there. so we can play dumb about the awakening for a long time. We can deny anything is off or needs adjustment. We can stick our fingers in our ears and say, “LALALALALA,” for quite a long while.

We can get really distracted and pulled into all sorts of side quests that take us away from the actual realization our Soul is pointing us towards.

Nothing is wrong with this. It’s all part of the process.

It takes so much courage to be truly honest with ourselves.

2. We can fight with it.

Then, eventually we are no longer able to deny it any long. We become aware something needs to change. And then we fight it. We resist it. We don’t believe it’s possible. We don’t see a way to make the change or integrate the realization.

A friend of mine said when speaking about realizing what we must change, “Anything but that. I can do anything but that.” This is how awakening can feel, “I could literally do anything but that.”

So we fight. We claw at the walls. We resist the sensations, feelings, despair, honesty, vulnerability, and weakness that comes with change.

Most of the time, we have be beginners again. There is a way awakening will always bring you back to square one. Being a beginner isn’t fun for most people.

This is also totally normal. We can’t stop fighting until we’re ready to stop fighting. It’s all part of the process.

It takes real courage to lean into the despair and not fight with it.

3. We can surrender. We can have faith. We can move into the awakening willing to be carved, changed, and trusting that all it brings is for our and everyone else’s highest and best good.

Any difficult experience we are having/have had is an opportunity for an awakening.

The most truly faith-filled people I know are the people who have been through unthinkably difficult experiences and come out the other side with more grace, wisdom, and faith in some guiding force that is beyond our comprehension.

This doesn’t have to be a religious faith. This isn’t always the same faith I have. However, I do not know a way to truly get through the arduous and stripping-away task of awakening without it.

You need a tether into something bigger than you. Our small human minds cannot weather the immensity of our Soul’s tasks, desires and journeys without a tether to some meaning outside of our small selves.

This is why throughout human history, you will always find faith, spirituality, and a relationship to something mysterious and unlimited at the center of the human condition.

Faith doesn’t give you a reason for all the awful things that can happen in the world. Nothing can.

Faith doesn’t tie our lives up in a pretty bow.

Faith doesn’t mean there is a big daddy in the sky coming to save you.

Faith means you can say yes to your Soul.

It means you can take a leap into the unknown, knowing whatever happens, you’ll be caught.

It takes a lot of courage to have faith.

Faith doesn’t make awakening easier.

Knowing that you’ll be caught doesn’t actually make the jumping into the abyss any more comfortable. There is still crippling fear. There are still nerves. There will be more despair just around the corner. There are still all the parts of you who don’t have faith or who need to “see it to believe it.” We are not all one way.

“I am large. I contain multitudes,” as Walt Whitman said.

The big misconception is that faith will somehow save us from pain. We think if we have faith, we’ll be able to just “give it all to God” or breeze through our challenges with a smile and a wink. This hasn’t been my experience of faith.

I know for me, personally, I have a deep, deep practice of faith. Faith is the foundation upon which I live and know myself and I have never come to the precipice of a big change, transition or awakening in my life without feeling completely and totally terrified.

Faith simply gives me something to practice while I’m in the midst of pain and unknown.

Once I’ve stopped denying. Once I’ve stopped fighting, and trust me, I do plenty of those, I come back to this statement: “God/Source/Universe/Guiding Light, I don’t know what to do here. Help me. Show me.” And then I wait, open.

A teacher of mine asked me recently, “Did God ask you to do this?”

This could be one way to determine if we’re denying, fighting or surrendering. If God didn’t ask us to do what we’re doing, we’re probably not in a pose of surrender.

I’ve been practicing. What is God asking me to do? Did God ask me to do this?

We will each have our own unique ways of connecting with God/Source/Higher Self. For me, I have come to know when I drop down below the static layer of life and busyness and drama and my own patterns, I tap into a deeper knowing. This where God “speaks” to me.

For me, this requires a quiet mind and somewhat settled body, which can be hard to come by, but is maybe the most important thing I can give myself, and ultimately it is a choice I make, to listen or not to listen. I know I need to have a sense of unattachment to the outcome or information I will receive. It’s like listening carefully to someone, but with your whole body instead of just your ears.

Sometimes, in this space of listening, I get nothing. Sometimes I get something like “not yet” or “it’s unclear” or just “be still.” It’s not always a definitive, satisfying answer.

For the past few weeks, the only thing God has been asking me to do is one thing: write.

And it’s the last thing I want to do. When I sit down to write I am plagued with the idea I have nothing of value to say or that no one cares or that it’s too much to even try. My Soul doesn’t care about any of these excuses, but my human mind does.

But, it’s the only thing that is clear: Write. Write. Write.

Write and take care of myself. Write and take care of my children. Write and sleep. Write and eat. Write and read. Write and pray.

And…I haven’t done it. That’s how this works. We can also know exactly what we need to do and not do it.

It is no small thing to be honest with ourselves.

We will avoid it in every way possible because “there is no coming to consciousness without pain.”

There are many parts of ourselves (for good reason!) that want to avoid pain at all costs. Avoid the discomfort. Avoid the shake up. Avoid the unknown. Avoid the raging, the grief, the hurt, the things that we’ve been trying so hard to keep down under the surface.

The amount of energy that it takes to keep things at bay is vast. It is big. And when we finally turn towards them (which is what writing does for me) it can feel like we are never going to be able to turn away.

Here I am, finally, after months of denying and fighting, I am writing.

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