Self-realization is a term used in psychology, philosophy, and spirituality to refer to fulfilling our needs to become an authentic self that lives to our fullest potential. The process of Self-realization is what the game of life is really about, it is a process of individual empowerment and unifying our consciousness.
There are certain needs that we meet on the road to self-realization. They include physiological needs, safety needs, belonging, self-esteem, cognitive and aesthetic needs.
Self-realization is the road to inner peace and joy.
The 4 Phases of Self-realization
Undefined self
The undefined self is the homogenised self that has been developed through conditioning to fit into the family, community, and culture in which we find ourselves. Currently this is the state of most people.
At this stage, our individual’s sense of self is located outside, we are really living through others. What this means is that our value and worth is defined by others. We can feel powerless at this stage, feel unfulfilled, live a life that we do not like, feel depressed, be in co-dependent relationships, enmeshment, lack of trust in life, lack of enthusiasm, lack of emotional well-being, lack of purpose and isolation. Our intuition cannot function coherently when our sense of self is located outside of ourselves.
Authentic self
Individuation is the process by which we come to distinguish ourselves from others. In psychology it is understood as the process by which a self develops through integrating elements of our personality with life experiences. It is the part of our development where we transcend group attachment. This process can start in teenage years if the parents are emotionally mature enough themselves to accommodate uniqueness.
The defined self has healthy boundaries, developed self-awareness, is mindful of themselves and others, is emotionally mature, actively aspires, intuitive, and open minded. For the authentic self our sense of self is centered within ourselves, we meet our needs, and we work to integrate new knowledge and experiences.
Higher Self
As we embody more of our authentic self, our relationship with life, to others and the world transforms. We move beyond personal preferences and self interest. The wisdom that we gain through the process inspires us to live intentionally, as an example for others, and for a higher purpose.
At this stage we embody a much greater, and more refined frequency as matter and spirit come together. We experience a greater sense of fulfillment, vitality, synchronicity and abundance.
Liberated Self
The process of transformation and individuation can lead an individual to see the truth behind the veil of our worldly experience. We can truly know within ourselves that we are not the character, or roles we play here, but the player.
We are each beautiful and whole on our own, even when we are not fully aware of it yet. Each of us have needs to meet in order to feel fulfilled and live an authentic life. Sometimes we can feel unhappy, lost, or unloved without realizing that it can be resolved within ourselves, regardless of our circumstances. Learn about The Art of Self Love.
When we are unhappy all that is happening is that we are choosing things that make us unhappy. Unhappiness is a state of confusion.
Depression can be a major catalyst for the Process of Transformation. Being depressed means you are ready to move to the next level!
Many of us never learned how to care for our emotional well-being and find our joy. Nobody here is a victim in any way whatsoever, we are here to learn together.
What is emotional well-being?
Emotional wellbeing means you feel good, about yourself, your life, the people around you, what do you, what you say and everything in between. It is a state of inner and outer harmony. Emotional wellbeing is only authentic if it does not depend on an external source.
Negative emotions create disorder in the body and positive feelings such as gratitude create increased order resulting in improved digestive, cardiovascular, immune, hormonal, cognitive, and other functions like intuition.
Our feelings guide us. They are our direct feedback system designed to let us know in which direction to go. All feelings are valid because they need to be allowed and understood if we want to integrate all parts of our consciousness.
Many people are raised in unhealthy emotional environments, this is part of our evolution, but it needs to be understood because it creates characters who do not know how to be honest, trust themselves, the world, others, or their feelings, and who suppress, deny, and reject parts of themselves that their parents or caregivers were not able to accept or love because they have their own unresolved emotional wounds. Emotional immaturity is passed down unconsciously because people are not aware of it.
Psychological Projection
Everything we see is a projection from our mind. Read more about it in Life as a game. The mind has an image of what it desires, judges as valuable and then seeks to find it. These images are projected outward, and this is what we think we see, what we think is real and what we base our behavior on. Therefore, what is in our mind will determine what we create. This is why childhood conditioning is our toolbox with which we create, for better or worse, unless we consciously grow and expand ourselves continuously.
It is important to learn to distinguish between love and guilt. Codependent relationships are fear based and present guilt as care or love. In codependent relationships we project our unresolved emotional issues onto those around us. Codependent relationships can become clingy because without someone else holding our emotional baggage for us, we have to deal with it ourselves, which is what leads to growth.
If we grow up in an environment where the parents are not able to care for their own emotional well-being, we will not know what unconditional love is and without resolution we will recreate the same patterns in our own relationships because we will not be able to discern between guilt and love. Be aware of how prevalent these patterns are, for example, organized religion can be a codependent relationship based on fear.
The relationship with ourselves
There is ultimately only one relationship that is important. Any other relationship we have will reflect the one we have with ourselves, whether we are conscious enough to notice it or not. The relationship with ourselves is about The Art of Self Love and the foundation of the Process of Transformation.
Self Soothing
First, we learn to accept every feeling, and choose to consciously move ourselves to a better frame of mind, every time it is needed. This is what emotionally mature parents teach their children. All emotions want to, and need to, be seen, felt, heard, and understood. We only judge things that we do not understand. In order to integrate our consciousness all aspects are brought into balance and harmony. We give ourselves compassion for being human and learn through every experience. Every experience contains a piece of gold, pain is our greatest teacher.
Self Care
As we accept ourselves more, we become more honest with ourselves and make decisions that lead us to peace and joy. What we eat, where we live, how we live, who we spend our time with, and how we spend our time become a real priority and we take the steps necessary to care for ourselves in every way possible, one step at a time. When we choose peace then things become allot simpler. During this stage we start to trust life because we have real evidence as we achieve manageable goals.
Self Love
Love seeds love. Through self care we embrace ourselves, we show ourselves love through the actions and thoughts we now choose. We notice how our beliefs are changing, and we realize that others reflect the love we have for ourselves. We open our minds to see the incredible gift that we are and that life is. We realize that love is something we grow inside of ourselves. We realize that we can only give to others what we have. As we grow in love for life and ourselves we are able to feel compassion for others and choose to understand before judging. We choose to forgive, all the time, because it sets us free. Because we are no longer fearful we can be fully present to the moment, whatever it offers us.
Higher Love
As we become more intimate with ourselves and life we expand our consciousness through the integration of seemingly opposite ideas. We create inner peace. Our vision is no longer obscured by fear and we embody our true authentic self more every day. The love we give ourselves is now continuously being refilled by life, we have surrendered, we live in love, we feel love in everything and everywhere, and see it in everyone now because we understand what the journey of life is really for. We live free and at peace, and the world around us reflect this. We choose to share this higher love in whatever situation we find ourselves because there is nothing else that compares. Life now lives through us.
Recognize that the source of all we have is life, nothing really belongs to any of us. This sets us free. Give to life what we want to receive.
We are all capable of living in love. It is a process of inner alchemy and purification.
This article is an overview of my personal perspective on the human transformation process that is based on my own experience. While each of us have a unique path for our life, the path to higher love has certain ingredients. These elements of liberation have been communicated through time in many ways. We have always been guided towards a life of greater joy, but fear will misinterpret and obscure the truth from us until we are ready.
A catalyst can be any emotionally charged situation.
A death, a birth, a new relationship, end of a relationship, a vision, a visitor, financial or other loss, global or regional events like a pandemic. The event charge must be big enough that it creates an opening for new awareness. Suffering is really a gift, it is the tension for transformation.
We can learn to recognize these events, big ones and smaller ones. You will recognize it by the intensity of the emotions and / or the amount of energy used to think about it. They are like quests and your emotional body is your guide. Here it is important to reaffirm our inner knowing that absolutely everything that comes into our space is there for a reason, and that everything is always for our benefit, no matter how it may appear on the surface.
2. A Period of Solitude
Everyone needs alone time. This is a single player game. We need time to reflect and understand if we want to continue to grow.
So even if we cannot spend significant time in solitude we can still make space by setting boundaries and committing to the process. This really also ties in with a healthy environment. If we do not have sufficient space to reflect and contemplate we cannot expand our awareness. If our environment is filled with unhealthy and co-dependent patterns we will not be able to do the inner work. The ideal is at least some periods of solitude, or a few months. In some books I have read about 6 months, in others 7 years. It should be a simple, down to earth lifestyle, where we can focus on our inner world. The people that we engage with during this period should be caring and kind. Our intuition is our best guide.
The thing is that if it is our time to do this work then we will be given the opportunity for it, even if we need to learn boundaries first. So trust your own journey and work with whatever is currently available to you.
My inner truth: I think the results will be determined by the commitment and detachment we have to the process. I lived in solitude for many years, I isolated myself because I was not happy with the relationships I was capable of having. I never met anyone I thought would understand me, and I had very low self esteem with no/rigid boundaries, co-dependent habits, enmeshment trauma and emotionally immaturity. I had no idea what was going on or who I really was. I actually gave up and simply decided I was determined to figure out how to be complete and happy by myself. I poured myself into studying, Intuitive Geometry, building a self-sufficient home, growing a food forest, changing habits, and learning how to do things that made me feel peace and joy. I have made incredible changes and simplified my life to a surprising degree. It is a fascinating and ongoing process. What makes us unconditionally happy is unique for each individual. I believe it is through our authenticity and embracing our uniqueness that we can create a life that we love.I also believe that it is only through being authentic that we can create harmonious interdependent relationships.
3. Health & Diet
If our body or diet is unhealthy then this will be a vital part of the process. In order to expand our consciousness we use the body as a learning tool because our body and our relationship to food is symbolic for the relationship with our whole self and expanding our ability to obtain nourishment from higher frequencies. Taking care of ourselves affects every part of our being and consciousness. Health, diet, and exercise are important in the process of embracing the tension for transformation, mastering our desires, and balancing our feminine and masculine hormones and expressions.
Food should be light and fresh with lots of herbs if possible. I can recommend a predominantly liquid diet, it has revolutionized the way I see, prepare, and consume food. Intermittent fasting (once a week, once a month, and restricting food to a 7 hour window during the day) really boosts the process and it also has significant psychological benefits. I do not advocate any particular type of exercise, just some movements or stretches performed daily, even if it is just for 20 minutes is a good start because it allows energy to move through the body.
4. Healthy Environment
A healthy environment is one that is free from damaging habits and relationships.
The environment must not reinforce old conditioning. It must be as free from outside influence as much as possible so that we can really get to know ourselves. For example: co-dependent relationships, relationships with unresolved conflict, guilt, shame, damaging addictions etc. The environment should ideally be calm, in or close to nature, free from heavy pollutants etc.
5. Self-inquiry
There are layers to our self. We peel away the layers of fear that prevent us from being authentic.
The value of knowing ourselves has been passed down through time. When we do not know who we are, we are essentially living a fake life. This part of the process requires time to reflect and understand. We rewire our brains when we choose to look at ourselves objectively, find the lessons we learned in life and discover the wisdom that we want to share.
First we come to understand our self as an ego, our character and the roles we play. We deeper our understanding, expand our consciousness with an open mind and integrate all of our self. Through this process we come to realize ourselves as a higher self. The more love we grow inside ourselves the greater our awareness of our spirit self and the more intimate with life we become. With great clarity we can see the patterns that make up the experience we call life.
6. Expanded perspective
While self-inquiry is a process of understanding and logic, an expanded perspective is about an open mind and the unknown. It is about looking at everything, considering absolutely everything with an open mind. Allowing ourselves to be completely free to interpret, understand and imagine.
What we are doing during this phase is expanding our consciousness to a holistic level.
As we grow in our understanding and acceptance we learn to forgive ourselves and others.
This release is part of emotional transmutation. Emotional transmutation is the process of releasing ourselves from bottled up emotions, childhood conditioning and compulsive behavior. Basically all emotional baggage is released bit by bit. For many people this may mean allot of crying, exercising, and other creative activities. Read about Emotional Well being.
8. Self-love
Self-love is learning to understand our self to the degree that we integrate and love all parts of our consciousness. Through compassion we really grow to love both the good and bad, our uniqueness and ourselves as a part of nature, and a spiritual being. We learn to love life and grow in universal acceptance. Self-love is the essential ingredient in balancing our feminine and masculine expressions.
9. Growing awareness
Here we really start tapping into our intuition and higher purpose. We learn to be in flow with life, live in the present and allow the universe to work through us.
10. Regaining complete trust
Through our commitment and growing awareness we learn to trust life.
As we deeper our relationship with life we regain complete trust and so enter into a much more refined frequency.
11. Inviting higher consciousness
This part of the process can happen at any given stage and is ongoing. There is no end to the divine joy and peace we can experience. Every day becomes an opportunity to invite higher love. When we engage with life and the source of life on an intimate level life itself responds powerfully. This is really about allowing life to be magical.
12. Peace
Every part of the process is about becoming more peaceful within ourselves. A peaceful heart and mind creates a peaceful life. Ultimate peace comes from trusting life, feeling loved and cared for by life.
13. Stillness
While we can know peace stillness can be elusive. Stillness is really about opening ourselves up to all of life and letting it flow through us without interference. There are so many ways we can become still and meditate. Initially we find bits of stillness and as we develop our ability to connect with the source of life we expand our ability to love stillness. Stillness is magic.
14. Gratitude
Gratitude is something we learn to practice. Initially it may be fleeting experiences or conscious activities like writing in a gratitude journal. The more we invite gratitude into our life, the more it permeates our consciousness. Eventually gratitude is our baseline attitude. We feel more and more grateful for every moment of existence and everything life offers us.
15. Joy &Bliss
When we start to swirl in an aura of universal love and gratitude we live in a state of joyful bliss. Bliss is a state of deep peace, stillness, divine relaxation, inner joy, and unconditional love all experienced at the same time.
