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Navigating thru the Awkwardness of Awakening My 8 Steps

• Terri Wilson

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Awakening is awkward. That uncomfortable feeling when you realize the very behaviors you criticize in others are actually reflections of your own unresolved issues. It's the first step on a transformative journey most people never consciously take.

In this deeply personal episode, I share the eight consistent stages I've experienced while shedding outdated programming and beliefs. From the initial finger-pointing at others to the beautiful moment when you can genuinely laugh at who you used to be, each step represents a crucial turning point in authentic transformation. I vulnerably walk through my recent struggle with caffeine addiction despite having only one kidney and adrenal gland, revealing how I recognized my excessive patterns, battled the internal resistance, made the difficult decision to change, and navigated the inevitable tests that followed.

The awakening journey isn't linear or perfect. It involves dancing the two-step—one step forward, two steps back—before eventually reaching the victory of genuine transformation. Whether you're working through substance issues, relationship patterns, or simply awakening to greater self-awareness, these stages appear with remarkable consistency. The key lies in understanding that awkwardness isn't something to avoid but rather an invitation to vulnerability, where true connection and intimacy flourish.

Where are you in the awakening process? Perhaps you're still in the mirror phase, battling the truth, or courageously making decisions about what no longer serves you. Wherever you stand, remember that awakening is an inside job—nobody can do your transformation work but you. Give yourself grace through the inevitable stumbles, and celebrate your courage in beginning this journey when most of the world hasn't even recognized there's an awakening process happening at all.

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Speaker 1:

There are a lot of difficult situations that lead to awkwardness, but you want to amplify awkwardness? Well, welcome to the Awakening Journey. And I welcome you back to Free to Just Be, the podcast empowering humanity to courageously step out of old patterns and matrix programs and give a big old hug to new ways of being. And I, teresa Marie, your ambassador of Chi, hope this finds you in the greatest health, with vibrant energy today, because you have chosen to accept full responsibility for your body, mind and soul. Here on Free To Just Be, I'm going to try to inspire each other to truly be who we came here to be Authentic, free and aligned with our highest potential. So won't you join me on this magnificent Monday, on this transformative journey to rewrite our narratives and live lives of purpose and passion? And yes, it is very, very awkward to wake up. It's very awkward to go through the process of this awakening journey, and I want to share the eight steps that I seem to go through every time I'm shedding a program or a belief that no longer serves me. And these are not like a definitive list, but these are the things that I consistently go through every single time, it seems. So I think it's worthy of a look at. And we're just going to run through these eight steps of the stages of awkwardness when awakening, so let's just jump right in. The first thing that I did was to recognize my issues in others, and of course you know that begins feeling like division. Because, all right, I'll take you back to when I first went down the news rabbit trail a good 15, 16 years ago, and immediately, you know, when I took that red pill and recognized that I'd been lied to. Well, then I recognized that everybody's been lied to, and did I want to work on the lies in my life that I believed? No, I wanted to point the finger at everybody else and say, hey, you need to wake up because we've been lied to right. And so that always seems to be my first step. I notice something in other people Sometimes it's even in my animals, or you know a song and I'll recognize, wow, that's something that needs to be dealt with, but I don't necessarily deal with it in my own being yet. Okay, so that's step number one. And if you're recognizing different things that you don't like about other people, I hate to tell you this, but what we're viewing in others are really what step two in the awakening process is birthing in your life process is birthing in your life. Step two is when I finally begin to realize that what I was seeing in others was just a reflection back to me, like a mirror back to me, of the topic or the situation or belief that I need to deal with, not anybody else. So that's step two.

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Step three the battle between the ears. You begin to battle with the truth of just that. Well, it's them, it's not me, and your knowingness already has given it away, because the thought was dropped into your heart and your spirit that, wow, wow, what I saw in Jane or Harry, or my family or my pets, their exhibition of whatever it is, that isn't right, isn't? You know? Maybe they're having a problem with it, but it was pointed out to me. So I can see that the problem is me. And as a general rule, I'm just saying that I've been going through these eight similar steps over and over again for well over a decade now. So for me, these are my eight steps Now. It may be a little different for you, but I can tell you that now I recognize if I am looking at somebody else saying wow, they need to X, y, z. Now it's almost a knee-jerk reaction that I pause, take a breath and I say to myself wow, what is this person, this situation, this exhibition of whatever it is teaching me? Okay, so now we have recognized it in others. First, we finally begin to realize that that was a mirror pointing back toward us.

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And three we're battling with the truth that we are the issue that we need to deal with something, and that is a big one. And I think it stops a lot of people. Ego is ever-present. Folks, we're never going to get rid of our ego. Okay, our ego is designed to help protect us, but remember I've said this before all it does is pull upon the past, right, and we are forging a new future. The past doesn't define us anymore. The past isn't who I am, but the ego just remembers that, oh, when you were in this awkward position before, it was scary and we didn't like it. So we're not going to look at this, we're not going to. We're going to point the finger at somebody else, because that's easy and that will protect us from being vulnerable ourselves. So I'm just saying that, when it comes to step three, the battle of truth of what you see in others, just keep in mind that those are the things that occur and your ego is going to try to keep you away from the truth that. No, it really is you that you need to deal with.

Speaker 1:

Number four I just led right into it without even knowing. Number four is surrender to the truth that it is you, because in the very big picture of life in general, it's us folks. Nobody can do the work of transforming us but us. Now we can read books, we can go to therapy, we can get help going through that process, but ultimately, way we change comes from within us. The awakening journey is literally an inside job, and we are awakening to the fact that we are in a self-induced prison. Inside us is who we really are, and it is our job to pull back those veils of unconsciousness and recognize that we have picked up thought patterns, belief systems and matrix programming that do not fit with our true self. So number four is you recognize that, yes, what I discovered in steps one, two and three. It applies to me and me alone. So here is where we also have the tendency we want to save other people and we're very good at explaining it to other people and we fall short oftentimes in applying it to our own lives. So, number four we surrender to the truth that it's us, us and God, that's truly who it has always been, and we are a spark of God and he's going to take us on this journey and, if we allow him, he'll take us by the hand and guide and direct our steps.

Speaker 1:

Number five decision time. Oh, buddy, so now you have recognized that, for example. I'll give you a real-time example Not days, not months, but years. For years I have been avoiding the truth of the matter in regards to myself and caffeine. Now I have no in the health realm, and this is my body speaking to me. Okay, this is not a doctor. I haven't seen a doctor in well, you know, it's been about nine years now and what I discovered is having only one kidney and only one adrenal gland. I am very aware that I should not be ingesting big amounts of caffeine.

Speaker 1:

An occasional coffee here or there, but no, no, no, no. You have to understand that, as who I am, I am a nine on the Enneagram. My downward side is excessiveness. So anything that I do, I do with robustness. So it's not one cup of coffee, it was generally three to four, sometimes a pot a day, which of course tanks my adrenals. So for years, for years, I have recognized it in others. I realized that it was me, it had nothing to do with anybody else and I have no charge of anybody else's life. If they want to drink a pot of coffee a day, that's on them. I have nothing to say about that.

Speaker 1:

And then the battle of but I like coffee and I really like coffee with creamer, and you know I like it and I really don't want to give it up it and I really don't want to give it up. But then the physical symptoms began to really really light up my battle. And the truth is that it's time for me to give up caffeine. Right, and what occurred was I was feeling the bloating, and the bloating wasn't necessarily from the caffeine. But and here's a little inquisition resurrection for you. Okay, resurrect the inquisition in your life, and just for yourself.

Speaker 1:

If you drink coffee with creamer, you know these wonderful flavored creamers oh, buttered pecan creamer. But if you do the research thank you my daughter, daphne it creates a lot of bloat because there's so much crap in these creamers. So check that out for yourself. So I did. I checked into the research and then I watched how, every time, even after one cup, I started feeling that bloat. And you know, then there was the difficulty in falling asleep, sometimes when I was drinking coffee after three o'clock and all of that. And then it was the recognition of well, this came to be. You know, I never had a real coffee addiction until I was a night shift worker and then everything went topsy-turvy and all of that. So I had to do a lot of mind tracing back and all of that.

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But then the day came, decision time. Do you want to keep feeling this same way? Do you want to keep protecting the flavor of butter, pecan, creamer in your coffee versus feeling like crap after you drink three cups like that? And last week I made the decision. So now I am five days coffee free and I don't know if it'll be permanent, but I know from my excessive self, my addictive self, it's going to have to be a good long time. And even now it's beginning. You know, when I make coffee for my husband it's not a drawing anymore. In fact, now I'm starting to smell almost the bitterness of the coffee beans as opposed to the sweetness that I would taste as I put these big quantities of creamer in my coffee. So that was my decision. But what did I do for months and months before I actually said that's it no more the line in the sand. When I get up tomorrow morning, I am going to have matcha. Now, matcha has caffeine in it, but a much smaller amount. So that is how I'm weaning myself off.

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The first three days were horrendous. I had pretty hairy headaches and that's why I can't say seven days, because within that first three days, the first two days, I literally backtracked and vacillated. That's what happens when decision time. You know, yes, I'm going to do it. Oh, but my husband left a little bit of coffee in the pot and I have a headache. And so day one I drank a half a cup without the creamer. I used just a little bit of coconut milk, but I did drink coffee.

Speaker 1:

So you see, there was this process, the slack of recognizing how courageous you are for going in to an awakening journey when most of the world hasn't even realized that there is an awakening process happening, and pat yourself on the back for the processes that you have victoriously come through and give yourself a hug if you're in number five of the step process and you're vacillating back and forth, like on that seesaw, and one day, whether it's you end up doing the splits or in the case of my caffeine example, I just finally just got tired of feeling like shit and you know, after that third cup and then the bloat didn't go away for hours and I didn't like that and so finally, very much like doing the splits on the seesaw, I was just like that's it. I'm taking the middle ground and I am choosing to decide to cut this. Do the Shiva thing with caffeine, right. So that's number five. Number six the testing. All right. So if you make it through the first five and you think you're home free, prepare ye yourself, because what's going to happen is you're going to get tested.

Speaker 1:

I may this week, be with a group of people that are all drinking coffee and all been. It had been seven whole days. Seven whole days with no alcohol and no herbal Prozac, to put it in a way that people who know would understand. So no alcohol, no herbal Prozac for seven days, right. And then last night came and I spent a good six to seven hours yesterday removing canna lilies from one of the beds in my front yard. And if you've never worked with canna lilies, I'm just here to say if you want something that prolifically grows in your garden without you doing anything, you can get some canna lilies along with vinca. These are two. If you want something to grow quick and you need to cover a bunch of ground, get yourself some vinca and canna lilies and Just let it go wild, because they will.

Speaker 1:

And in the 22 months that I was gone from my house here in Bedford County, tennessee, before I left, I had no idea that canna lilies were like vinca Okay, just saying, and they're so pretty and tropical looking. And what I did was I bordered my strawberry patch with a pretty little line of canna lilies. And 22 months later, when I returned and I'm just reminding you that you know the first year my husband was doing well to just go through the daily motions of life, because he was devastated to the ground, because he had burned every bridge with his wife and his children and it was a very difficult time for him. So the very last thing he was going to do was go out and tend my gardens. So when I returned, 22 months later, I had canna lilies everywhere. I mean there were like a hundred of them, and I had put a couple two of two of them in a bed with my elderberry bush, which will eventually grow into a tree Elderberry. I wanted elderberries right.

Speaker 1:

So when I returned home, these canna lilies had surrounded and were suffocating this elderberry tree. So that was my first project and I just thought it would take me a couple hours to just cut the lilies down. And oh, no, no, no, they are rhizomes underneath the ground. And the only thing that saved my ass from working two days was the fact fact that I had lined that bed with the black fabric because I wanted it to be weed-free and therefore the rhizomes didn't get as deep in the ground. And I was able, pretty much with a little effort, to pull up the black fabric along with. You know, my gosh, there was probably 50 rhizomes in that bed.

Speaker 1:

Long story short to say that, at the end of six or seven hours of digging and pulling and bending and cutting and my hands, my whole body was vibrating. What did you do to me? Now? What was the old Teresa Marie, who, I'm reminding you, was the hippie freak of the South, terry Wilson, the hippie freak of the South? And reminding you that I am no longer that person. I have stepped into my true self, which is Teresa Marie, the ambassador of Chi.

Speaker 1:

But I had an old way of coping with things coping with pain, whether it's physical or emotional or spiritual Coping. One of the common ways that our family has coped is with alcohol or substance. So my husband and I went out to dinner and I had no idea that this was going to happen. But here it is Test, test test. My husband ordered a dulce de leche with our Mexican food and I was feeling so uncomfortable in my body that it just came out of my mouth. Well, I'll have a Corona with lime and salt, please. And my husband kind of looked at me because, without saying a word, I did not tell my husband. And this is a whole nother episode, because sometimes things are mentioned to you by your higher self or by God and they're meant for you and nobody else. And so when I decided to stop drinking any alcohol or using any kind of herbal Prozac, I didn't make an announcement to my husband. But my husband is a detail man and I know that he was paying attention, because any time that he was indulging he kind of looked at me and a couple of times wanted to hand something to me but noticed that I was not taking it and so he would just set it down or not offer a drink to me, right? And after I ordered it and the waiter went away, I realized, oh, I just failed the test. And then I thought to myself Terry, the hippie freak of the South, okay, we're going to go ahead and do this because, wow, this really did taste good. And I am on a date night with my husband and I just was a beast out in the yard and I am not going to beat myself up. But you know what? Tomorrow's a new day and we get up and we start again.

Speaker 1:

So, whatever you decide to cut out of your life, expect number six to come, and it's very insidious. You'll be going so good and you'll be on that path and you're feeling successful. And I have to tell you that all last week I felt lighter, I felt more at ease, I didn't have any bloat in my belly because of the lack of coffee and creamer, and so you're feeling like you are victorious and boom, oh yeah, just like that, the test will come in. And again, just like the decision-making process, there may be a little bit of vacillation, back and forth, you may stumble a little bit, but that doesn't mean you have to go down the path, because I tell you what before you get to number five, which is decision time, you're going to vacillate back and forth and back and forth. You may do two days, you may do one, you may do three days and back up, before you literally make the decision that nope, nope, I'm no, I'm no, I'm not doing it. Okay, so give yourself a little bit of grace in this process, because it is a process. It's not perfection. Just aim for daily progress.

Speaker 1:

Okay, number seven the day of reckoning. When you suddenly realize that you have made it to the other side. You have been dancing the two-step one step forward, two steps back, three steps forward, one step back and all of a sudden the day of reckoning comes and you're in a room full of people. You have all sorts of temptation to do whatever it is that you finally decided in step five to stop. And you have reckoned with the fact that it is not even phasing you. You don't feel like you want it, you're not struggling with it, you're not inside saying, well, maybe one or whatever.

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And baby, this is not just about substance abuse, this is about whatever it is that you know is no longer serving you. Oh, I'm just getting hit with the cursing one because I dropped two curses today. And what have I said to my husband for the last three days? Man, can you please stop cursing? Oh, buddy, I'm back to number one, aren't? I Talk about raw invulnerability. This is what this show is all about. Okay, so it could be cursing when I hear my husband, I think, man, he's so much more magnanimous than this, he's so much more spiritual than the F-bombs that he constantly oh, but I'm a construction worker, you know, you just need to get over yourself. Well, you know, we all have our things that we need to decide on right.

Speaker 1:

So the reckoning comes, and then number eight. Number eight is the beautiful step that we all want to reach in this awkward awakening journey, and that's what my friend Sandra Finley taught me. You know that you have fully transformed, when you literally can laugh at it. You can literally have a moment where you think, wow, I used to do XYZ all the time, man, that was a long time ago and you realize that you literally reached the victory over whatever it is out of, whatever program that the matrix threw at you, right. So in closing, I want to share a quote by Lord Chesterfield Awkwardness is a more real disadvantage. And now let me back up. That is not the quote. This is the quote and it's by Sammy Rhodes. Sorry, sir Chesterfield, I mean it was a good quote, but it's not the one I wanted. I'm not going to take out my mistakes, because you know what Mistakes are our learning points and I can just seamlessly make a mistake and just move on.

Speaker 1:

So Sammy Rhodes says I genuinely believe that our awkwardness and awkward moments are things we should run away from. No, that's not what Sammy said. They're things to avoid at all from. No, that's not what Sammy said. They're things to avoid at all costs. No, that's not what he said. Awkward moments are to absolutely avoid. No, he said they are invitations, invitations to know more deeply the grace of God. Because you see, as I just said a few moments ago, give yourself grace. This is a process. That is what God does with us. Think about your life. Think about all you know religiosity would say all the sin in your life, right. Think about how, in spite of any of that, god loves us and he offers his riches at his son, jesus Christ's expense. That's what grace is God's riches at Christ's expense. So give yourself a little grace. And then Sammy Rhodes continues with awkwardness is an invitation to vulnerability, and vulnerability is where intimacy and connection are found.

Speaker 1:

Now imagine if we had conversations like what I was just talking about and you actually find a group of people. Now you want to think it's your family, but we're going to talk about that in another episode. Family, but we're going to talk about that in another episode. It's often not your family that you can be vulnerable with, because your family knows you and they remember your past and maybe they are on step one and they're recognizing all the wrongs that you did with them and they haven't recognized that you maybe have changed. They haven't recognized that you maybe have changed. They haven't recognized that the things that they see in you may be issues that they have. But imagine the world that we are working and striving and progressing towards is a world where we literally can be vulnerable enough to say you know what? This is what I'm struggling with, and you know I have this battle between my ears right now. I want to stop this, but there's something in me that likes it a whole lot, and we have these conversations, which brings in the connections that we so long for. So, wherever you are on this process, if you're on step one, recognizing it in others.

Speaker 1:

Step two, finally beginning to realize that it's you you were looking at in the mirror. Step three, battling with the truth of just that that this is your issue and nobody else. Step four, finally surrendering to the truth that it really is your issue. Step five, decision time and then coping with the vacillation therein being on that seesaw. Step six, the testing. Step seven, the day of reckoning, of realizing that you've reached the victory. And step eight, when you can actually laugh at who you used to be and it doesn't feel awkward or bad anymore. Feel awkward or bad anymore. Where are you at in the steps of the awkwardness, of awakening, and I hope that today, maybe you can understand that it is literally a process and to give yourself a big hug at being so courageous of beginning to awaken. And on that note, I love you. Humanity, peace out.