The Psychology of Spiritual Growth: What No One Tells You About Your Awakening

In this episode of Integrated Wisdom, we explore what it means to live “between worlds” — when the inner shift has already begun, but the outer reality hasn’t rearranged itself yet. Many people are experiencing this right now: old identities no longer fit, new purpose is emerging, and yet… clarity isn’t there yet. It can feel disorienting, isolating, or like something is “wrong” — when actually, something deeper is waking up.

Tatiana (psychologist + evidence-based spirituality educator) offers a grounded exploration of spiritual evolution, identity transitions, and why these liminal spaces are not setbacks, but an essential phase of growth. You’ll also hear a personal reflection on the transition she’s in — expanding beyond private practice into a broader mission of teaching and speaking about spirituality, psychology, and science.

If you’ve been feeling stuck, uncertain, or “in between,” this is a compassionate guidepost for the road you’re on.

What We Cover

• The psychological + spiritual layers of identity shifts
• Why liminal spaces are often sacred initiations
• How to recognize when you’re in a spiritual transition
• What helps you stay resourced when clarity hasn’t landed yet
• Why not knowing can be a sign of deep alignment

This episode is for you if:

• You feel like you’re outgrowing your current life or role
• You know something is changing, but you can’t articulate it yet
• You’re drawn to spirituality that is grounded in research and lived experience
• You want to feel less alone in your evolution

✨ Free Resource Mentioned:

The Science of Spirituality FREE micro-course - https://www.integratedwisdom.com.au/microcourse

The Signal Newsletter: https://www.integratedwisdom.com.au/

Contact Tatiana:

You can now send me your comments or questions, to hello@integratedwisdom.com.au or you can also find me on Instagram  https://www.instagram.com/wisdomwithtatiana/

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Intro and Outro music: Inspiring Morning by Playsound

Disclaimer: This podcast is intended for educational purposes only. It is not intended to be treated as psychological treatment or to replace the need for psychological treatment.

Transcript

Tatiana: 0:00

Welcome to the Integrated Wisdom Podcast. I am your host, Tatiana Da Silva, psychologist, spiritual educator, and founder of a body of work devoted to lead others to remembering what we never truly forgot, that science and spirit were never separate. They are each in their own way expressions of the same sacred architecture. This podcast is for the quiet revolutionaries, the therapists, the seekers, the spiritually discerning and scientifically curious who know that we are being called into a new paradigm for personal and collective transformation. Together we explore what it means to live a coherent. Soul led life drawing from psychology, neuroscience, epigenetics, energy medicine, and spiritual remembrance. These aren't just conversations. They are transmissions for those ready to return to what's true, to what's quietly waiting beneath it. Hello and welcome to the Integrated Wisdom Podcast. I'm Tatiana, and I'm so excited to have you join me today. Today we're talking about something that almost every single person on a spiritual path goes through at some point in time, sometimes more than once. Um, but very few people actually name it out loud. And what I'm talking about is that uncomfortable stage where you're not who you used to be anymore, but also have no idea who you're becoming. It's like the ground underneath your life shifts completely, but the new shape hasn't formed yet, and so it feels very disorientating. That's what we're exploring today, the space between worlds, and so see if this sounds familiar. Parts of your life that used to feel solid. Now feel maybe a little bit off. Conversations that once felt fulfilling, now feel just surface level or maybe the identity that you've worn for years just doesn't quite fit anymore. You know, you might look around your life and think, yeah, I built this. I chose this. So why does this suddenly feel like it's not mine? Does any of that sound familiar? It's a strange and disorientating place because from the outside nothing is wrong, right? But internally, everything is changing and sometimes quite rapidly. What's happening is that your inner world has evolved faster than your outer world can keep up. Your values, your priorities, your sense of truth, they're all rearranging themselves, and this is the spiritual growth that no one really talks about or cheers for. It's quiet, it's messy. It asks for patience that you don't feel like you have. And so what I want to offer you is a different way to understand this, this phase of your life. And it is a stage that we all go through sometimes for longer periods than others, but it's, it's definitely a passing phase. So this space between who you were and who you're becoming is all part of the design. It's not a mistake. Spiritual evolution doesn't unfold like a straight line. Now we've all heard that saying that healing isn't linear and it's truly not. Um, and spiritual evolution isn't linear either. We will have growth spurts where we make huge leaps forward, and then we might kind of stagnate for a little period of time. Maybe sometimes we might even default to certain things that we didn't want to do anymore, before we can take another big leap forward again. So. it's not a straight line by any means. We'll expand and sometimes life doesn't always update instantly. It doesn't keep pace with what's going on internally. And so we can be left kind of feeling like we're hanging in between these two, seemingly opposite stages. But here's the thing, transformation will always disrupt your identity first. Because before the new version of you arrives, the old version starts to loosen and disintegrate a little bit. And that can be super uncomfortable, but it's necessary. And I want you to think about it like the, you know, the chrysalis stage of a butterfly. For a period of time it's cocooned in the chrysalis, it's in the darkness. It all feels like it's lost before it can break out into the new version of itself as the butterfly. Spiritual transformation, spiritual growth is very much like that. And this is where most people will start to doubt themselves, right? When relationships will feel different, when maybe your work starts to feel misaligned. when what once felt like purpose now feels like routine or it doesn't even feel like it fits. And we often interpret this as. I'm losing it. We start to really second guess ourselves and our sanity. Or maybe we beat ourselves up and start, you know, thinking to ourselves that we're ungrateful or we feel really lost and stuck and say to ourselves, I'm risking everything for nothing. you can't really see the, the results or the the gains coming from these changes yet. But what if, what's really going on is that your inner life is just calling your outer life forward. Not away from what matters, but towards what's now true or what was always true, but we had to build towards. And I think one of the hardest ways in which this manifests is in our relationships. You know, in my last episode I spoke a little bit about some of the recent transitions that I've been through as part of my current growth journey, and that involved, um, that disintegration of my marriage. But throughout this process, there's been lots of different relationships that have transitioned in my life too, and it can be really hard when the people around you might not be changing in the same pace as you or in the same direction as you, so they might not understand what's unfolding for you. They might even feel threatened by it in some ways, and that can feel really isolating and really scary because we are so deeply wired for belonging. Right. But it's so important for us to acknowledge as well that belonging that requires us to shrink who we are is not belonging. it's self betrayal. And as you grow spiritually, the relationships that can hold your fullness become clearer. And those that can't, they become clearer too. Unfortunately, and that clarity is both a gift, but it's also very painful. And you know, from my own perspective, I've gone through this process several times in my life and one of the moments that I'm going through right now is one of those growth periods that you know, I wanna share with you because I think. I want you to understand that these, these transitions are part of the experience of being here, and you're not alone maybe your exact expression of, of the transition is unique to you. It doesn't look exactly like other people's, but in one way or another, we're all going through, or we're going to go through or have gone through these moments of transition. That feel really destabilizing in a way. And for me, um, other than my relationship, my career is, is one where there is at the moment a lot of shift. For most of my professional life. I have been very clear on who I am. I'm a psychologist helping people one-on-one in private practice. I've been running my private practice for 14, almost 15 years now. And that is what I've lived and breathed all along. And from very young, I knew that I wanted to be a psychologist. I toyed around with a couple of different things, but most of the time my true north was always psychology. that I kept coming back to, and it's what I envisaged myself doing for my entire life. And. it's an identity that's always been reliable. It's always been safe, and it's one that I've always been very proud of. I'm very proud of the work that I've done or that I still do. I've always loved, the privilege of sitting in these processes of healing with other people. and it's, you know, I used to joke that if I didn't need to make money for a living, I would do it for free because I just loved it so much. But over these recent years, as you've been, listen, those of you who have been following the podcast will have heard me say at different times. There's been a lot of shifts internally for me, calling me towards, I guess, my next stage of, um, purpose. And it's all been in many ways, very subtle. It's been gradual, definitely not all at once, but it's been growing in intensity, in urgency, over the years and particularly in the last couple of years, that sense of urgency has been much more acute. and it's this subtle knowing that just wouldn't go away, that there is more to why I'm here. There's more that I'm here to say. There is more that I'm here to contribute and there are more people that I'm meant to support in ways that I just couldn't possibly do in one-on-one therapy, and that's the work that I'm doing now. Speaking on spirituality, consciousness, science, healing. It all just feels so deeply aligned for me. It feels really true and alive in my bones. It's why I am here. You know, it's what I'm called to do now, but it's also been very disorienting because this old version of me, the psychologist, whose weeks are structured around clients and clinical frameworks, it hasn't fully dissolved. You know, I still work clinically three days a week and I am very much with one foot in each camp at the moment. In some ways, these two versions of me can clash at times because as I've spoken about in, in some other episodes, particularly here in Australia, this integration of spirituality In clinical practice, is still not widely done or spoken about. So at times it can feel like I'm doing something a little bit subversive, even though I'm not, and there's so much like scientific evidence to show why this is integral to, to the work that we do as psychologists, but it can feel sometimes like I am, I've got one foot in each world, if you like, and that can be confronting and disorientating at times. But this new version of me, the one that's here speaking to you now, it's still also forming, right? Like I'm still finding my voice, still discovering what this mission wants to become. I've got ideas I get, I've got glimpses of where it's heading, but I don't see the full picture, which for me at times can be very, very confronting.'cause I like to know. I like to be able to plan with certainty. and it's not a really, unfolding in that way. so that can feel a little bit Uncomfortable a lot of the time. But, I want to understand that I'm living here in this, in-between space too, you know? some days it feels really thrilling, and other days it does feel like a little bit of a free fall. But what I'm certain of is that something is guiding this whole process, something intelligent, something loving, something wise. And even if I can't see the whole map yet, there is a part of me that trusts that is all going to unfold in the way that it needs to and at the pace that it needs to. And so for those of you who are listening and feel like you're living in this in-between space too, I want to give you a few gentle questions that you can sit with and reflect on to help you maybe gain a little bit more clarity about your own personal process. The first question is, what parts of my life no longer feel like a reflection of who I'm becoming? Like sit down, give yourself space, no distractions and journal on these questions really allow these answers to come to the surface. So again, the first question, what parts of my life no longer feel like a reflection of who I'm becoming? The second question is, where do I feel a quiet pull towards something more, even if I can't name it yet, or even if it doesn't make sense. And the third question is what would happen if I trusted the timing of this transition? So I don't want you to feel like you need to rush to clarity, right? Allow it to be revealed to you as you sit down in your journal. You might start first through answering intellectually, like thinking the way through the answers. But if you give yourself space and stillness, you might hear the answer come to the surface. It might float in into your awareness, either as visual images or felt sense, or it might even be a thought that you hear in your mind, but just allow this becoming to take the time that it needs, allow it to reveal itself to you in whichever way it needs to. Okay. And some other things that you can do to support yourself through this transition process are firstly, stay close to what feels meaningful, even if it's small. Follow the things that give you a subtle yes. Anything that you're encountering that you have a felt sense of a yes, even if it's really subtle and quiet. Follow that. Follow those nudges. Secondly, allow uncertainty to exist without forcing clarity. Full disclosure, this is one that I struggle with a lot. Um, but allowing yourself to sit in that, in that space of uncertainty, right? Like allowing these things to unfold naturally or in their own time, seeing questions more as doorways being curious. Um, that's really important part of this process and keeping yourself sane, I guess, whilst you're going through this. so that's number two. Thirdly, listen to your inner knowing a lot more boldly. So not needing external validation for your inner truths. When you feel that inner, like, that inner sense of certainty, when you've got a clear answer, just lean into that. Follow that unquestioningly and see where it takes you. And lastly. Place yourself in the environment where your evolution is welcomed. So read, listen, connect with what resonates to these new evolving aspects of yourself, right? And allow your system to adjust, and that includes the people that you are, you connect with. Right. Finding people that are, that are supportive of this transition, even if they don't understand it, they don't have to understand it. Right. But they need to be supportive. So guarding that fiercely. Okay. And so, yeah, I hope that if you're in this liminal space, this in-between world phase in your life right now, I hope that you feel seen here. You know you are, and know that you're not collapsing, you're not disintegrating, you're not lost, you're just expanding and evolving. And expansion can feel like instability before it feels like freedom. So if this episode resonated for you and you're craving a more grounded way to explore the science behind all of this that is validating so much of what you are experiencing, I've created something that might support you. It's a free, really short micro course called The Science of Spirituality. Just three short videos total of 15 minutes max. between the three videos, um, to just help you understand a little bit more of what the science is showing and, and connecting these dots for you It doesn't tell you what to believe. It just gives language and evidence to what you are already sensing. And you can find the link in the show notes, So I just wanna thank you for being here today. I'm really grateful to have you join me. I hope it has resonated. If you know of other people in your life who might be, going through something similar or who this might resonate for or guide them through something that they're living through, you know, invite you to share it. let's have more of these conversations. Let's normalize these experiences for people. So once again, thank you for, for being here. And as always, you were never disconnected. Only waiting to remember. We'll see you next time. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Integrated Wisdom. It is my sincere wish that this episode may have intrigued and inspired you to reclaim your power and step into becoming more fully integrated spiritual beings. New episodes are published every second Wednesday, and I hope that you'll continue to join us as we dive deeper into what it means to live an integrated life. If this space has stirred something in you, I invite you to subscribe, share it with those attuned to this path, and explore the full body of work at integratedwisdom.com au. You can also find me on Instagram at Wisdom with Tatiana, where the conversation continues. Until next time, stay discerning, stay curious, and let this be your reminder. You were never disconnected. Only waiting to remember.