The Messy Middle of Awakening with Amanda Parker (#052)

What if everything you've been told about spiritual awakening is wrong? Forget the Instagram posts about divine downloads and blissful enlightenment—the real story of awakening is far messier, more isolating, and infinitely more human than anyone wants to admit. And if you're in the thick of it right now, wondering why your entire life suddenly feels intolerable while everyone around you seems perfectly content, you need to hear this.

In this raw, deeply personal solo episode, Amanda pulls back the curtain on what actually happens after an awakening experience—the part no one talks about when they're selling you that ayahuasca retreat or Kundalini activation. She shares her own seven-year journey through what she calls the "messy middle": that disorienting liminal space where your old life no longer fits, your relationships start falling away, and you're trying desperately to make sense of an experience you don't even have words for. From her pivotal Reiki attunement in Thailand that shifted everything, to the years of fumbling through courses and teachers trying to intellectualize something that could only be understood through the body, Amanda offers the hand-holding and validation that she wishes someone had given her when she first stepped onto this path.

This episode is essential listening if you're experiencing that gnawing restlessness that won't go away, if you're the only person in your circle questioning everything, or if you're secretly terrified that something's wrong with you because the life that looked perfect on paper suddenly feels unbearable. Amanda speaks directly to the shame of wanting "more," the exhaustion of finally feeling again after years of numbing out, and the grief of outgrowing relationships, careers, and identities that once defined you. But she also shares the truth that makes it all worthwhile: on the other side of this uncomfortable transformation is a life lived in full technicolor, where nothing can stop you because you finally know yourself completely.

Whether you're already deep in your awakening journey or just beginning to sense that there's something more calling to you, this episode offers the compassionate, brutally honest roadmap you've been searching for. Amanda's message is clear: you're not broken, you're not alone, and the messy middle is exactly where you're supposed to be.

How to get in touch:

Website: www.amandaparker.co

Instagram: @amandaparker.co

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandamparker/

Podcast: www.dontsteponthebluebells.com

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Transcript

[00:00:00] We might think that we're signing up for an ayahuasca retreat because we're gonna get the answers to the universe and feel this deep connection to love and to light. And that might be true, but the reality is that there's usually a period, sometimes of years where you're first having to take a look at everything that you thought you knew in your world and in your life.

Sit in that uncomfortable space of not knowing.

Welcome to, don't Step On the Bluebells, the podcast for personal healing and transformation take center stage. I'm your host, Amanda Parker, and I'm a fellow seeker on the journey of personal growth. Join me as I delve into the stories of gift. Did healers, guides and everyday people who have experienced remarkable transformations listen in as they share their practical wisdom to enrich your everyday [00:01:00] life.

And don't forget to hit, subscribe and never miss a new episode. Welcome to today's episode of Don't Step on the Bluebells. Today we're gonna be talking all about spiritual awakenings, but not quite in the way that you're used to hearing about them. So I really wanna dive in with you to that space that you enter after you've had an awakening experience.

So some might call this the messy middle. Some might call this the void. This is really that liminal space after you've had an experience that awakens you to something more, something greater, something deeper, and it's that place that you enter when the ground beneath you starts to fall away. When everything that you knew before doesn't seem to quite fit or make sense anymore, and the thing that you know [00:02:00] you're stepping into or working towards hasn't quite arrived yet.

So. If you are anything like me and you are into spirituality, or you're even just curious about it, you might be targeted by a lot of different events or programs or healers who are offering to support you to awaken. This might be through a Kundalini activation, or this might be through a plant medicine ceremony or some other kind of breath work experience.

Now, the truth is that all of these experiences have the possibility to help support you to awaken to something greater than yourself. Which is what we might call a spiritual awakening, but most people don't really share what happens next. So we might think that we're signing up for an ayahuasca [00:03:00] retreat because we're gonna get the answers to the universe and feel this deep connection to love and to light.

That might be true, but the reality is that there's usually a period, sometimes of years where you're first having to take a look at everything that you thought you knew in your world and in your life, and sit in that uncomfortable space of not knowing. So I wanna share with you a bit of my own experience and how this has shown up in my life, because I think that a lot of people are going through this kind of experience now, and they think that there's something wrong with them.

That's because the people around them are not having the same experience. We're not all on a timeline together. So you might be experiencing something where you realize that nothing in your life makes sense and you really want something [00:04:00] more, and everyone else around you seems sort of fine with the way that they're living their lives.

So this is just one of the many ways that this kind of awakening really starts to show up and it can feel really isolating and lonely if you don't have anyone that you can speak to about what you're experiencing. So I really wanna share that experience with you. A, to just normalize that a spiritual awakening is not a one-time event, and then you're done.

It's something that, for me, it's been the last seven and a half, eight years already, and I'm feeling the ground beneath my feet now, but there have been periods over the last years where I really wasn't sure what the hell was going on. And I had no idea how to get the answers or get the support that I would've needed at that time.

So I spent a lot of time fumbling my way through. Trying to [00:05:00] understand using every tool I had, which to be honest, are mostly intellectual tools. I love to read, I love to learn. I love to take courses, but there's a big difference between having a tool, understanding something intellectually or with your analytical mind and actually having an embodied lived experience where you really get something like where that wisdom just drops in to knowing.

That is undeniable and has nothing to do with what you know, or a 10 step process that you might be able to take yourself through in a logical way. So for me, there were quite a few experiences that I had had that could have led up to an initial awakening. So I was working in a job, I used to work in wildlife conservation.

I was living in Berlin. I had just ended a relationship. That was a [00:06:00] really difficult relationship for me. It helped me grow a lot as a person, but it didn't always feel good. I was looking at the job I was doing, knowing that I was bored, that I was not challenged and getting to do work that really lit me up anymore, even if the overarching to topic of protecting animals and wildlife did still interest me.

I knew that I wanted a change, but I had. No idea how to make that change happen or what the first step should be. So I felt like. No one understood that I was in this period of craving something more, craving something deeper because on the outside, people were looking in going, holy shit. You work at this incredible organization, and like you made it.

And I felt that way too. So there was a lot of shame and guilt about wanting something more when I had made it already on paper. But the truth [00:07:00] was that it wasn't fulfilling. It wasn't lighting me up anymore. At that stage in my life, I went, I did an MBA, so I signed up for a business program because I thought, well, hey, at least that might actually help me to get into a position in perhaps the private sector that I wouldn't be able to do with so much nonprofit experience on my resume or on my cv.

I went, I did the MBA, hoping that that would be the answer. It wasn't, let me tell you, that was an incredibly difficult year and a half of balancing my work life and my study life, but it meant that that was the beginning of my search. From there, I worked with a coach in Berlin. I later went and joined her consultancy working in leadership development.

Again, I thought this might be the solution to that restlessness. That antsiness just changing my career, doing something different. The truth was that it wasn't more fulfilling. Yeah, I [00:08:00] learned a lot. Like I'm still super grateful for that experience, but it was also incredibly difficult and wasn't the answer to what I was searching for.

So I just kept trying to find a solution that I already knew that I could just pile on top of this. Growing, knowing inside that this wasn't the right path for me and that there was something more, and most of my friends, most of the people I knew. Continued to work in the jobs that they found that were going well.

Even if they didn't love them, they were happy enough, they had their salary coming in, maybe their friends at work. So I really was an outlier amongst the people that I knew, that I was restless, that I wanted something more, or that I really believed there was something deeper or greater out there. So fast forward, I left the consultancy.

I moved to Southeast Asia. I spent eight months traveling around Asia. I did my coaching training in [00:09:00] Singapore, and then when I got to Thailand, as part of my plan travels, I had this moment of insight, this drop, and it was like a voice that came outta nowhere that just told me You are a healer. I listened to that as I was sitting on a plane flying from Shanghai to Bangkok and heard that voice, and I knew that I had to follow it and find out what that meant.

So when I arrived in Thailand, I found a healer, a teacher who taught Reiki Emma, who was my Reiki teacher. I reached out to her. We arranged a time that I could come and learn Reiki level one with her. So I went, had an amazing time traveling around Asia, did my training with Emma, but everything that happened after that point, I, I really couldn't have expected or planned for, because I know that for me, that was a singular point of awakening on a journey that had already been a few [00:10:00] years long of trying to find myself and find that deeper meaning.

When I was sitting in the healing rooms at Emma's home and she gave me those first reiki attunements, I could just feel this vibration like moving through my entire body. It was as though the time space continuum didn't make any sense anymore. I often thought it was like, you know, in, in Charlie Brown when the teacher's talking and all you hear is W Wawa, that's literally how the air felt around me contracting and expanding, but I didn't understand what was happening.

All I knew was that something powerful had come and seemed to take over my body and that nothing made sense after that. All of the experiences that I had had until that point in my [00:11:00] life in my thirties didn't make any sense, but I had no context for what was happening or what to do with it. Sure, I could call my teacher and ask her for support or Reiki sessions or to talk through what I was going through, but to be honest, I didn't know that I was going through something special.

I just sort of assumed that maybe. Life was just a little bit hard, and there are so many people who are going through their own experience of awakening, which is really this point in time where you start to be more open to the nuance of energy of things that you can't quite understand to this sense of something greater than you.

And I didn't grow up with a concept of God. I didn't grow up in a church or a temple. My family was not religious, so we didn't have those practices. Some [00:12:00] people who maybe have had the experience of religion or the ritual that comes with religion in their life can have an easier time to contextualize.

This experience, but for me, I really didn't have a place to put it. So I tried very hard to just continue with life and to go about my day in a normal way without disrupting things too much. So I. Tried my hardest. I was at that stage trying to launch my coaching business and just tried to get my head into everything, ignoring all of these sensations that were happening through my body, through my energy.

As I started my coaching business, I started to integrate the energy work into that, but it was sort of fun. I was looking at it as like this cool party trick that I had and feeling deeper into it, but not fully understanding. That led to a period of about six, five or six years. [00:13:00] Of just trying to make sense of what I had experienced and trying to find the ground beneath my feet again.

So I looked for courses, I looked for teachers, I looked for mentors. I looked for peers, friends. Anyone I could speak to about what I was experiencing to find others who might be having the same experience. I was very lucky at that time. A woman who is one of my dear, dear, dear friends, who we had done our coach training together was having a very similar experience.

And so we were able to share with one another what was happening. Although I couldn't have even given it the words of spiritual awakening because I didn't know that's what it was. It wasn't until many years later when I was once again traveling in Thailand with my husband and he did the reiki level one training with my same teacher, and he had a beautiful experience and he.

Described it as being [00:14:00] something like a meditation experience that he hadn't had before. And in sharing with him and talking through what each of our experiences had been, being exposed to that Reiki energy. Also working with Emma, it became very clear to me in that moment, that specific experience that I had had was an awakening, and it was in a way that I.

Was prepared for, but also really not prepared for at all, and all of a sudden, the six years prior started to make sense to me the reason that it had felt so challenging. The reason it was so hard to find the words or the teachers to understand that experience for myself. In my own journey, there was so much questioning and self-doubt because I didn't know what was happening.

[00:15:00] I see a lot of people in my world today, in the world of LinkedIn where I'm very active and talking with people often, and in the clients who come to see me, they're going through their own version of this awakening. They're realizing that the life that they've been leading doesn't make sense anymore, that they want something different.

Many people who I work with start to find that the corporate settings or the business settings that they've been operating in feel intolerable to them. Now, the same goes with whatever their social circles are, that things just start to feel. Really hard in a way that's unexpected and that they know there's something more.

What I will say is that each person who embarks on this journey, 'cause we all have the opportunity, but not all are ready. It'll all be in different timing, but everyone who decides to go all in, [00:16:00] I honestly believe these are the bravest people in the world because they're actually willingly going in to take a look at who they are.

Uh, what matters to them at what life has been until now, and they're committing to live their life very differently. And often it's different, not just from the way they've been living their own lives, but potentially from the way that anyone around them has been living their lives. And it's a painful process of separation.

There's this distinct moment where you're no longer fitting into the. Friendships that you had before where your family might not understand you, maybe your romantic partners or kids no longer understand you, and you're finding a completely new way forward. So it's not all light and love, although every single person that I have spoken to, and I know this is true for me, I [00:17:00] wouldn't change it for the world.

I would never go back to feeling asleep. I would never go back to that feeling of being numb or unaware. It, it would literally be impossible, intolerable to me to do that. So even though it feels like it's a challenge because it's something completely new, with the right guidance, with the right circles of people around you who you can share your experience with, so you don't feel alone in what you're experiencing, that's the way to actually.

Make it through with without so much hardship. I say that with a laugh because I really wish I had known that. I wish that seven years ago someone had taken my hand and explicitly said, Hey, things might feel weird for the next few years. It won't always make sense. It might feel hard, but you're not [00:18:00] alone.

There's thousands, if not millions of us who are going through this. And you're just trying to find your way through for now. But when you're ready, things will start to settle. Don't try to tackle it with your head. Just really focus on the things you're feeling and what you know, and you'll make it through.

And I would've loved to hear those words throughout the last few years just to know. That this was a normal part of the process and that I didn't need to find every mentor and course, and this and that to validate myself or to prove that I was on the right path or doing things in the right way. I think some of the things that are less talked about are, you know, those old relationships that start falling away.

You not really being able to recognize yourself fully or feel like you don't really know who you are. The feeling that like all the rules or the way that the world is that [00:19:00] used to make so much sense to you has completely changed. So everything that used to work before suddenly doesn't work anymore, and there's an inherent loneliness in outgrowing a life that you used to live that no longer fits.

That might be relationships or friendships. That might be your job. That might be the geography, like the location that you're actually living in. You start to find that you are meeting different parts of yourself that you've been keeping buried. You might not have even known that they existed or that they were hiding there underneath all of the other experiences that you're having.

There's this. Exhaustion that comes with the process of finally starting to feel again, no longer numbing out those things that. Don't feel comfortable or that don't work for us, that you're actually starting to feel. And [00:20:00] that means that you're feeling at the high end of the spectrum, all these positive feelings, joy, laughter, fun, love, as well as the things that we think of as more negative emotions like fear or sadness or grief over so many things that we never really knew we were holding onto.

And it's important to know that. Doing that inner work, that work, putting that time in to really get to know yourself and to understand who you are, what matters to you, to really understand the emotional lifecycle within. And to know yourself, I always talk about our, our inner wisdom or our intuition, but to really learn to hear that voice clearly and to trust it, this is the magic of the whole process because once you start to work your way through that, nothing can stop you.

Literally nothing. [00:21:00] When that's the point at which you actually reach that feeling of love and light and euphoria of everything starting to work out in your favor. So know that if you're in this messy middle. That you are not alone. There's nothing wrong with you. You're not broken. You're just in the process of becoming more of yourself.

This process of transformation is certainly not linear, and my experience won't look like yours or the other person. So we all have a very individualized personal experience of awakening and that growth and the phase of awakening can take longer than expected. But it's worth it to stay in it fully because you will come out on the other side and you will be so grateful that you did all that work that you needed to do so that your life could be lived in full technicolor.

After for anyone who's going through this [00:22:00] experience now, I really hope that you come away with this idea that you're not alone and you're not broken. You can make it through, and there's others who are going through the same thing that you are. So if this episode resonates with you, I would love to hear from you.

Go ahead and connect with me on Instagram. If that feels good. You can find me@atamandaparker.co. You can go onto my website, either don't step on the bluebells.com or amanda parker.co. So that's Amanda parker.co. Fill in the contact form, send me a dm, get in touch, because you do not need to experience this alone, and I am more than happy to help support you to find whatever the resources or tools are that you need to make it through this process in the best possible way.

I am so appreciative of you being here today, wherever you are on your journey. I hope that I didn't scare you off of it [00:23:00] too much, but know that it's definitely worthwhile doing that inner work and following through and finding out who you really are and what you're capable of is the most rewarding gift that you can give yourself.

So thanks for tuning in to this episode of Don't Step On The Bluebells, and I will see you next time. Thanks for tuning into today's episode of Don't Step On The Bluebells. If you enjoyed this conversation, please give the podcast a five star rating wherever you listen. And don't forget to hit subscribe and follow along so you never miss a new episode.