One of the biggest misconceptions about the awakening journey is that, once you begin to see the truth, life somehow becomes easier. It doesn’t. In many ways, it becomes harder.
You lose certainty before you gain wisdom. You lose your old identity before you discover who you really are. You lose friendships, communities, careers, beliefs and sometimes even your sense of direction. There are moments when it feels as though everything you once stood on has disappeared beneath your feet, but perhaps that is exactly the point.
A caterpillar cannot become a butterfly without first dissolving into what looks like complete chaos. The old version has to die before the new one can emerge. The awakening journey is no different.
There will be days when you question yourself, when you wonder if you’ve made a terrible mistake, when the loneliness feels overwhelming and the weight of seeing a world that others cannot yet see becomes almost too much to carry.
Those moments are not signs that you are failing, they are signs that you are changing.
Every illusion that falls away makes room for a deeper truth. Every fear you face makes you a little stronger. Every challenge forces you to become the person capable of living the life you know is possible, so trust the person you are becoming.
The version of you that exists on the other side of this journey is wiser, calmer, freer and far less afraid than the person who first stepped onto the path.
So if you feel as though your world is falling apart, don’t assume you are losing yourself, you are simply shedding everything that was never truly you in the first place.
And one day you will look back at this chapter with gratitude, because you will realise that the person you were becoming was catching you all along.
Sunny's Journal 