How Do You Start Your Spiritual Journey? A Guide to Finding Your Path
How do you start your spiritual journey? You already did! Or you wouldn't be reading this. Maybe you're doubting yourself. Maybe you're feeling impatient and want to move faster on your spiritual journey. Wondering what you should be doing or how you can become spiritually enlightened. This impatience is just more evidence that you're already on your spiritual path.
So now you've taken your first steps, let's see what's in store for you on the path to spiritual awakening. And more importantly, how you can move along a little bit faster and really deepen your spiritual journey.
THE SPIRITUAL JOURNEY MAPPED IN PSYCHOLOGY
I’m a transpersonal psychologist with over thirty years experience of walking the spiritual path. What you’ll find in this guide is a combination of transpersonal psychology theory and the insights that I’ve learnt along my path to spiritual awakening. If you haven’t heard of transpersonal psychology, it’s a branch of psychology that is specifically focused on the spiritual journey and our calling to it.
Transpersonal psychology studies the transformation along the path, altered states of consciousness that support our awakening, spiritual practices and tradition, ego transcendence, and much more to do with spirituality and transformation.
THE SPIRITUAL AWAKENING JOURNEY
The spiritual awakening journey is a spiritual adventure that is our birthright. As spiritual beings in a physical body, we've forgotten who we really are. The spiritual journey is about remembering who we are. At our core, in our essence. And orienting ourselves more and more towards that essence.
You see, we tend to think in terms of roles and identities when we think about who we are. I am a teacher, a wife, a daughter, a friend, a spiritual seeker. But this is not who I truly am. For all these things are temporary identities. I was not always a wife, and I will not always be a daughter.
The spiritual journey is about discovering who we are when all the temporary stuff is taken away. What remains behind all that noise? What never changes? What is stable?
That is the spiritual adventure, to discover that which is our true nature. (And let me tell you, it's worth the journey).
We discover our spiritual nature and inner self by mastering the egoic program. That is what spiritual practice is all about.
SPIRITUAL SEEKERS ON THE PATH
Your spiritual journey begins the moment you start searching and seeking. Often, people on the spiritual journey are unable to articulate what it is they are searching for, but they know they're searching for something.
They know there is more to life than the material world and the physical plane. They know there is a deeper meaning and a deeper understanding to be found.
The searching and seeking may not look like a spiritual journey at first. For some, it can express as travel, for others it's experimenting with drugs, and still others might nourish their spiritual dimension in service of others, looking for deeper connections.
And for some, it may never look like a spiritual journey, but they are nevertheless searching and nourishing their spiritual dimension.
Just because it doesn't feel like you're awakening or on your spiritual journey doesn't mean you're not.
It's like the seed that was planted deep in the ground a long time ago. It sits dormant for some time. When the conditions and environment are right, a process begins beneath the surface that no one can see.
The seed germinates for some time before cracking open. And a shoot emerges, pushing its way up through the ground. Eventually, it surfaces, and there is some small sign of growth. It continues to grow, reaching for the sun and the moon. It takes time, and sometimes it looks like nothing is happening, and then one day, it blossoms.
SIGNS YOU MAY ALREADY BE ON YOUR SPIRITUAL JOURNEY
The call to the spiritual path is often marked by shifts in our emotions and consciousness. If you’re feeling any of these emotions, it's a sure sign you're on your personal journey to spiritual awakening.
Disillusionment – A sense that something is deeply wrong or missing in life.
Confusion – Not understanding why things feel off, even if life appears “fine” on the outside.
Longing – A deep yearning for truth, peace, purpose, or something beyond the material.
Fear – Anxiety about the unknown or what this awakening might require.
Grief – Mourning a loss (literal or symbolic), or the collapse of a former identity or belief system.
Restlessness – Feeling unsettled, like life can’t go on the way it has.
Isolation – A sense of being misunderstood or alone in your experience.
Curiosity – A spark of interest in exploring deeper questions or paths.
Despair – A spiritual or existential crisis, often referred to as "the dark night of the soul."
Hope – Despite the chaos, a subtle sense that this disruption might lead somewhere meaningful.
THE AWAKENING PROCESS
The awakening process is unique. Just as we are all unique expressions of the divine, our journey back to essence is also unique. For some, it's slow and gradual. For others, it's fast and sharp.
There are no rules, and at times, you might find you can't keep up with your spiritual growth and evolution. While at other times, progress seems slow and almost non-existent.
PEAKS AND TROUGHS ON THE SPIRITUAL PATH
So often I have thought along my path that it's more like a rollercoaster than a path. I've had spiritual experiences that blew my mind and took my breath away, as well as moments of dry, arid spiritual desert. Both of these phases can serve us equally along the path to spiritual awakening.
SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES
Spiritual experiences like insights, transcendence and mystical experiences feel like they jumpstart our spiritual journey to inner peace and enlightenment. We feel like we're on a spiritual high and connected to a higher power.
In those moments when we are truly beingness itself, we realise what it's all about. We gain spiritual wisdom and a deeper understanding of our true nature. And we want the moment to last forever.
But as is the nature of the universe, everything is transient and no sooner do we experience enlightenment than we are catapulted back into our egoic selves and our material roles and identities. And then, desperate to destroy the ego and taste enlightenment again, we fall from our spiritual high.
SPIRITUAL DESERTS AND PLATEAUS
And at other times, it feels like progress is slow, that the spiritual journey has come to a grinding halt, and nothing will ever budge us closer to our spiritual nature, truth and enlightenment. Our yearning for truth, the sacred and the divine is on fire, but we are bound by our egoic identities in stories of me and mine, narratives of victim and struggle and spiritual frustration.
Doubt sets in, and maybe we lose our way for a while, but once you're on the path, you're on the path, and there's no going back. You are destined to respond to that deep calling that never leaves. The searching begins again for spiritual experiences and spiritual awakening.
We are like homing pigeons destined to return to our true essence and spiritual self.
THE YIN AND YANG OF THE SPIRITUAL JOURNEY
Balancing these two extremes is the key to riding a smooth spiritual journey and making consistent progress in your spiritual growth and evolution. Lucky for us, many people have walked the path before us and developed tried and tested tools, spiritual practices, attitudes and spiritual concepts to help us navigate the ups and downs along the way to self-discovery.
Yin and yang are powerful symbols that can serve to guide us along the spiritual journey. The symbol shows us duality. Two opposing forces, and yet there is always a little yang in the yin and a little yin in the yang. If you reflect on a deeper level, we can find plateaus in spiritual highs and spiritual highs in our plateaus. Balancing our journey and making it easier to tread the path.
The symbol also teaches us that yin will always become yang and yang will always become yin. We may feel as if we are in a spiritual desert, but soon enough, life will give us the opportunity to grow again, reflect, go deeper, and transcend.
Just like the cycles of nature, after the bloom. The plant goes dormant, resting beneath the surface, ready for spring to come and new growth to appear.
Remembering the yin-yang symbol helps us stay in the present moment. And not wish our lives away for things to be different from what they are.
What many people don't realise is that the yin-yang symbol is always contained within a circle. The circle symbolises the container of all. Everything. And nothing. The canvas, the backdrop, that which remains and is still regardless of the forces moving within it.
Likewise, your journey is contained within the sacred. It is as it is meant to be.
GETTING STARTED ON YOUR SPIRITUAL JOURNEY
The question is where to start! Unlike a backpacking adventure, where we've been preparing for months, on the spiritual journey, we often find ourselves already on it before we realise. And worse than that, totally unprepared.
Here are 5 steps to catching up and laying a good foundation so you can start your spiritual journey on the right foot.
1. Create Space for Stillness
Set aside 10–15 minutes a day for silence or meditation.
This helps you tune into your inner world and start recognizing what’s really going on beneath the surface.
2. Start a Spiritual Journal
Begin writing down thoughts, questions, dreams, and emotions.
This becomes a mirror for your inner landscape and helps track your growth and patterns over time.
3. Clarify Your Intention
Ask yourself: “What am I truly seeking?”
Whether it’s peace, connection, healing, or truth—naming your desire gives your journey direction.
4. Simplify Your Environment
Declutter your space and reduce distractions.
A calm, clean space can reflect and support inner clarity and spiritual focus.
5. Seek Guidance or Community
Join an awakening group, read spiritual texts, or find a teacher/mentor.
Walking alone is possible, but walking with others makes the journey richer, safer, and often more transformative.
TIPS FOR FINDING YOUR UNIQUE SPIRITUAL PATH
Everyone's spiritual journey is different. And different practices work for different people at different times. Below is a list of tips, tools and spiritual practices. Take what resonates with you on your spiritual journey.
SURRENDER
One of the most important attributes to develop on the spiritual journey is surrender. Surrender to what is. Surrender to where you are. Surrender what you want it to be. And surrender to what is out of your control. Practising surrender and letting go of our egoic agenda will ultimately bring us closer to truth, inner peace, and the divine.
INTEGRITY
For me, integrity is the most important spiritual practice that you can have. I know, no one ever told you that before. But you'll find it in every religion in the world. From the 10 commandments in Christianity, to the Yamas and Nyamas in Hinduism and the Yoga Sutras and the 5 precepts in Buddhism.
SELF-DISCIPLINE
You cannot have integrity without self-discipline. So, it follows that developing self-discipline is essential for a smooth spiritual journey. When we think of self-discipline, we tend to think of getting up early and doing our yoga or meditation practice. But that's just part of the story and not the most important.
Self-discipline is about how we conduct ourselves. Having discipline over our thoughts, our words and our deeds.
INNER WORK
Inner work is the combination of spiritual practices that develop transcendence and soul-level work that addresses our psyche and trauma. We tend to favour one or the other, but as with all things spiritual, we need balance, and nowhere is that balance more important than in our inner work.
I always say we can only transcend as far as we descend. We can only soar high as far as we dive deep. You can not have one without the other.
When these two aspects are out of balance, you end up with problems. Too much spiritual practice without depth psychological work ends in spiritual bypassing.
Too much depth, psychological soul-level work will result in self-obsessed, over-identification with the egoic self. Both extremes will land you in trouble on your spiritual journey.
SPIRITUAL PRACTICE
Spiritual practice is, therefore, a cornerstone of the spiritual journey. For me, the most powerful spiritual practices have been yoga, breathwork, mindfulness, and Vipassana meditation. But I have friends who have reached wonderful places on their spiritual journey through practices like Qi Gong.
Ultimately, a multi-pronged approach will serve you best. And there are endless options. Here are a few:
Meditation
Prayer
Chanting
Contemplation
Mindfulness
Gratitude
Fasting
Pilgrimage
Almsgiving
Service
Yoga
Sacred Dance
Rituals
Sacred Reading
Silence
Nature Immersion
Forgiveness
Loving-Kindness
Breathwork
Visualisation
SOUL WORK
And to balance all that spiritual practice and protect against spiritual bypassing, the gritty work of depth psychological reflection and healing. There's no way around it. If you're serious about your spiritual path, doing the hard work of understanding your personal egoic program will serve you in the end. It will be painful, and none of us likes that, but it's essential work.
It's irrelevant that you can meditate in a cave for 20 years if you come down from the mountain and start shouting at your parents. Even worse, when you think you're spiritual but you're backstabbing, gossiping, and always falling out with people because you haven’t addressed your attachment style issues.
Soul-level psychological work is all part of the spiritual journey. But like spiritual practices, there are many ways to go about it. Here are a few to get you started:
Family Constellation Work
Inner Child Healing
Shadow Work
Parts Work / Internal Family Systems (IFS)
Somatic Release Practices
Holotropic Breathwork
Emotional Release Techniques
Guided Trauma-Informed Meditation / Visualization
Schema Therapy
Psychodynamic Therapy
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)
Exposure Therapy
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
Art Therapy
Trauma-Informed Yoga
Hypnotherapy
Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT/Tapping)
Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR)
JOURNALING
I could've put journaling above, but I want to stress how important a practice it is, and I don't think there is a replacement. All the other practices can be replaced with other practices, but journaling has a magic of its own on the spiritual path.
There are many types of spiritual journaling, which make it flexible and adaptable to your needs at any point on your journey. Not only that, you can do it anywhere, anytime. There is something about journaling that affects us at a fundamental level. So, if you're not journaling as part of your spiritual journey already, I invite you to be inspired by my blog about spiritual journaling on your spiritual path.
PHASES OF THE SPIRITUAL JOURNEY
The beautiful thing about the spiritual journey is that it never ends. Sorry! If you were heading somewhere like an endpoint, it's not going to happen. Enlightenment is not an escape. It's a journey.
And in some ways, it's a journey that circles back around time and time again. But instead of a loop that brings you right back to where you started, it's more like a spiral, ever changing, ever growing, ever evolving.
Bringing you more peace, more joy, more gratitude, more contentment, and more wisdom as you tread the path.
And along the way, you'll start to recognise the landmarks, phases and signposts.
1. The Initiating Event/Experience (Call to Adventure)
A crisis, awakening, or profound moment disrupts ordinary life—this could be a loss, non-dual or mystical experience, other EHEs, burnout, or inner emptiness. It acts as the soul’s alarm clock, pulling you out of routine and initiating the journey inward. The known world no longer satisfies; a deeper truth beckons.
2. Search for Reconciliation (Crossing the Threshold / Road of Trials)
You begin seeking healing, understanding, or peace—often by confronting past wounds, inherited patterns, and inner conflict. This is the descent into the inner world: therapy, spiritual study, shadow work, or pilgrimage. The ego resists, but the deeper self pushes forward.
3. Between Two Worlds (Abyss / Ordeal)
You exist in limbo—caught between your former identity and your emerging self. Old beliefs no longer hold, but the new ones haven't fully taken root. There's often confusion, grief, and deep surrender. You’re living in a paradox, dismantling the illusion of control.
4. In the Experiential Paradigm (Revelation / Reward)
Truth is no longer just conceptual; it becomes embodied. Insight moves from the mind to the heart, to the breath, to the bones. You experience unity, presence, and deep compassion not as ideas, but as lived states. You taste freedom, even if only momentarily.
5. A New Way of Being in the World (Return with the Elixir)
You return to everyday life, but transformed. You're no longer driven by fear, conditioning, or ego alone. You carry a new awareness, living more authentically and in service to others. The journey has deepened your humanity and reconnected you to the sacred in ordinary life.
THE PATH TO INNER PEACE IS A BUMPY ROAD
No one embarks on a spiritual journey because it’s easy. We are called by something deep within. A deep desire for spiritual awakening. To reconnect with our inner self, true nature and sacred spirit. It's a personal journey, one that we and only we can tread. No one can do it for us. We must meet our inner demons ourselves. And in return, we transcend into realms of pure bliss, sacred wisdom and inner peace.
The spiritual journey is the only journey worth taking. I've been on it for over 30 years, and while the trials and tribulations are many, the rewards are out of this world. And I would not have it any other way.
I welcome you on your spiritual journey to spiritual awakening. May the path always be illuminated for you, may you cultivate integrity, surrender, and self-discipline as the tools that will protect and guide you along the way.
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