By Wes Annac, Editor, Openhearted Rebel

Reposted from August 22nd.

I wrote the following for the 263rd issue of the Weekly Awareness Guide, a written document distributed weekly via email that I offer for $11.11 a month.

Income from the guide helps me get by and ensures I can continue to offer free content, and every subscription is appreciated. The option to subscribe is given at the bottom of this post (learn about subscribing with cash/check here).

Spiritual awakening is the greatest gift you can receive, as it makes you aware you are a multidimensional being with a foot in all worlds. It helps you to see that the world is far more surreal than we like to think. Spiritual awakening is a treasure not to be discarded or misused, but cherished.

To “wake up” isn’t enough on its own, however. Once we’re awake, it’s up to us to do something with it. The universe doesn’t hand out enlightenment; we must pursue it and any opportunity for evolution our awakening provides.

We must do something with the gift we’ve been given.

The first question, then, is what to do with your awakening. Do you want to dive headfirst into the pursuit of a higher consciousness, or do you want to use what you’ve learned so far to help others? You could choose to forget about your awakening altogether, but why discard something so valuable?

You’re better off choosing one of the other options. Personally, I choose both.

I use writing to share what I’ve learned with those walking a similar path, and I use music and meditation to grow closer with the inner spirit. Writing also brings me closer to this part of myself, serving the dual purpose of expanding my mind while helping me to help you.

Although writing is undoubtedly a stern mental discipline, it feels good once you get the hang of it and the words start to flow.

Once awake, you can use writing, music, meditation, and plenty of other similar activities to become more aware while helping others do the same. With writing, you can research and share what others have said about the spiritual path or you can go straight to the source: your own mind, heart, and intuition.

The same can be said for if you pursue music, as creativity comes from the heart. The mind certainly has its role to play, but the heart lays the foundation.

In my opinion, the greatest thing you can do with your spiritual awakening is to return to the heart. Let your awakening redefine love as you know it. Awakening makes you aware of love and the importance of sharing it with a world that doesn’t know what it truly is.

Let the heart take center stage in your life. Share love with all, and let your love inspire compassion. After an awakening, your heart will break when you see how many people are suffering across the world. Don’t fear a broken heart. Let it fuel you to change what you cannot tolerate.

War, famine, and poverty are unacceptable. Tyrannical governments and dictatorships controlling, watching, and killing their own citizens is unacceptable. The suffering of the innocent angers and saddens the heart. In this way, you can see compassion as a source of power. Use it, and use it wisely.

One aspect of spiritual awakening people avoid is that it leads you to embrace what makes you uncomfortable. It led me to start exercising, for example, and to become a writer in this community. Despite that these things make me uncomfortable, they’re important to the path I’ve chosen.

My awakening has blessed me with a clear understanding of why I’m here and why I should pursue the path ahead of me. This doesn’t mean it’s always comfortable or I’m always satisfied, but it’s worth all the trouble.

Whether you want it to or not, spiritual awakening will take you out of your comfort zone. It will lead you to things you never thought you’d be comfortable with, like meditation or creative work in service to humanity.

Whether you cross that threshold willingly or unwillingly is up to you. But if you stick with your path after awakening, you will cross it.

Spiritual awakening is a gift, a blessing, and a pain. It’s not all sunshine and flowers, but if you can get past the hardest obstacles on your path, there will be plenty of sunshine to come.

Embrace all aspects of your awakening – especially what forces you to leave your comfort zone – and you’ll quickly go from awake to transformed. To be awake is great, but to transform is to realize the goal of the path on which your awakening sets you.

Featured image credit

About the author: 

I’m a twenty-something writer & blogger with an interest in spirituality, revolution, music and the transformative creative force known as love. I run Openhearted Rebel, a daily news blog dedicated to igniting a revolution of love by raising social and spiritual awareness.

I also have a personal blog, Wes Annac’s Personal Blog, in which I share writings related to spiritual philosophy, creativity, heart consciousness and revolution (among other topics).

I write from the heart and try to share informative and enlightening reading material with the rest of the conscious community. When I’m not writing or exploring nature, I’m usually making music.

Follow me on Facebook (Wes Annac, https://www.facebook.com/openheartedrebel and Twitter (Wes Annac, https://twitter.com/love_rebellion