The Quiet Awakening: When You Stop Trying to Fix Yourself

We’ve been taught that awakening is something grand and unattainable.
Reserved for the few. The chosen ones.
Those who sit under a tree for thirty years and don’t eat sugar.

The rest of us?
We’re just ordinary people.
With kids. Jobs. Chaos. Trauma.
And we’ve learned to believe that we’re broken — and need fixing.

Through advertising, school, social media, well-meaning advice —
everything points in the same direction:
You have to be better. Faster. Prettier. Smarter.
Think more positively. Perform more. Take control.

So we work on ourselves.
We go to therapy. Take courses. Read books.
We meditate. Do yoga. Practice positive thinking.
We optimize, adjust, improve.
We learn techniques to manage stress, heal trauma, regulate our nervous system.

All of this can be supportive — and deeply helpful along the way.
But when it’s done in the spirit of fixing ourselves — to become “worthy” — we often end up back in the same old loop.
Where life feels like an exam we have to pass.

But what if it was never an exam to begin with?

What if it’s not about becoming better —
but about waking up from the idea that we need to be fixed?

What if what we call problems are actually invitations
to see ourselves in a new light?

What if the truth doesn’t need to be learned — only remembered?

Awakening is not mystical.
Not distant, exclusive, or sacred.

It’s the moment you realize there’s no one “out there”
judging you, grading you, or demanding your improvement.

Often, it starts with this:
We stop asking, “What do others expect of me?”
And instead ask, “What feels true to me right now?”

We notice the thoughts —
without believing everything they say.
We feel the body —
without needing to change it right away.

That’s what we mean when we say “turn inward.”
To meet yourself — with presence, not judgment.

And then something shifts.

Habits that kept us stuck begin to loosen.
Addictions lose their grip.
Not because we force them away —
but because we’ve outgrown them.

We change — without effort.
That’s what we call a quiet awakening.

The small “aha” moments.
When something suddenly softens.
When you feel lighter, freer, more like yourself.

These aren’t coincidences.
They’re consciousness unfolding.

Awakening isn’t about becoming something new.
It’s about letting go of the belief that you need to be anything else.

It happens when you turn your gaze deeper —
beyond thoughts, stories, and self-images.
Deeper than the subconscious.
To the place where stillness lives.
And all problems dissolve.

This is what I hold space for —
a process shaped by what has opened up in meeting others.
A journey inward, to what has always been you.