The 3 stages of personal awakening as a path to Sovereignty: Stage 1

The questions that follow are not accusations, judgments, or conclusions about anyone.

They are mirrors I first held toward myself through many years of lived experience and inner inquiry.

If none of these questions resonate with you, that is completely okay.

This text is not here to define where anyone should be, nor to place anyone above or below another.

It is an invitation to self-honesty — only where it feels alive.

Take what speaks to you. Leave the rest.

• Do you sense, clearly and honestly, that something feels deeply out of balance in the world we live in?

• When you speak about injustice, corruption, or suffering, do you notice whether it empowers you — or whether it slowly drains your energy?

• Do conversations about what is “wrong out there” sometimes bring a sense of belonging or comfort, even if nothing in your life truly changes?

• Do you find yourself sharing pain, anger, or frustration — and receiving understanding — yet sensing that something deeper is still untouched?

• Is there a part of you that feels safer staying with outrage or resignation than stepping into the uncertainty of real inner change?

• When you protest, resist, or oppose systems you disagree with, do you feel more free afterward — or more exhausted?

• Have you chosen to step outside mainstream society — physically, socially, or spiritually — seeking safety or alignment, yet still noticing patterns of fear, lack, or control repeating?

• Do you identify as awakened or spiritual, yet feel limited in abundance, intimacy, creativity, or the freedom to live fully as yourself?

• And beneath all of this, do you sometimes wonder whether something essential is still waiting to be integrated within you — not “out there,” but inside?

Through these questions — and through many years of reflection and lived experience, including stages I have personally moved through — a clearer pattern began to reveal itself to me.

What I share here is not a conclusion or a doctrine, but an observation: a way of describing three recurring stages of awakening that I have noticed in myself and in others.

I offer the first stage here as part of an ongoing exploration — one that also informs the way of life we are cultivating around awareness, balance, acceptance, creativity, and relationship through the Luminous School of Creation.

STAGE 1

“Something is wrong out there.”

This is often where awakening begins.

You start to clearly sense that something is deeply out of balance in the world around you. You question the systems that shape our lives — governments, corporations, politics, financial structures — and you begin to see patterns of injustice, corruption, exploitation, and unnecessary suffering.

You notice wars justified by power and profit. You see fear being cultivated and sold. You witness how human lives and the planet itself are treated as resources rather than living realities.

This perception is not wrong. It is necessary.

But it is also only the beginning.

Where this stage becomes a trap

At this stage, it is easy to direct all responsibility outward.

To feel that the problem exists “out there” — in the system, in others, in history, in power structures beyond your reach.

From this place, reactions often arise:

• anger,

• fear,

• outrage,

• despair,

• or a sense of helplessness.

  
  

You may find yourself repeatedly speaking about what is wrong — online, in conversations, in groups — and feeling a momentary sense of relief or connection when others agree with you.

There is comfort in not being alone in your perception.

Yet if this expression does not lead to inner movement, something subtle can happen: energy circulates without transformation.

You may protest, oppose, resist, withdraw, or disconnect — and still feel exhausted, polarized, or stuck in repetition.

Not because resistance is wrong, but because reaction alone does not equal sovereignty.

How power is quietly given away

When awakening remains only external, attention — and with it power — is often handed to the very systems being criticized.

Fear, anger, division, and endless reaction are not threats to most power structures.They are fuel.

Systems built on control do not survive because a few “bad people” run them, but because millions of minds unconsciously participate in the same patterns — fear of loss, need for safety, outsourcing responsibility, longing for saviors.

Sometimes this appears as:

• waiting for political solutions,

  
  

• believing a leader, movement, or ideology will fix things,

  
  

• hoping a guru, spiritual group, or future event will deliver freedom.

  
  

In these cases, power is postponed into the future — placed somewhere else, in someone else’s hands.

This can feel safe.It can even feel spiritual.

But it keeps life moving in circles.

Withdrawal is not always freedom

Another expression of this stage is withdrawal.

You may step away from society — physically, socially, or spiritually — seeking simplicity, safety, or alignment.

You may form or join communities built around ecological, spiritual, or alternative values.

This can be valuable.

Yet if fear, lack, control, or disconnection still dominate your inner world, the structure has changed — but the pattern remains.

Isolation alone is not sovereignty. Spiritual identity alone is not freedom.

If abundance, intimacy, creativity, and the joy of choosing your life are still absent, then the work is not finished.

Why this stage matters — and why it’s not enough

Stage 1 is essential.

It breaks unconscious loyalty to systems that harm life.It opens the eyes.It initiates questioning.

But if you remain here — blaming, reacting, opposing, or waiting — awakening stalls.

Sovereignty does not arise from denial of injustice,nor from endless focus on it.

It begins when attention turns inward — not to escape the world, but to reclaim agency.

This is where deeper stages unfold.

Shine Bright

Sotiris Zafeiris