The 3 stages of personal awakening as a path to Sovereignty: Stage 2

In this article, I describe the second stage of awakening towards personal sovereignty as I experienced in my life so far.

As before, I begin with reflective questions — not to judge, define, or persuade anyone, but to offer a mirror for those who feel drawn to look.

These reflections come from my lived experience, from years of mystical and initiative encounters, inner work and self-reflection, and from observing patterns that repeat again and again in individuals and societies.

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

This text is not here to tell you where you are, nor where you should go.

It is simply an invitation to look within —only where it feels true.

• Do you feel that much of your energy is invested in understanding yourself — your patterns of behavior, your traumas, your beliefs?

  
  

• Have you spent years working on yourself — analyzing, philosophizing, healing, processing — and still feel that life is somehow on hold in your relationships, your work, or your expression in the world?

  
  

• Do you feel safe inside labels you place on yourself — such as spiritual, alternative, or awakened — through healing practices or systems of self-development, yet still experience lack or limitation?

  
  

• Do you sense a hesitation to fully act, create, or choose — because you feel you are “not ready yet”?

  
  

• Do you look for guidance or confirmation before trusting what you already know?

  
  

• Have you joined conscious or alternative spaces, only to notice the same patterns of fear, hierarchy, lack, or dependency circulating again?

  
  

• Do you feel clearer than years ago, more aware than before — yet not fully living your life?

• Or you feel that you already know more and can lead the way or save the others?

  
  

• And beneath all of this, do you ever sense that self-work or ideology itself may have quietly become a place to stay? And if so — is it comfortable there?

These questions did not arise from theory.

They arose from long periods of sincere inward turning — stages I have moved through myself — while observing the world outside in relation to my thoughts, experiences, relationships, and actions.

They reflect a second stage of awakening, where attention turns from the outside world toward the inner one but even there there is a false mirror to follow. The one of the Ego.

Yes, injustices still exist and the systems of control still operate.

Yes, modern society remains deeply conditioned.

But now, you look inward.

And this is a real shift.

And it is also a place where many people — having moved beyond fear and victimhood — pause.

STAGE 2

“Something is wrong with me.”

This stage often comes after the first disillusionment with the world.

You stop looking only outward. You stop blaming others exclusively. You stop seeing yourself solely as a victim.

You begin to look inside.

Blaming other softens.

Personal responsibility appears — beyond reaction.

You start to see that systems do not exist only because of power, but because of beliefs, conditioning, fear, and unconscious participation — including your own.

This realization is important.

And it is necessary.

You begin to explore your inner world.

You notice patterns formed early in life. You recognize inherited stories shaped by family, education, environment, culture, and community.

You begin to question identity itself.

You work with your emotions. You recognize personal traumas.

You observe behaviors that once ran your life silently.

You may enter therapy.

You may study psychology.

You may move into spirituality or self-development.

You learn new language to describe your experience.

Humility appears. Awareness expands.

Without passing through this stage, sovereignty cannot grow.

When looking inward still gives power away

Even in this stage, authority is often placed outside.

The human need to belong remains strong.

Many people look outward for healing, validation, or identity — in methods, teachers, therapists, life coaches, or gurus. In some other cases they feel they are the teachers, they are the saviors, they are the ones who have to say.

In systems that define what “spiritual,” “healthy,” or “conscious” means. These definitions that still divide us as human beings, fragment our own self taking sides. I am better than the others, I know better or I seek validation in constant healing.

Some become lost in love-and-light narratives.

Others in endless therapeutic loops or alternative practices.

Meanwhile, the world continues unchanged.

Fragmentation persists — and fragmentation supports systems built on division and control.

Labels such as religion, awakening, spirituality, or alternative life continue to feed external authority when people do not yet stand in their own power as sovereign beings.

Support can be helpful. Guidance can be valuable.

But when clarity constantly needs permission, when choice always needs approval,

power remains elsewhere.

Responsibility has begun —but sovereignty is delayed.

The comfort of endless becoming

There is often a quiet safety in this stage.

As long as you are healing, you do not have to risk being fully seen.

As long as you are learning, you do not have to fully choose.

As long as you are preparing, you do not have to stand in your full power.

Self-work becomes a refined way of postponing embodiment.

Not consciously. Not deliberately.

Just gradually.

Communities and alternative paths

Many people here seek more aligned environments.

Spiritual communities. Alternative ways of living. Conscious relationships. Intentional or ecological groups.

These spaces can be supportive or ways to seek validation.

But if fear, lack, or dependency still live inside, the outer form may change —while the pattern remains.

Hierarchy returns. Authority changes shape. Belonging becomes identity.

Leaving the mainstream does not automatically create freedom.

Isolation is not sovereignty. Alignment is not embodiment.

Why this stage matters — and where it ends

In this stage, awareness is genuinely deepening.

You are passing through the gate of the inner world.

You are learning responsibility.

Your perception sharpens.

But if this stage becomes a permanent loop —especially one that still seeks validation from external authorities — life remains unfinished.

Human sovereignty does not arise from perfect healing, total understanding, overthinking, love-and-light narratives, or endlessly resolving the past.

It arises when responsibility becomes authorship.

When insight becomes action. When clarity becomes lived. When you take full responsibility for your experience.

When attention moves from self-correction to creation.

The threshold beyond Stage 2

Beyond Stage 2 lies Stage 3 —a transition not of many, but of those who choose to shape their reality consciously.

This transition does not come from more work.

It comes from a simpler, braver movement.

Trust.

Here, the question changes.

Not: “What is still wrong with me? or "I will save the world"”

But: “What am I willing to live, now?”

Shine Bright

Sotiris Zafeiris