The Awakening Journey vs Avoidance: How to Tell the Difference

You’ve done the work. And you’ve probably noticed that there are two very different ways people talk about the awakening journey—two modes that sound similar but produce completely different results.

This is the comparison that matters: Achieving vs. Returning.

Awakening has no finish line. It’s infinite expansion with levels upon levels. The pressure to ‘arrive’ is itself a form of unconsciousness. The practice is being more awake today than yesterday.

Understanding this distinction—not just intellectually but in your own practice—is often the shift that makes everything else start working differently.

See also: what the awakening journey actually looks like

Trying To Reach A Permanent State Of The Awakening Journey: How It Shows Up

This mode is more common than most people admit, even among those who’ve done significant inner work.

It looks like: understanding the principles, being able to explain them well, even experiencing them in peak moments—but not having reliable access to them in the texture of ordinary days.

It feels like: knowing what the awakening journey should look like without quite being able to touch it when the situation is actually difficult.

The gap isn’t lack of intelligence or commitment. It’s that the approach assumes the awakening journey is something to figure out rather than something to return to.

See also: integration after an awakening experience

Practicing The Return To It, Moment By Moment: What It Actually Looks Like

This mode looks less impressive from the outside and feels more stable from the inside.

It looks like: brief, consistent, ordinary moments of returning to center rather than spectacular breakthrough experiences.

It feels like: catching yourself mid-reaction and choosing differently. Or noticing a thought spiral and stepping back from it before it runs. Or making a decision from a settled place rather than from noise.

The key quality is that it’s available—not just in retreat or in ideal conditions, but when things are hard.

See also: the GPS+I framework for navigating awakening

The Pivot Point

The shift between these modes often happens when people stop trying to achieve the awakening journey and start practicing the return to it.

Not achieving. Returning.

Every time you notice you’ve drifted and orient back—that’s the practice. That’s what builds capacity over time. Not the peak experiences, but the returns.

See also: somatic anchoring during awakening

What This Changes Practically

When the mode shifts from the first to the second, several things tend to follow:

Decisions get cleaner because they’re made from a more settled ground. Patterns become visible before they fully run, which creates the possibility of choosing differently. Work takes on a quality that’s hard to name but clients and colleagues feel.

This isn’t about being perfectly conscious. It’s about having enough access to the awakening journey that it can inform what you build.

See also: why awakening plateaus happen and what to do

If you want to develop the second mode rather than the first, the Abundance GPS Skool community is designed for exactly that—applying this work in the context of conscious entrepreneurship, with support. A trial membership is how you start.