Awakening isn't escaping the world, it's being in it differently
A reflection on personal and spiritual growth: awakening isn't about feeling less, but about living the life we already have with more presence and love.
Lately I've been thinking a lot about what it really means to live more consciously.
And I think that, at some point on our path of personal and spiritual growth, it's easy to confuse awakening with moving away from everything that makes us uncomfortable. As if evolving meant no longer feeling certain things, not taking anything personally, not getting angry, not being afraid, not getting too attached to anyone and, if possible, living in a permanent state of inner peace (lol, if only).
As if the goal were to become people nothing can touch.
But what if that's not what it's about?
Not long ago, mindlessly scrolling, I came across a reflection saying that the purpose of awakening isn't to leave reality behind, but to take part in it with more presence, intention and love. And the idea kept going round in my head.
What's the point of learning to meditate for twenty minutes a day if we then spend the rest of our hours completely disconnected from ourselves? What's the point of talking about love, awareness and compassion if we don't know how to bring those ideas into the way we relate to the people we love, to our work, to our decisions, or even to ourselves when things don't go the way we hoped?
I'm not saying this from a place of spiritual superiority, obviously. I'm miles away from having the answers, and I'll probably contradict myself quite a few times along the way. But that's exactly why I find it worth questioning.
Because I believe personal growth shouldn't be yet another way of trying to become someone we're not yet. Nor an endless list of things we have to fix before we finally deserve to feel good about ourselves.
Maybe it's more about learning to be present in the life we already have.
What if the work wasn't changing everything, but learning to see it differently?
Sometimes the situations we live through show us the beliefs we've learned to accept as truths. And when those beliefs no longer make sense to us, we get the chance to question them.
I find this fascinating, because we often believe we suffer only because of what happens to us, when the story we tell ourselves about what happens to us matters just as much.
Someone doesn't reply to my message and my mind has already written an entire novel about what I did wrong. Something doesn't go as planned and suddenly it isn't just a disappointment: it's proof that I'm not good enough. A relationship ends and, instead of grieving what we lost, we start wondering what's wrong with us that someone didn't stay.
And so, without noticing, we turn a situation into a definition of who we are.
Sound familiar? It does to me.
Sometimes we react from ideas we've been repeating for so long that we don't even remember when we started believing them. Ideas about love, success, rejection, money, relationships, or what it means to have a life worth living.
And of course, questioning them isn't as easy as reading a pretty quote on Instagram and deciding that, from tomorrow, we'll think differently. If only it worked that way.
But I strongly believe the first step is simply noticing.
Noticing when we're reacting from fear. When we're seeking approval because we've learned to measure our worth through other people's eyes. When we cling to something not because it's good for us, but because we're scared of what might happen if we let it go (we've all heard the famous "better the devil you know").
We can't always choose what we feel, or control the situations that show up in our lives. But we can start exploring how we interpret them and what we do with them.
And, little by little, make room to respond in a different way.
And I've consciously decided that, for me, that's growing too.
We can't connect with others if we're disconnected from ourselves
There's a line by Yung Pueblo that I love, about how hard it is to build a deep connection with someone who is disconnected from themselves.
Because we live in a time when we can be in touch with so many people and still feel alone. We can talk for hours without really sharing what's going on with us. We can be in a relationship and still feel misunderstood. We can love someone deeply and, without realising it, relate to them from our own wounds, insecurities and expectations.
Not because we don't know how to love, but because sometimes we're still learning to understand ourselves.
How can we communicate what we need if we can't even identify it? How can we truly listen to someone else if we're too busy defending ourselves? How can we build a relationship rooted in freedom if we confuse loving with being certain that someone will never leave?
I don't think we have to resolve all our inner stuff before we can love or connect with others. If we waited until we were completely healed, aware and balanced to relate to anyone, we'd probably stay alone forever.
But I do believe that knowing ourselves a little better changes the way we meet and connect with others.
It helps us recognise our reactions, apologise when it's needed, set boundaries, listen without assuming everything is an attack, and accept that the people we love also have their own paths, timings and ways of seeing the world.
And that takes practice. A lot of practice.
That's why I like to think of relationships as spaces for growth too. Not because people are in our lives to teach us something (as if every encounter had to justify its existence with a lesson), but because sharing life with others lets us discover parts of ourselves we might never have seen on our own.
Sometimes growth happens in silence, during a meditation… but, from my own experience, most of the time it happens in an uncomfortable conversation.
When we finally say what we'd been holding in for months, or when we learn to listen to something we didn't want to hear.
So spirituality shows up in everyday life too
I think one of the most beautiful things we can learn is that spirituality doesn't have to be separate from our daily lives.
It doesn't only live in a retreat, a ceremony, a yoga class, or in those moments when everything seems to make sense and we feel we're exactly where we're meant to be.
It also lives in how we treat people when we're tired. In the patience we try to cultivate when something frustrates us. In our ability to admit a mistake. In the decisions we make when no one is watching. In learning to enjoy something without feeling we have to turn it into an opportunity for self-improvement.
Because yes, sometimes we also need to stop trying to grow for five minutes and simply live. (A little reminder I need myself every now and then.)
Not everything has to become a lesson. Not every pain needs an immediate explanation. Not every experience has to be transformative to be worth something.
We can be sad without it meaning we've gone backwards on our path. We can be afraid and still make a brave decision. We can have doubts, change our minds, and not know exactly what we're doing with our lives.
Being conscious doesn't mean stopping being human: it means learning to live our humanity with a little more curiosity, honesty and compassion. And that includes all the parts of us we still don't quite know how to understand.
So what does all this have to do with Wanderer?
A lot, actually.
Because when we talk about personal and spiritual growth, we sometimes think only of the individual work: the books we read, the practices we explore, the moments we set aside to get to know ourselves better… And all of that can be deeply valuable.
But I also believe we grow in relationship with the world. Through the people we meet, the conversations we share, the questions we ask ourselves and the experiences that invite us to look at something from a different perspective.
Maybe a breathwork session will help you hear something you'd been ignoring for a while. Maybe a walk in the mountains will remind you that you don't need to have all the answers today. Maybe a cacao ceremony will let you share something you'd never known how to put into words. Or maybe you'll meet someone in a circle of strangers and discover that far more people than you imagined are trying to make sense of life.
We can't promise that an experience will change your life. And I don't think it needs to.
Sometimes it's enough for something to ask you a question you'd never asked yourself. To let you feel accompanied for a while. To help you come back to yourself, even just a little. And other times, it's perfectly fine to simply enjoy the experience for what it is.
That's part of what we want to build at Wanderer: a space where different practices, perspectives and people can meet. Where those who want to explore their personal growth can discover experiences that make sense to them, and where the practitioners who guide them can share what they've been cultivating for a long time.
Not because there's only one right path, or because we need to become perfect versions of ourselves. But because we believe there are many ways to learn, connect and live more consciously. And that discovering them can be so much more beautiful when we don't have to do it alone.
In the end, I think the real work isn't reaching a permanent state of peace, or becoming people nothing can touch. Maybe it's learning to take part in our own lives with a little more presence. Questioning the stories we tell ourselves, caring for the way we relate to others, and remembering that we can always choose how we want to move forward.
We didn't come here just to observe life, waiting to understand it before we dare to live it.
We came to experience it. To create, to make mistakes, to relate, to discover, to change our minds, to start again. To be here, with everything that implies.
And, along the way, hopefully learn to treat ourselves and others with a little more love.
Because awakening doesn't mean no longer being part of the world. It means learning to be part of it more consciously.
By Anna Victoria Barona
