When you imagine a more conscious world, what do you see? Do you picture healthy people with genuine smiles? Do they look calm yet alert, hopeful yet clear-thinking? Would this emerging world show signs of peace, well-being, and creative solutions to problems both big and small?
These images represent what’s possible. They can inspire you and help you move forward, because they open a space in your mind where your highest ideals might actually exist. For now, these ideals are symbols. Until you bring them into reality through your actions, they remain beautiful ideas—like castles in the sky that inspire you.
And inspiration is valuable, so honor it for what it is. But on this earth, inspiration alone doesn’t replace reality. You are actively co-creating this emerging consciousness every single day. You are sculpting it into being through your choices, your awareness, and your presence.
✦ PRACTICE: Sensing Your Inner Possibilities
Take a moment right now to pause and breathe. Close your eyes if you’re comfortable doing so.
- Place one hand on your heart. Feel the warmth of your own palm against your chest.
- Take three slow breaths. With each breath, notice any sensations in your chest—warmth, tingling, expansion, or even tightness.
- Ask yourself quietly: ‘What does my heart know about my highest possibilities?’ Don’t force an answer. Just listen with gentle curiosity to whatever feelings, images, or quiet knowing arises.
- Notice: This feeling you sense—however faint—is your own inner compass. It’s always available to you, whenever you pause to listen.
This simple practice helps you experience the difference between thinking about consciousness and actually feeling your own conscious awareness in this present moment.
The Real Work Happens Here on Earth
Perhaps you’re waiting for a new age filled with constant peace and soothing energy. Maybe you remember experiences from other dimensions, or you feel drawn to memories of past lives in distant places. Those experiences were real, and they taught you valuable lessons.
But your soul chose to be born here, in this body, at this time, in this dimension. Why? Because Earth—especially now—is an excellent place to learn, grow, and test what you know. Life here requires patience. You’ll need to think things through, trust your intuition, feel your way forward, then test your understanding again.
This process may not be as smooth as experiences in higher dimensions, but it’s incredibly effective for your spiritual growth. The friction you feel, the challenges you face—these are not mistakes. They’re the exact conditions that help you develop and become stronger.
What Is This Supposed ‘New Age’ People Refer To?
The emerging consciousness is not a fixed set of rules or a predetermined destination. It’s a collection of evolving possibilities for a healthy, balanced, creative, and spiritually aware world. But what does that actually look like? You provide that answer through your daily life.
You are taking responsibility for your unique contribution. Even if someone writes a guidebook, it’s their guidebook, reflecting their journey. You must create your own personal manual—or at least your own chapter—through your living example.
Every day, you create your own understanding of reality through your choices and actions. You bring this awareness into your personal life, your relationships, and your work. There is no single ‘correct’ way to be conscious, which is why you must continuously test and refine your approach.
✦ PRACTICE: Discovering Your Own Truth
This exercise helps you access your own inner knowing—the wisdom that lives beneath thoughts and words.
- Think of a question or situation you’re facing right now. Hold it lightly in your mind.
- Close your eyes and place both hands over your belly, just below your navel. This is often called your ‘gut’ or your center of intuitive knowing.
- Breathe slowly into this area. Imagine your breath is gently awakening a wise, quiet part of yourself that lives here.
- Ask this wise part: ‘What do I need to know about this situation?’ Wait without forcing. The answer might come as a feeling, an image, a sense of direction, or simply a calm knowing.
- Notice the quality of this knowing. It’s different from anxious thinking. It feels quieter, steadier, more grounded.
Practice this regularly. Your inner truth reveals itself gradually, like a flower opening. Each time you check in with this deep part of yourself, you strengthen your ability to access your own wisdom.
The Universe Has No Fixed Agenda for You…
Other than this: The Universe wants you to develop your awareness, in safe ways that are appropriate to your unique self, each day.
The increasing vibration in our world does reflect shifts happening throughout the universe. These shifts are helping humanity become more conscious. But here’s what’s important to understand: the universe has no specific rules about how you should use your growing consciousness.
The truth lives deep within you. Your personal truth reveals itself gradually as you discover it each day—it’s a process of gentle unfolding, not a sudden revelation that someone else hands to you.
There is no official group or authority that will force you to live in a certain way. If such a group appears, claiming to have all the answers, be cautious. Real spiritual development cannot be imposed from outside. The emerging consciousness is something you choose to bring forth in each moment through your awareness, your kindness, and your authenticity.
Everyone Awakens at Their Own Pace
People are awakening at different speeds because each person’s capacity is unique. If you’ve been developing your consciousness across many lifetimes (what some call being an ‘older soul’), you may find it easier to sense possibilities that don’t yet exist in the physical world. Your work is to find healthy, balanced ways to bring these possibilities into reality.
Those who are newer to this work (sometimes called ‘younger souls’) are more likely to get stuck in old patterns. Their task is to open to their higher wisdom without losing their grounding in everyday reality.
With an entire population waking up at different rates, it’s tempting to look for simple, one-size-fits-all answers. This is where deception can creep in. Every person is unique, so easy answers that supposedly work for everyone are usually oversimplified and incomplete.
Your task is to expand your possibilities while staying grounded in reality. You exist on many levels. You have younger aspects that became stuck in old patterns, and you have older, wiser aspects that can see farther. You’re learning to heal and awaken all parts of yourself with love and patience, combined with honest awareness. It’s challenging work, but deeply worthwhile.
✦ PRACTICE: Meeting Your Inner Aspects with Compassion
This practice helps you connect with different parts of yourself—both the stuck patterns and the wise knowing—and bring them into harmony.
- Sit comfortably and take several deep breaths. Place one hand on your heart and one on your belly.
- Think of a pattern in your life that feels stuck or limiting—maybe fear, anger, self-criticism, or a reaction that keeps repeating.
- Instead of judging this pattern, imagine it as a younger part of yourself—perhaps a scared child or a hurt teenager. Where do you sense this part in your body? Your chest? Your stomach? Your throat?
- Now sense the wisest, most loving part of yourself—your inner divine essence, your soul, your higher self. This part is infinitely patient and kind. Imagine this wise presence as a warm, gentle light within you.
- Let the warm light of your wise self flow toward the stuck, scared part. Don’t try to fix or change anything. Simply offer loving presence, like holding a frightened child with compassion.
- Silently say to this part: ‘I see you. I understand you’ve been trying to protect me. Thank you. I’m here with you now.’
- Breathe with this awareness for a few minutes. Notice any softening, any shift in sensation, any feeling of relief or release—however subtle.
Transformation happens through loving acceptance, not harsh judgment. Practice this regularly with different stuck patterns. Each time, you’re helping frozen parts of yourself thaw and rejoin your conscious awareness.
Why You Feel More Troubled, Not More Enlightened
If the simple images of the ‘new age’ aren’t reality, what should you do with the difficult emotions that are surfacing as consciousness expands? Here’s what’s actually happening: as your awareness grows, you become conscious of deeper patterns and emotions that have been buried in your mind and soul for a long time—sometimes for many lifetimes.
You’re feeling more because you’re more aware. This is why you often feel more troubled rather than more peaceful. Don’t be afraid of this. When you’re more conscious, you have a tremendous opportunity to detect and release old patterns.
It’s definitely not a reason to judge yourself. In fact, your expanding awareness helps you discover your divine essence—your eternal, wise nature—and integrate with it. This integration gives you the strength and wisdom to address the troubled thoughts that are surfacing.
The sad, painful, and angry thoughts and feelings you’re experiencing were created across many lifetimes. They reflect the times and circumstances when they were formed. They’re not the truth of who you are—they’re old recordings playing in your system.
The Moment of Transformation
With your awakening consciousness, you can notice these inner patterns, hold them in your love and light, and share your higher awareness with them. This is a powerful moment: the conscious part of you—your cosmic soul—extends itself into the parts that have been living on automatic, continuously repeating their same old song of struggle and limitation.
In that moment when you share your love and light with your inner shadows, the transformative energy of your divine essence goes to work. It gently dissolves the rough edges of your old patterns, not through force but through understanding and compassion.
The healing energy that your soul shares with your limited patterns comes with an attitude of love and kindness, never judgment. Just as you wouldn’t judge a frightened child for being afraid, you can choose to see your stuck patterns as energies temporarily frozen by fear and limited understanding. These patterns need help and transformation, not punishment.
This is one of the biggest challenges you face as you spiritually awaken.
✦ PRACTICE: Transforming Old Patterns with Light
This practice helps you work directly with stuck emotions or repetitive thoughts using your own inner light—your divine essence.
- Notice a difficult emotion or repeating thought that’s bothering you right now. Name it simply: fear, anger, sadness, shame, worry.
- Close your eyes and scan your body. Where do you feel this emotion most strongly? Your chest, throat, stomach, shoulders?
- Place your hand on that area. Feel the sensation directly—is it tight? Heavy? Hot? Trembling? Just notice without trying to change it.
- Now imagine a warm, gentle light in the center of your chest—this is your divine essence, your soul’s light. It’s always been there. Sense its qualities: peaceful, loving, wise, eternal.
- Let this light slowly flow from your heart toward the place where you feel the difficult emotion. The light doesn’t push or fight—it simply surrounds the feeling with warmth and acceptance.
- Breathe slowly. With each breath, let the light become a little brighter, a little warmer. Imagine this light is melting the frozen edges of the old pattern, like sun melting ice.
- Stay with this for 3-5 minutes. Notice any shifts—the emotion may soften, change, move, or release. Or it might just feel slightly less intense. Any shift is progress.
Repeat this practice whenever strong emotions arise. You’re training yourself to meet difficulties with your inner light rather than with resistance or judgment. This is true spiritual alchemy.
The Paradox of Spiritual Growth
As you spiritually awaken, it’s easy to think you’re going backwards. You notice more problems, feel more emotions, and see more of what needs healing. Yet despite this self-judgment, your awareness is actually growing in a useful way. You’re sensing more than ever before.
You probably assumed that awakening would bring you peace and happiness. It can—if your awareness isn’t constantly judging everything you perceive. When you let your expanded consciousness express patience, kindness, and love toward your limited patterns, you create the conditions for real change.
Spiritual awakening involves paradoxes—things that seem opposite but are both true. One paradox is that your spiritual growth requires both clear recognition of problems and patient, loving acceptance. These sound contradictory, but they work together as vital parts of your development.
Your expanding consciousness helps you become better at moving toward your goals while also noticing what needs improvement—these are focused mental skills. At the same time, you cultivate a state of loving acceptance—this is a heart skill. This combination of heart and mind helps you be patient with yourself as you grow.
And you’ll have many opportunities to practice this patience when you consider other people, because everyone is working at their own pace. Their speed of awakening is outside your control.
✦ PRACTICE: Balancing Heart and Mind
This exercise helps you experience the unity of loving acceptance (heart) and clear awareness (mind) working together.
- Think of a personal challenge or limitation you’re facing. State it clearly in your mind: ‘I struggle with ___’ or ‘I need to improve ___.’
- This is your mind seeing clearly. Notice how this clarity feels—sharp, focused, sometimes uncomfortable. This is necessary awareness.
- Now place both hands on your heart. Take several slow breaths. Feel your heart beating beneath your palms.
- From this heart space, silently say: ‘I see this challenge, and I am also worthy of love and kindness exactly as I am right now.’
- Notice how this feels different from just thinking about the problem. Your heart adds warmth, acceptance, and compassion to the clear seeing of your mind.
- Practice holding both: ‘I clearly see what needs to change’ (mind) AND ‘I accept and love myself in this moment’ (heart). Breathe with both truths together.
This is the balance that creates real transformation. Mind without heart becomes harsh criticism. Heart without mind becomes avoidance of truth. Together, they create wise, compassionate growth.
A More Grounded Definition of Conscious Living
Here’s a more realistic understanding of what conscious living actually means: It’s a balanced unity of the heart’s loving acceptance with the mind’s deeper questions and intuitions, all guided by your soul—your cosmic, eternal self.
This is not a world of simple slogans or easy answers. It’s a way of life that allows you and others to examine, to ask questions, to feel, to think, and to tap into divine intuition. When you get stuck in the cliché of ‘just follow your heart’ while ignoring your mind, you’re no wiser than the person who follows only logic while ignoring their heart and soul.
Have you noticed that simplified spiritual beliefs are often based on what supposedly ‘should’ be? People should be loving. People should be happy. That should be enough. There’s an ironic contradiction here: when you judge yourself for not being more loving, or judge others for not being loving enough, you’re using your critical mind to defend your supposedly loving beliefs.
When you recognize that rosy spiritual ideas are oversimplified and can’t provide easy solutions, you might feel disappointed. This is the childish part of yourself that wanted everything to be simple. You can help this part by holding it in the loving arms of your soul, sharing patience, love, and wisdom. Gently bring it into alignment with your deeper essence.
When Your Mind Judges Too Harshly
What do you do when your critical mind runs wild and convinces you that you should harshly judge yourself? Or when it tells you you’re right to condemn others who aren’t behaving the way you think they should?
When your critical mind tries to judge yourself or others, you can patiently love that part of yourself too. You listen and learn, but you don’t become reactive. You let the deeper truth reveal itself gradually.
Patience and love are not replacements for logic and critical thinking. Logic and critical thinking are not replacements for love. They are important opposites, like yin and yang, each being the needed balance for the other. They work together as a team, each bringing the other to deeper levels of awareness and grounded truth.
And this is the true potential of emerging consciousness.
✦ PRACTICE: Integrating All Parts of Yourself
This final practice helps you bring together heart, mind, body, and soul into one integrated experience of your whole self.
- Sit comfortably with your spine straight but relaxed. Plant your feet firmly on the ground. Feel the support of the earth beneath you.
- Take several deep breaths. With each exhale, let your body settle and relax more deeply. This is your body—your physical home in this dimension.
- Place one hand on your heart. Sense the warmth, the beat, the energy here. This is your heart—the seat of love, compassion, and connection. Silently say: ‘I honor my heart.’
- Place one hand on your forehead. Sense the clarity, the awareness, the intelligence here. This is your mind—the seat of understanding, discernment, and wisdom. Silently say: ‘I honor my mind.’
- Now sense a presence that’s larger than any single part—a awareness that holds all of you with infinite love. This is your soul, your divine essence, your eternal nature. It lives in your whole being, not just one place.
- Imagine a column of light running through the center of your body, from deep in the earth, up through your feet, legs, belly, heart, throat, head, and out the top of your head into the sky. This is your connection to both earth and cosmos.
- Take several breaths while sensing this: your grounded body, your loving heart, your clear mind, and your eternal soul—all working together as one integrated whole. You are all of these at once.
- Silently affirm: ‘I am whole. I am present. I am both human and divine. I am here to learn, to love, and to grow.’
Return to this integrated state whenever you feel fragmented or lost. This is your natural wholeness. With every breath, you can choose to remember and embody it.
Welcome to the Real New Era
The real emerging consciousness isn’t a collection of happy slogans. It’s not the oversimplified view of the materialist who trusts only logic. The true awakening is something different—it’s off the radar for many people because it requires holding both opposites together.
On this earthly plane, heart and mind have been divided, at least until now. No matter—the balance you seek exists deep within you. It has always been there.
Tap into your essence. Cultivate your heart, mind, and soul, all integrated within your body, with every breath you take. Practice the exercises in this article. Return to them again and again. Each time you practice, you strengthen your ability to access your own divine nature.
It’s not easy, but it’s not difficult either. It simply requires your willingness to show up, to be present, to notice, to feel, to learn, and to grow—one breath at a time, one moment at a time.
Welcome to the real new era. Welcome home to yourself.
Joel Bruce Wallach
