What Growing Up Spiritually Might Actually Mean
Disclaimer. Or something like it. What you’re about to read is inspired by real observations of real people doing very spiritual things in very spiritual bubbles. This is not a spiritual guide. It’s not a doctrine or a dogma. It does not claim to represent absolute truth or completeness. Any names mentioned are purely fictional. Please enjoy. And remember: just because it sounds profound doesn’t mean it’s not also gently poking fun at all of us (myself included).
Somewhere in the dark, no one knows exactly when or how, it begins. Call it creation, or conception, if you like. Not of the body, but of something else. The spiritual equivalent of egg meets sperm. A strange “yes” between longing and the unknown. It grows and grows, and then—birth. Usually through pain. A heartbreak, maybe. A burnout. A death. Or a life that no longer fits, no matter how tightly you try to wear it.
It’s the crack in the matrix. The last sock in the dryer… Something doesn’t add up. And in that moment—you arrive. Spiritually newborn.
This is the baby phase. You’ve just woken up, spiritually speaking, and everything is new. Every feather on the sidewalk is magical and has meaning. Every quote is for you and needs reflection with a smile and a hand on your heart. The universe, clearly, is obsessed with you. You’ve entered the great cosmic nursery—and it’s thrilling. You cry in cacao ceremonies and cuddle with your spiritual family. You whisper, “everything happens for a reason,” and that reason is, unmistakably, your healing. Your needs are sacred. And your feelings are divine intelligence—even if they change hourly and contradict yesterday’s divine download.
It’s survival. Because, like any infant, you can’t yet hold yourself. You’re still looking for something, or someone, to hold you. You need constant reassurance (from a teacher, a guru, a master, a ring-light-obsessed yoga influencer living in Bali) that you’re safe, chosen, special. That the universe is paying attention and your transformation is the central event of the cosmos. And that’s not wrong. It’s just early. Babies don’t fake helplessness—they are helpless.
Spiritually, this looks like outsourcing your agency to synchronicities and signs. It looks like relying on other people and events for insight and truth. But infancy is not built to last. You are supposed to grow out of it.
Then comes the spiritual child. And the world changes. You realize there’s deeper concepts and methods and systems. You’re curious. You try things. You chant mantras and drink moon-infused water after ecstatic dance. You tell everyone how breathwork saved your life—until someone introduces you to a tantra workshop with “César, the Cosmic Tantra Shaman (formerly Florian),” and then that saved your life, actually.
You believe in it all, completely. Every new modality feels like a cosmic download tailored just for you. There’s a hunger, an urgency. You feel things deeply, so deeply. A dream, a conversation, a shadow in a card pull can derail your entire day. You’re just still in the phase where everything revolves around you. You collect healing tools like toys. Each one feels like the key. Until a new one shows up. This phase is electric, messy (is there any phase in life that isn’t messy?), and magical. But slowly, the excitement settles. Something doesn’t quite work the way it promised. You notice contradictions. For the first time you don’t just feel wonder. You feel doubt.
And that’s when something else begins to grow. You evolve. You become a teenager.
The teenager is brilliant. They see through things. And they do not like what they see. The ideas, concepts, communities that once comforted you now irritate you. You notice the spiritual bypassing, the commodification of suffering, the elitism and privilege clouded in modern spirituality. You see the influencer teaching about love while throwing their assistant under the bus. You hear the yoga teacher speaking of “connecting to pachamama” while driving a car that takes up three lanes and seems to have reincarnated as a monster truck. You begin to ask questions no pop-star yogi or spiritual self-help influencer can answer:
Why does the spirituality I’m surrounded by seem to float above the reality I live in? Why do we talk about energy but never about power and oppression? Why do we care about healing our inner child but ignore the actual children being bombed in another country?
The teenager sees the cracks—and starts to burn. Cynicism flares. So does rage. You slam doors, roll your eyes, shout into the void. You think you know everything, and at the same time you are deeply confused. It’s contradictory. Searching for where you fit, if anywhere. You might want to walk away from it all—and maybe you should. Because sometimes, the only way to see clearly is to burn the illusions to ash.
But if you stay, if you let the disillusionment carve you open instead of closing you off, something shifts. The anger becomes discernment. The confusion becomes inquiry. And you begin, slowly, to grow up.
Spiritual adulthood is quieter than expected. There’s no radiant moment of arrival. No glow, no “congrats-you-can-officially-trust-the-universe-now” license. You’re still a work in progress, flawed. Still reactive, still unsure. But now you know it. And you stop expecting spirituality to erase your humanness. You no longer meditate to manifest a perfect life in paradise. You practice because it helps you stay grounded to reality.
You don’t chase purity anymore… you’ve seen where that leads. You’ve learned that light can be a mask just as much as shadow. That love can be a shield. That healing can become a performance. And spirituality a form of avoidance.
Spiritual adulthood means growing out of the fantasy that there's a final version of you. You stop trying to become transcendent and start learning how to become deeply, messily human. You realize that the most spiritual thing you can do might be inviting your lonely neighbor for dinner. Or paying attention to the suffering of the world without numbing. Or saying, “I was wrong.”
You begin to understand that spirituality is not one thing. It’s a layered, contradictory, often uncomfortable engagement with the fullness of life. It includes grief. Anger. Complexity. Boredom. Sometimes it’s wild and ecstatic. Sometimes it’s washing the dishes while holding paradox in your chest.
And you begin to see what no one tells you at the start: that even spirituality has systems. It has shadows and power plays. You start asking harder questions. Not about how to rise above the world, but about how to live inside it. This is what it means to grow up spiritually: not to float above the chaos, but to walk through it without losing your ability to feel. To hold space not just for your own wounds, but for the woundedness of the world. To stop treating spirituality like a magic buffet and start living it like a human being with responsibility.
And none of this means the earlier phases were wrong. They were essential. Babies are meant to be self-centered. Children are supposed to be enchanted. Teenagers are meant to rebel. But growth is what happens when you don’t stay there. When you let experience complicate your worldview. When you stop needing to be right, or radiant, or pure—and become willing instead to be real.
And guess what, even adulthood isn’t the end. It, too, will be outgrown. Because if you’re paying attention you’ll notice: just when you think you’ve arrived somewhere, something changes. It’s like learning how to play the game, then suddenly, the rules change. The whole thing begins again.
Only this time, you know better than to mistake awakening for completion.
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Gracias. Thank you. Jërëjëf. Merci. Obrigada. Danke. Arigatō. Medaase. Grazie. Hvala. Tack. Asante. Shukran. Teşekkürler. Dziękuję.
