A person gains experience throughout their life, walking the path laid out by their soul. But not every person chooses spiritual development for themselves.
This article is about 4 stages of development that, in principle, have nothing to do with spiritual growth. This is a person’s path. Most people stop at the second stage, while some go further.
Understanding this process will help you look at yourself from the outside and realize at what point on the path you currently are.
4 stages of human development
Stage 1. The emergence of a problem
Unfortunately, people most often learn not from positive experiences, but from negative ones. And the point of growth is a psychological, sometimes physical, trauma, a serious problem that cannot be ignored.
The emergence of a problem is the first stage of human development.
This could be a strong resentment, betrayal, disappointment, even physical violence. Sometimes there can be several such traumatic events, where the last one turns out to be the very point where development begins.
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Stage 2. Attempt to heal the trauma
In the second stage, a person attempts to heal this trauma, but not heal in the literal sense.
If we talk about 3D people, ordinary people, those who surround us, what does this attempt consist of. They see the same problem in other people as they have in themselves.
And to feel better, they try to help others heal it.
The key point is that this is an attempt to heal the trauma. There is no real healing here, where you freely move on.
And this is done by helping other people to highlight and demonstrate their own trauma.
At this stage, trying to enlighten people, to show them something, is completely impossible. That is why it is so difficult for us with close ones and friends.
Why do they say: “don’t interfere without a request”? Because people do not see or realize this trauma. Somewhere deep in their soul, they understand that it exists. And in this distorted way, they try to transform it, without understanding the essence at all.
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Surely you have met such people? Or maybe you are one yourself. When you do not understand that this is your problem.
But you see it in the people around you and give advice on what to do, where to go, what practice or method to apply. Because your wounded part is crying out.
You do not hear it at this stage, and you offer other people a solution to this very problem.
By the way, many coaches work at this level. They themselves have a deep problem inside, and through other people, they do not heal it but help themselves feel more comfortable.
And here the Law of Attraction works. I attract to myself such people who demonstrate my shadow aspect, my inner trauma.
If you work with people at this stage, you should not pry into their souls or try to dissuade them from something. Because that will provoke aggression against you.
And your advice will backfire on you. Simply because the initial approach is wrong. You do not see or realize this problem. You are trying to solve it, or rather, alleviate it, through other people.
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Stage 3. Immersion within oneself
The next stage — a person begins to return to themselves.
Their focus shifts from the external, external problems, other people, to within themselves.
Sometimes the transition to this stage is accompanied by some tragedy: someone ends up in a hospital bed, someone is left without work, without a loved one.
For some, this moment of returning to oneself occurs without catastrophic accompanying situations.
And then questions arise: “Who am I?”, “Where am I going?”, “Why?” You don’t yet know what to do, but you understand that the answer needs to be sought not in the external world, but within yourself.
This is a key moment, from which, in principle, spiritual awakening begins. Until a person reaches this moment, trying to “convert” someone to your faith, open their eyes — is useless. Because the only response will be aggression.
And when a person has already begun to return to themselves, to look within themselves, they understand that the external world is a reflection of the internal.
If the external world reflects, then, most likely, there is something inside me worth paying attention to. I don’t yet understand what, but I know something is there. And I open myself to any opportunity to change my life, to transform something in it.
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Stage 4. Spiritual Awakening
And so a person moves to the next stage — spiritual awakening. Because at this moment, openness appears.
The desire to openly look and not fix something, to correct oneself, is absent. Rather, it is — to open up, to look anew, and to expand. To expand beyond the trauma. To expand beyond the problem. To step into something more global.
This stage exactly repeats the second one, when you try to heal. But in this case, you are not trying to heal at the expense of the external world.
Instead, you take direct steps that lead you to true healing. When you uproot the problem, remove the roots, heal that part of yourself, and move forward.
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You can enlighten, recommend, advise, and save those people who have reached stage three.
They have gathered the courage, or were pushed to it, to look inside themselves. And this understanding resolves many conflicts in the family: with relatives, parents, and children.
Because when you keep this classification in mind, there is an awareness of how it happens.