There is a moment many sincere seekers reach that feels quietly unsettling.
You understand the language of awakening. You know the teachings. You may have had glimpses, openings, moments where something felt clear or spacious. And yet, when you are honest, nothing has truly settled. There is still confusion. There is still a sense of “me.” And it can start to feel like you’ve failed.
When I hear this, I don’t hear failure.
I hear honesty.
What often happens here is that the old strategy stops working. The strategy of trying to understand your way into peace. Trying to think your way into clarity and to arrive somewhere “after” this moment.
Seeing through the self illusion is not a feeling. It is not peace, certainty, or emotional relief. It is a simple recognition. And after that recognition, life continues. Old patterns, emotions, sensations, and a familiar sense of “me” still arise. That does not mean you didn’t see. It means something else is asking to be met.
Much of the suffering comes not from what is present, but from resisting what is present. From believing that clarity should feel a certain way. From quietly expecting awakening to erase confusion forever.
If you are tired of trying to figure this out, that exhaustion may not be a problem. It may be the doorway.
I wrote a short piece called “I Understand It Intellectually, But Nothing Has Shifted” as a gentle guide for this exact moment. You can read it slowly, return to it, and let it meet you where you are.
You can receive the PDF here:
👉 https://bit.ly/4qVdXPR
Nothing is wrong with you.
And nothing essential is missing.
There are moments on this path when everything seems to converge at once. The body tightens, the breath becomes shallow, the emotions rise in waves, and the mind tries desperately to make sense of it all. For many seekers this becomes the breaking point - something is finally ready to be felt.
When Tammy joined me, she was living right inside that intensity. She said, “Some physical stuff has come up really strongly and it’s brought up a lot of emotional stuff… just so much confusion.” She had been trying to understand every instruction she heard on the spiritual path. “People say ‘allow it’ — but what does that mean? Sit on the couch? I don’t get it.” Her honesty was the doorway.
As she began to speak more openly, a deeper layer appeared. “I just want to cry and cry and cry. My heart is breaking open for the whole world.” The rawness of that moment was the intelligence of life expressing itself.
I invited her to stop running, just for a breath. To feel what was here rather than trying to fix it. She said, “It feels like a huge mess of everything — despair, hopelessness, fear, love, tiredness.” And yet, when she allowed herself to feel even a fraction of it, something shifted.
The mind panicked: “If I relax, everything will collapse. I won’t take care of my life.” This is a common fear. But when she actually softened into one breath, nothing collapsed. Life remained exactly where it was. Sounds, colours, sensations - all present, untouched.
What hurts is not the energy itself. What hurts is the resistance to the energy. That's suffering.
When Tammy agreed to feel the resistance — the “I don’t like this, I don’t want this, it’s too much” — the tightness eased. Not because she controlled it, but because she listened. This is what most people miss. Resistance is not the enemy. It is a voice asking to be acknowledged. Something inside is expressing the truth.
She realised something essential: “The thoughts keep coming up about how it’s not okay… but the energy just feeling itself — that’s painful and unpleasant.”
And look at this: pain is not the problem, unpleasantness is not the problem. The problem is believing that it shouldn’t be here.
When she finally let the energy be as it is, without fixing, without solving, without labelling it as failure, the storm softened. The energy was finaly met.
This is the heart of Deep Looking - recognising that you are the space in which it moves and sitting beside it as it begins to unfold.
Everything in you is already allowed. Everything is already included. That is why it can finally transform.
If you want to explore this more deeply, I created a short guide called Introduction to Deep Looking. It’s a gentle way to meet what’s here and begin unwinding the tension underneath seeking. You can receive it by signing up on my website. Here is the link:
https://ilonaciunaite.com/deep-looking-ebook/
If you read it and something moves in you, you are always welcome to write to me and share what opened.
There may be a place inside you that has been calling for a long time. Maybe you feel it as a tightness, a pressure, a pull. Maybe it shows up as restlessness, heaviness, or a quiet ache with no name. This isn’t a story to analyse or a memory to fix. It’s a living energy, here now, wanting your presence in the most innocent way.
Many seekers know this place well. Years of practice, healing, and inquiry may bring clarity, yet this one feeling keeps returning. The mind often interprets that as failure — Why is this still here? Why can’t I rest? What am I missing? I have done so much inner work and this scream is still not letting me sleep at night.
My friend, nothing is wrong. You’re not behind. You’re not missing anything. This part of you has simply been waiting to be truly met.
In a recent session, Bo described this inner pull in a way that many can recognise. He said, “I’ve discovered there’s such a… I would call it a scream inside of me. You know, an inner part that is screaming for attention from other people.” That is how it often feels — not like a thought, but like a cry inside the body that has nowhere to go.
For him, resting had become almost impossible. “Either I try to be present with that part that is so screaming for attention from the outside, or do I get taken away in bringing in attention to that part.” That tug-of-war — staying with the feeling or getting pulled into it — is deeply familiar to many seekers. Neither side feels peaceful.
And yet, the moment we turned toward that energy together, everything began to soften. A gentle attention. A willingness to feel without running away. A surrender to the present moment as it is.
At one point, I asked him to invite the feeling closer, to see what it might want. As he looked, something subtle shifted. “There’s some response… the spaciousness is more or something.” This is how the inner world speaks — not in concepts or explanations, but in movement, warmth, expansion.
Later, he said softly, “I could see what the issue was, but I didn’t know what to do.” This is the moment many seekers reach: they understand the pattern, they see the behaviour, but they have no access to the place where healing actually happens. That access opens only when we stop trying to solve and begin to meet what is here.
As the session unfolded, sincerity deepened, and something inside him opened. Toward the end, he whispered, “Oh, I want to cry… said in my heart… really grateful.” This is what happens when a long-ignored part finally receives the attention it needed — not analysis, not fixing, but simple presence. The whole system exhales.
This is the heart of Deep Looking. Just meeting what appears with the same care you would offer a child who has been waiting for someone to notice their tears.
When the energy feels seen, it relaxes.
When it feels welcomed, it softens.
When it feels safe, it stops fighting.
If you feel a part inside you that doesn’t settle — a pressure, a longing, a quiet cry for attention — please know you are safe. You don’t need to fix anything. You don’t need to figure it out. You can meet this with gentleness. The peace you seek isn’t elsewhere. It lives exactly where the discomfort is.
If this touches something in you, I invite you to watch the conversation. Maybe it will help you meet your own inner world with a little more softness today.
If you want to explore this more deeply, I created a short guide called Introduction to Deep Looking. It’s a gentle way to meet what’s here and begin unwinding the tension that sits underneath seeking. You can receive it by signing up on my website. Here is the link:
Awakening isn’t an escape from life. It’s a shift in perception — a change in how you see yourself and the world. It comes through direct recognition of what you truly are, and what you never were.
In this episode of Awakening Now, I spoke with Luchana Uzunova, a nonduality guide whose work bridges clarity, embodiment, and the living expression of awakening. Our conversation moved through what happens after the self-illusion falls away — when the “me” is no longer at the center of experience, yet life continues, vibrant and ordinary.
Many seekers imagine awakening as an endpoint, a place of permanent bliss. Luchana and I both discovered it’s not the end at all — it’s the beginning of a deeper unfolding. The peace that follows awakening is not a fixed state; it’s a living rhythm. Life keeps inviting us to see more clearly, to meet what was previously hidden, and to let love move through the body in ever-new ways.
We talked about embodiment, about the tender process of allowing emotions and energy to surface after awakening. When the old structure collapses, everything that was suppressed comes to light. Embodiment isn’t about perfection — it’s about honesty. It’s the willingness to stay with what is, without trying to escape into ideas or bypass what still asks to be felt.
A theme that ran through our dialogue was trust. Trusting direct experience. Trusting the intelligence of life. Trusting that what unfolds — even when uncomfortable — is part of the same awakening movement. Luchana spoke beautifully about curiosity as the way forward: not fixing, not knowing, simply staying open to what life reveals next.
As we spoke, it became clear that awakening integrates through the smallest details of daily living — washing dishes, feeding cats, meeting friends, feeling joy, feeling sadness. When the imaginary division between “spiritual life” and “ordinary life” dissolves, what’s left is wholeness. There’s no longer a line between awareness and the world. Everything is included.
If you’ve already glimpsed what you are and wonder what comes next, this conversation is for you. Luchana ends with a message that carries the essence of our exchange:
“If it can happen for one, it can happen for all.”
Almost everyone begins with expectations. How this should look, how I will feel, and the fear that something important will be lost. The mind projects outcomes and then warns, “Don’t look, it’s dangerous.” That is a protection pattern. One honest look is enough to start dismantling the old structure.
There is a point where you have to look for yourself. Put ideas and expectations aside and check what is actually here. What is real and what is imagined. The mind may say, “If I see this, I will stop functioning. I will lose my family, my job, my body.” These are stories that block the looking.
Another common snag is the doubt, “It cannot be this simple.” For the mind, simplicity is threatening. It prefers to analyze, predict, and build. But the power is in the simple immediacy of direct experience. If you notice the thought, “Is it really this simple?” that is a good sign. You are looking in the right place. The mind may need time to settle with that.
A big expectation on this path is that awakening must be a grand experience, after which everything changes forever. We hear other people’s stories and wait for fireworks, then dismiss everyday life, washing dishes, walking the dog, as “not it.” Awakening Experiences happen and they come and go. States come and go. Awakening itself is not a state or a special experience. It is the ordinary, living recognition that is here now. That is more liberating than waiting for something else.
Sometimes people say, “I looked, nothing happened.” Notice what “nothing” is. Seeing nothing is still seeing. The mind looks for a “something,” a wow, a concept, a state, and overlooks the obvious. When there is a glimpse and you do not have language for it, trust your own experience. What opens is not small.
So the invitation is simple. Look at what is obvious instead of seeking what is not here. Turn attention to the immediacy of right now. Answers are not in concepts or avoidance. They are in direct experience, as it is, whether blissful or messy. You are here as the space in which everything unfolds. Whatever appears moves through. The space remains.
Trust your experience and the process. The mind may dismiss what matters most because it does not fit a story. Does this resonate? Have you met any of these places? If so, let’s keep looking together.
