My YouTube Journey to 5000 Subscribers

I started posting on my YouTube channel in 2018 while living in Mexico. I had a message that was pressing to come through, something that felt like a voice looking for words, and I wanted to find a way to let it out. I had been working with people for years already, sharing the same exercises, the same metaphors, and I thought, if I could record this, I could just send people to watch a video. I could reach more people that way. That idea excited me and I was determined to make it work.

Living at the end of a road in a jungle, the internet ran on 5 megabits. My phone had barely any storage, so I would record a little, delete something to make space, then record again. It took a day and a half sometimes just to upload seven minutes of video. I had no idea how to edit, so I did take after take. It was a struggle by any measure. But something inside kept saying, keep going, this is right. And so I did. The first subscribers came, and that meant something.

In 2020, I decided to take it seriously. I spent two months just watching other creators, learning how things worked. I felt like a first grader walking into school for the first time. The equipment, the lighting, the delivery, the thumbnails, the intros. It was overwhelming and exciting at the same time, and there was a moment where I could have just stopped there, convinced it was too much to learn. Instead, I decided to focus on one video at a time and trust that experience would teach me what no amount of watching could. Every failure felt like a step up.

Some of those early videos are still up. I'll be honest, when I watch them now, I feel a little embarrassed. But I also know they still work as a pointer for someone who needs them. I took some down at one point and got an email from someone looking for them, which said everything. They stay now, and when I watch them, I can see exactly how far this has come.

In 2023, someone asked me why I wasn't putting the recordings out as audio so people could listen on the go. That one question became the Awakening Now podcast. And with that came a whole new layer of learning. It also pushed me to show up more consistently, which led me somewhere I never expected to go, interviewing teachers and people on the path.

I started with people I already knew. Then I began reaching out to people I didn't know, and that didn't always work. Some conversations never happened, some felt like a miss, and that was frustrating because I wanted to bring something genuinely valuable rather than just fill the space with noise. But sitting down with someone for a conversation turned out to be something quite different from sitting with someone in a session. Here I was the listener. I was learning about someone else's work, someone else's way of seeing. And something unexpected happened. Sometimes a single word from a guest would land in me. Sometimes a metaphor, or a sentence framed in a way I hadn't heard before, and it would quietly find its way into my own work. I am genuinely grateful for everyone who came to sit down and share.

It has not always been smooth. There were episodes I struggled to finish and days I genuinely did not want to show up. What I learned is that consistency matters more than inspiration, and I trusted that if I just showed up, the next episode would happen. So I kept showing up.

What fuelled me on the hard days were your messages. Someone writing to say that a conversation helped them see something they hadn't been able to see before. Someone sharing that something shifted. Those messages landed in me and reminded me why this exists.

Because I care. I care about the state of humanity and where we are all headed, from unconscious to authentic, from noise to something real. I am not here to be a leader who holds something you don't have and keeps you coming back for more. That has never been my intention. My passion is to ignite something in you, or better, to turn your attention toward the fire that is already burning. The seeking for truth, the wanting to know your own essence, the impulse to live authentically. That space that is always already free and at peace is not somewhere you need to travel to. It is already here. I just want to help you see it.

Today, this channel has reached 5000 subscribers. And I want to sit with that for a moment, because 5000 is not a small number. It tells me that what I am sharing is landing, that people need to hear this, that there is real power in this message. That means everything to me.

What I hope for is simple. That this channel keeps growing, keeps reaching people who are ready, keeps planting seeds and sparking curiosity and making the message of awakening more accessible and easier to follow. There is so much noise everywhere you look. But there is also a clear signal underneath all of it. If something I share helps you tune into your own clarity, even for a moment, that is the job done.

And if you feel moved to share a video with a friend or your community, you are helping this message do its work in the world. That matters more than I can say.

Thank you for watching, for commenting, for writing to me, for being here. This channel exists because you are in it. Deep gratitude.

https://www.youtube.com/@IlonaCiunaite

Where Have You Become Certain?

 

Over the past few weeks, I have had several conversations about awakening, seeking, and the places where people sometimes get stuck. You may have watched a few of these interviews on YouTube.

It is fascinating to me how easily we can take a position and set up camp there, calling it, “I know how it is.”

This can happen in any area of life, but it becomes especially interesting on the spiritual path. The mind wants certainty. It wants to know what is true, where it stands, and whether it has finally arrived.

After years of seeking, this is understandable. Seeking can be exhausting. There may have been years of reading, watching videos, going to retreats, trying different practices, and hoping that the next insight will finally bring the peace that has always felt just out of reach.

Then something shifts. A clear recognition happens. The familiar sense of being a separate self is seen in a new way. There is relief. Something important has been understood, or perhaps directly seen.

It can feel deeply satisfying to land on a conclusion: “I am awake now.” “I understand.” “This is it.”

And yet, sometimes the conclusion quietly becomes a new place to hide.

A new identity forms around the experience. The words change. The story becomes more refined. The mind may start to speak with confidence about awareness, nonduality, liberation, or the absence of a separate self.

The language may be accurate. The recognition may have been real. But the need for certainty can still remain underneath it all.

The mind wants to know where it stands. It wants a map. It wants to say, “I have arrived.” "I am done!" Only there is no done. 

And that can become a trap that is extremely difficult to see, because the position now sounds like truth.

There is a reason certainty feels so attractive. The unknown gives the mind nothing to hold on to. There is no final explanation and no guarantee about what comes next.

When the old identity begins to loosen, the mind may quickly create a new one. The seeker becomes the one who has found the answer. The one who felt lost becomes the one who knows.

But life has its own way of showing us where something is still held tightly.

Fear appears. Old patterns return. A relationship touches a painful place. The body contracts. Something unexpected happens, and suddenly the certainty feels less secure.

This does not mean that something went wrong. It does not take anything away from the recognition that has already happened.

It may simply be an invitation to keep looking. The crystallised positions are the place to look. 

Seeing through the self-illusion is important. But life continues to reveal every place where we are holding on, resisting, or trying to protect an image of ourselves.

Even the image of being awake can become something to protect.

Perhaps the most useful question is not, “Am I awake?”

Perhaps it is: Where have I become certain? Where have I stopped looking because I believe I already know? What am I afraid to question? Is there still space for “I do not know”?

These are not questions that need quick answers. They are invitations to notice.

Real looking stays open. It does not need to defend a position or reach a final conclusion.

Perhaps there is nowhere final to land.

And perhaps that is where the real freedom begins.

I Understand It All… But Nothing Has Shifted

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.

The Fear of Relaxing and the Freedom Beneath It

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.

Meeting the Part Inside You That Has Been Waiting

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:

https://ilonaciunaite.com/deep-looking-ebook/

If you read it and something moves in you, you are welcome to write to me and share what opened.