Instead, we’re also interconnected with all life, the same way a wave is inseparable from the ocean.

Identity moves from ego to self to Being. This awake-identity process is only available when growing up and waking-up meet. The awake-identity stage of development allows us to detox our repressed emotional storehouses and rewire our brains so that we can respond to life rather than merely reacting.

Second, in this day and age, it’s actually more difficult and dangerous to try “holding it together” and “doing the best we can” from the level of ego-identification than it is to begin the journey of awakening.

Some people need to feel the fire at their backsides—the sting of heat and the fear of getting burned—before they’re willing to let go of old ego defenses and shift into a new sense of being.

When we wake in, we discover our individual human being as an innocent and wise “Being.” From here, the core stories and the old feelings of shame—“I’m not good enough,” “Something’s wrong with me,” “I’m unlovable”—are no longer convincing.

Contemporary teacher of awakening, Adyashanti, describes stages of “head awakening, heart awakening, gut awakening, and root awakening.”

Our choice today is to break down, shut down, act out—or break through and wake up.

You can wake up, but still not grow up.

next-level practices—awareness of awareness, effortless mindfulness, and heart mindfulness—offer similar benefits in terms of stress relief and focus, they’re primarily designed to relieve the root of suffering caused by ego-identification and to help us access our natural potential for joy, wellbeing, and living from an embodied flow state.