My Wife Was Pregnant. I Couldn't Go to the Supermarket.

What spiritual burnout actually looks like and how I got out

Seven years ago, my wife was pregnant. And I couldn't even go to the supermarket.

The supermarket was five minutes away. I knew that. I told myself it was simple. But when I got back home, I had to lie on the couch just to recover from the groceries.

I wasn't physically ill. There was no diagnosis, no obvious reason. From the outside, I was just a man who couldn't run a basic errand for his pregnant wife.

From the inside, I was completely falling apart.

How it started

A few years before this, I had my first awakening experience. If you've been through something like this, you know what I mean, a sudden, clear seeing of who you really are beneath the noise of thought and identity. A recognition that you are okay, that you are held, that the thoughts you've been believing aren't the truth of what you are.

It was the most profound thing I had ever experienced.

And then my spiritual ego took over completely.

I went from optimizing my business and personal development to optimizing my awakening. I read everything I could find. I watched hours of YouTube videos every day. I did shadow work sessions that left me on the floor, shaking. I meditated for hours. I looked for every limiting belief, every trauma, every contraction I could find and I attacked it.

I was treating my awakening like a problem to be solved and myself like a project to be fixed.

Meanwhile, my kundalini process was intense. Kriyas, shaking, energy moving through my body in ways I didn't understand and couldn't control. My wife watched me roll my eyes back and scream on the floor more times than either of us would like to remember.

And underneath all of it, I was running on empty.

The thing nobody tells you about awakening

Here's what I didn't understand at the time: awakening is not a self-improvement project.

The first glimpse, the recognition, the seeing, that happens to you. But then the mind comes back online and tries to take control. The spiritual ego is born. And it is just as driven, just as controlling, just as relentless as the old ego, except now it has a new goal: enlightenment.

So instead of resting in what had been revealed, I was chasing more of it. Instead of surrendering to the process, I was forcing it. Instead of allowing things to move through me, I was gripping everything with both hands.

I was also not sleeping well, not exercising, eating badly without knowing I had a gluten intolerance that had been quietly draining my energy for years. All of that together, the forcing, the physical depletion, the kundalini process, the pregnancy, the responsibilities of daily life, it broke me.

Going to the supermarket was too much.

What actually got me out

It wasn't another technique. It wasn't a new teacher or a better meditation practice. It wasn't reading one more book or watching one more video.

It was giving up.

Not giving up on the path but giving up on controlling it. Surrendering to the fact that I was already being carried. Remembering what the first awakening had actually shown me: that I was okay, that I was held, that I didn't need to fix anything.

From that place of surrender, things slowly began to shift.

I started asking for help. I had a free call with a teacher who told me about grounding, something I had completely neglected in all my inner work. I started doing simple grounding practices. I started moving my body again. I went to see a doctor and discovered the gluten intolerance. I stopped trying to rush my own process.

And year by year, things got easier.

More energy. More clarity. Less kundalini. Less struggle.

Today, seven years later, my process is low maintenance. I feel normal again but with everything that awakening brought. The seeing is still there. The lived experience of nonduality, no-self, the nature of what I am that doesn't go away. But the suffering around it has dissolved almost entirely.

If you're in this place right now

Maybe you can't go to the supermarket. Maybe you can, but you can't work, or parent, or show up in the ways you want to. Maybe you're in the middle of a kundalini process that feels like it's destroying your life instead of awakening it.

I want you to know: I understand this more than most people will.

And I want you to know that it doesn't have to stay this way.

The path forward is not more effort. It's not more shadow work, more meditation, more optimization. It's learning to work with your process instead of against it. It's getting grounded. It's taking care of your physical body. It's surrendering the grip of the spiritual ego and trusting that you are already being carried.

That is the work. And it is so much gentler than what most people in awakening are doing to themselves.

If you want practical support for stabilizing your process, getting your energy back, functioning in daily life, and moving through this without burning yourself out, I've put together a free guide:

👉 fromdoingtobeing.org/stabilizingawakening

It's everything I wish someone had handed me seven years ago.

And if you want to talk directly, I offer free calls. No pitch, no pressure. Just a real conversation with someone who has been exactly where you are and found a way through.

Much love,

Kees