What's Missing in Your Awakening Practice

Almost everybody who books a call with me is missing one of the same three things.

They are usually doing a lot of one, some of another, and almost nothing of the third. That imbalance is typically what keeps them stuck. Not a lack of effort. Not a lack of sincerity. Just a gap they cannot see because they are standing inside it.

Over the years of working with people in various stages of awakening, I have noticed that everything that matters falls into three categories. I think of them as three pillars. When all three are reasonably covered, things tend to move. When one is missing, things tend to stall, no matter how hard someone works on the other two.

The three pillars: stabilization, progress, and relaxation

These are not stages. You do not finish one and move to the next. They run in parallel, all the time, and the balance between them shifts depending on where you are in your process.

Stabilization is about your nervous system understanding that it is safe. When your system feels safe and stable, it is able to let go, open up, and relax conditioning. Without that foundation, adding more practice or more intensity often makes things worse, not better.

Progress is the actual inner work. Meditation, investigation, inquiry. Looking at your conditioning, being with what is here, discovering who you actually are underneath the layers.

Relaxation is the most underrated of the three. It is what allows everything else to integrate. Without enough relaxation, the insights do not land and the nervous system stays activated even when the practice is good.

Stabilization: grounding, movement, less practice

The most important element of stabilization is grounding. How grounded do you feel right now? How much are you in your body? If the answer is not much, this is where to start, regardless of how advanced your practice is.

Movement matters more than most people realize. Not intense workouts. Regular walks, biking, light exercise, being physically active during the day. The body needs to be able to move energy through it. When it cannot, things build up and the system feels unsafe.

The third element is counterintuitive: less practice. Some people are overpracticing. They have been on a retreat, or they are doing long meditation sessions, or they are layering multiple techniques on top of each other, and their system is overwhelmed. Sometimes the most stabilizing thing you can do is pull back.

I regularly see people who are making progress and have some relaxation but do not feel stable. When we look together, it is almost always grounding. They are ungrounded. When we fix that, things settle quickly.

Progress: body, suffering, off the cushion

When I talk about progress, I am talking about three specific things.

Investigating the body. Not thinking about the body. Actually feeling it. What is happening in the chest right now? In the belly? In the throat? The body carries an enormous amount of information that most people skip over because they are focused on the mind.

Investigating suffering in daily life. Where are you still getting triggered? Where do you notice tension? Where are you making others suffer? Where are you annoyed, frustrated, or contracted? These are not problems. They are the curriculum. Each one is a place where conditioning is still running, and each one is an opportunity.

Taking practice off the cushion. This is the one most people miss. They meditate for twenty minutes in the morning and then spend the rest of the day on autopilot. Real progress happens when presence becomes your new standard, not something you do on the side. Are you in your body during the workday? Are you noticing your patterns in conversations? Are you bringing awareness to the moments that used to run on automatic?

If you want to make progress, this should be always on. Not as a pressured effort. As a quiet attention that runs in the background of your day.

Relaxation: alone time, limiting input, surrender

Relaxation is where most people have the biggest blind spot.

Alone time is essential. Not scrolling-on-the-couch alone time. Actual stillness. Space where nothing is being asked of you and no input is coming in. Many people in an awakening process are chronically under-rested because their system is processing so much internally while they continue to live their normal external life.

Limiting input and pressure means exactly what it sounds like. Less caffeine. Less alcohol. Less screen time. Less social obligation. Less news. Less stimulation. The nervous system is already working overtime. Everything you add on top of that slows the process down.

Surrender and flow is about how aligned you are in your daily activities. Are you forcing yourself through your workday? Are you pushing through social situations that drain you? Are you living in a way that feels forced rather than natural? When you find flow in your day-to-day life, with your work, your family, your routines, relaxation becomes built into the structure of your life instead of something you have to carve out separately.

Score yourself

Here is what I would invite you to do. Look at each of the three pillars and the three elements within them. Be honest with yourself. Where are you strong? Where are the gaps?

Most people discover that they are heavily invested in one pillar and almost ignoring another. The person who meditates daily but never exercises and is chronically ungrounded. The person who has plenty of alone time and reads every book but does no actual practice. The person who practices intensely but never rests and wonders why they feel destabilized.

The gap is usually where the shift is waiting.

A custom plan

If you want to work this out together, I offer free 30-minute calls where we look at your specific situation. We score your three pillars together, identify where the gaps are, and I give you a concrete plan for what to focus on right now.

No preparation needed. Just book a call and tell me where you are:
👉🏻 https://calendly.com/keesblok/gratis-kennismaking