The Three Spiritual Tests You Must Past Right Before You UplevelThe Three Spiritual Tests You Must Past Right Before You Uplevel
The Awaken With Alyssa Podcast
Alyssa reflects on three common spiritual tests—shadow confrontation, tension of opposites and synchronicity—through the lens of her own journey from addiction to awakening. She offers grounded practices for facing inner conflict and spiritual experiences without bypassing the hard work of real change.
1:08:19•9 May 2026
Three Spiritual Tests Before You Level Up Your Life
Episode Overview
- Tests often intensify just before a major breakthrough, surfacing patterns that must be faced so you can actually hold the life you say you want.
- Shadow work means owning both your disowned pain and your “golden shadow” – the power and brilliance you’ve projected onto others.
- Real growth requires holding the tension of opposites instead of collapsing into extremes, whether in gender roles, spirituality, or lifestyle.
- Synchronicities can support your path, but using them to feel special or superior is a sign of spiritual inflation rather than genuine guidance.
- Simple daily practices like a shadow inventory, somatic feeling, dream journalling and active imagination can steadily move deep material into healing.
“The path to wholeness doesn’t feel like ascending into light. It feels like descending into darkness.”
What can we learn from those who have battled addiction and then thrown themselves into deep spiritual work? Here, Alyssa shares how years of addiction, depression and chronic pain eventually led her into a decade-long spiritual awakening path, and why things often feel hardest right before life upgrades you.
Speaking from her own journey and Jungian psychology, she breaks down “three levels of testing” that tend to show up before a big shift: shadow confrontation, the tension of opposites, and synchronicity. You’ll hear how old patterns resurface, finances crumble or relationships fall apart just as you’re asking for more purpose, love or abundance. As she puts it, “The path to wholeness doesn’t feel like ascending into light.
It feels like descending into darkness.” For anyone healing from addiction or trying to stay sober, her stories land close to home. Alyssa describes putting partners and business collaborators on pedestals, losing herself, hitting a financial crisis and reaching the point of wanting to give up—then finding her way back through shadow work, forgiveness and radical surrender.
She offers very practical tools: a daily shadow inventory, body-based emotional processing, active imagination with inner parts, and simple guidelines for working with dreams and synchronicities without drifting into spiritual ego. There’s plenty of gentle humour too, especially when she talks about number patterns and “raw-dogging” life without any support. The tone is honest, grounded and aimed at those who are “her people” – the ones ready for the deeper work behind sobriety, spiritual awakening and service.
If you’ve ever felt tested right when you’re trying to level up, this conversation might make you ask: what if nothing is going wrong, and this pressure is exactly what you’ve been asking for?
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