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Awakening is a shift in perception, a clear seeing of what you are and what you’ve mistaken yourself for. it reveals what was here all along

You’re listening to Awakening Now, a podcast for those who are on the path of self-discovery and spiritual awakening.

This is episode number 115. The Reality of Awakening: Why the Honeymoon Fades and How to Meet What Returns

My name is Ilona Ciunaite.

I’m a guide, an author, and co-creator of the Liberation Unleashed community.

If you are in the process of awakening, this space is for you. For 14 years, I’ve supported people through awakening—both the clarity and the confusion that follow the first insight.

This episode brings together three segments from a single live meeting, offering a clear look at the reality of awakening beyond the initial insight. We explore the honeymoon phase of awakening—why early openness and clarity fade, why old conditioning returns, and how awakening is not a final event but an ongoing recognition of presence. This part brings clarity to seekers who feel confused when expansion shifts into contraction.

The episode then moves into two practical sessions on emotional integration. First, we meet an inner child that has been calling for attention and driving compulsive behaviours like overeating and seeking validation. Then, in a live session with Tammy, we look at fear, intensity, and the belief that relaxing is unsafe, and how presence meets these movements without fixing or resisting them. Throughout all three segments, the focus is on meeting emotions directly, seeing through the mind’s stories, and recognising what is already here beneath every wave.

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Music by Valdi Sabev, Visit his channel for more calm and relaxed musichttps://www.youtube.com/c/ValdiSabev/featured

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http://ilonaciunaite.com
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In the Stay Spiritual interview, I talk about the quiet flip from seeking to seeing — the moment when the pressure dissolves and looking into your own present experience becomes the first real step toward peace.

So many seekers carry a private heaviness that is difficult to name. It isn’t just the desire for awakening; it’s the subtle tension of feeling behind, of trying to catch up, of believing that others are closer to something you can’t quite touch. The desperation grows quietly, and often nobody sees it. In this conversation, I speak about how that weight begins to fall away when the attention turns from ideas of awakening toward the simplicity of what is here now. When the grasping relaxes, even just a little, something softer begins to open.

I also share the beginning of my own journey — the moment a single question revealed that nobody is running the show. It didn’t arrive with fireworks or certainty. It came as a simple seeing, unmistakable and ordinary, like noticing something in plain sight that had been missed for years. Nothing dramatic changed, yet everything shifted. I felt more like coming home than discovering something new.

If you’ve been seeking for a long time, if glimpses rise and fade, or if part of you quietly fears that you’re missing something essential, I hope this meets you with gentleness. You don’t need to push yourself any further. You don’t need to earn clarity. You don’t need to become someone different. The doorway is not in the future. It’s right here in whatever you’re experiencing in this moment.

Beneath the movement of seeking, there is a natural ease that never leaves. It becomes visible when the fight to get somewhere rests for a moment. When you turn toward your immediate experience — without pressure, without comparison, without trying to fix anything — you begin to feel the ground under your own feet again. And often, that is where the real shift begins.

Find James & Justin here: @stayspiritual

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http://ilonaciunaite.com
http://liberationunleashed.com

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Trust yourself in awakening. In this intimate conversation, Ilona Ciunaite and nonduality guide Luchana Uzunova explore spiritual awakening, embodiment, and living as awareness in daily life.
What unfolds after seeing through the self-illusion? How does peace deepen, fear soften, and the body learn to trust life again?

We talk about the real texture of awakening beyond concepts: being at peace with not-knowing, dissolving the “center,” integrating emotions, meeting fear with curiosity, and allowing life to move without the old protection patterns. Luchana shares how embodiment turns insight into lived freedom — not as a one-time event, but as an ongoing, human, ordinary, beautiful process.

If you’ve already glimpsed what you are and wonder what’s next, this episode is for you. Stay to the end for Luchana’s closing invitation: “If it can happen for one, it can happen for all.”

Subscribe for more on awakening, self-inquiry, and integration.

Subscribe to my Newsletter for updates and to receive info about free monthly meetings on Zoom
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Music by Valdi Sabev, Visit his channel for more calm and relaxed music
https://www.youtube.com/c/ValdiSabev/featured

Connect with Luchana:
Website → https://awakeningawakened.com/
YouTube → @LuchanaLubo
Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/LuchanaU

Support the show

Websites
http://ilonaciunaite.com
http://liberationunleashed.com