Spiritual Awakening and Dark Night of the Soul
Spiritual awakening and dark night of the soul experiences do not always begin with peace, clarity or some beautiful moment where everything suddenly makes sense. Sometimes they begin when the ground underneath your life seems to disappear and you are left trying to understand who you are, what you believe and why everything that once felt normal suddenly feels different.
This week on Spiritual Awakening with Shaz, I spoke with Heather Zimmerman, a Multidimensional Soul Facilitator and founder of Divine Ascension Co., and this conversation went well beyond surface spirituality.
Heather has a background in psychology and applied behaviour analysis, but her own spiritual awakening changed the direction of her life. Throughout our conversation, we explored dark nights of the soul, trauma, sovereignty, channeling, past lives, energy, manifestation, ancestral patterns and the importance of continuing to question what you believe.
What I loved about this conversation was the depth of it. We did not stay inside neat spiritual explanations. We followed the conversation wherever it wanted to go, and some of those places were strange, fascinating and deeply personal.
When Spiritual Awakening Changes Your Reality
Heather shared that her spiritual journey began very young. She spoke about childhood trauma, recurring dreams and experiences she could not explain at the time.
Later, while spending time in a house she describes as haunted, her belief system began to change. Heather had become an atheist because the religious answers she received did not feel true to her. However, hearing footsteps when nobody was there, seeing objects move and experiencing unexplained activity forced her to reconsider what reality might actually contain.
That experience became part of her first major dark night of the soul.
When the beliefs we have relied on stop making sense, we can suddenly find ourselves without the framework that once helped us understand life. It can be frightening, but it can also become the beginning of curiosity.
Heather eventually explored Wicca, Earth magic and other spiritual practices because she felt deeply connected to nature, animals, plants and the Earth.
Her story reflects something many people experience during awakening. The old answers stop working before the new understanding has fully formed.
Finding Your Own Spiritual Truth
One of the strongest parts of our conversation was around spiritual sovereignty.
There is so much information available now. You can open social media and hear ten completely different explanations for the same spiritual experience within minutes.
Heather’s advice was to remain curious.
She said:
“Find out what truth resonates for you, what feels right in your heart, not your mind, but in your heart?”
That really aligned with how I approach spirituality too.
You do not have to believe everything another spiritual teacher says simply because they have been doing it longer than you. You do not need to copy someone else’s practices, beliefs or experiences.
Listen. Learn. Explore.
Then notice what actually feels right for you.
Heather also reminded listeners to keep asking questions and to never lose that childlike curiosity about the world around us.
Our understanding can change as we change. Something that felt completely true ten years ago may no longer match who we are today.
That is part of growth.
Spiritual Healing Happens in Layers
We also spoke about one of my favourite subjects, healing.
Heather made a powerful point about the way people sometimes believe they have healed something because they dealt with it once.
She said:
“The healing journey is never done. Sometimes I might feel like you’re going backwards, but you’re not. It’s cyclical.”
That is something I see repeatedly in healing work.
You may work through an experience and feel genuinely different afterwards. Then months or years later, something similar rises again.
That does not necessarily mean the original healing failed.
You may simply be meeting another layer.
Heather explained:
“When you want to ascend to the next level, the next embodied version of yourself, the next chapter, the next experience, you’re going to have to come back around to that and heal a different aspect of it.”
Sometimes the person you are today has the emotional capacity to process something that the person you were five years ago could not reach yet.
Healing can evolve with you.
The Danger of Spiritual Bypassing
Another important part of our conversation was spiritual bypassing.
It can be tempting to explain everything away with phrases like divine timing, soul contracts or the universe having a plan.
Those ideas may form part of someone’s spiritual beliefs, but Heather spoke about the importance of also processing what we have actually experienced.
She described unresolved experiences as energy that can remain within our emotional, mental and energetic systems when it has not been processed.
That can influence how we think, feel and respond to the world around us.
Healing does not mean pretending something did not hurt.
It does not mean forcing forgiveness before you are ready or pretending that everything happened for a beautiful reason.
Sometimes the work is simply being willing to acknowledge what happened and understand how it shaped you.
Self-Love and Spiritual Growth
Heather’s fourteen-step Self-Spirit Method™ begins with foundations such as mindfulness and gratitude before moving through areas including chakras, self-love, compassion, universal consciousness, spirit communication and eventually manifestation.
One statement from Heather summed up how strongly she feels about self-love:
“Everything. Everything. Everything. Everything stems from self-love. And I will die on that hill for the rest of my life.”
I laughed because I completely understood what she meant.
Self-love influences so much of how we experience life.
It affects what we tolerate, what we believe we deserve, how we speak to ourselves, the boundaries we hold and the choices we make.
When you constantly reject parts of yourself, healing becomes difficult because you are trying to grow while still fighting who you are.
Acceptance does not mean pretending every part of your behaviour is perfect. It means being willing to see yourself clearly enough to work with what is actually there.
Manifestation Is More Than Positive Thinking
Heather also challenged some common manifestation teachings.
She believes manifestation involves much more than repeating affirmations, creating vision boards or visualising what you want.
One of the most useful parts of our conversation centred on where your attention is actually going.
Heather explained:
“It’s not necessarily about the word no. It’s about what you’re actually feeding that energy into.”
For example, someone may repeatedly think, “I don’t want to struggle financially.”
Yet their attention remains fixed on struggle.
Heather’s point was to shift the focus towards what you actually want to experience instead.
Instead of constantly concentrating on what you are trying to escape, begin identifying the experience you want to move towards.
That could be safety, stability, freedom, connection or peace.
Manifestation becomes very different when you understand what you are repeatedly feeding with your thoughts, emotions and attention.
Channeling and Multidimensional Experiences
This conversation definitely travelled into the deeper end of spirituality.
Heather spoke openly about channeling, past lives, dream walking, astral travel, extraterrestrial experiences, higher-dimensional beings and communicating with different forms of consciousness.
She described channeling as one of her favourite spiritual practices and shared how she has worked with everything from deceased animals to higher-dimensional beings and spiritual figures.
We also talked about developing relationships with spirit.
That relationship does not have to feel formal.
Heather spoke about asking questions, becoming curious and learning how to communicate rather than expecting spirit to simply deliver every answer automatically.
For me, this is an important part of spiritual development.
Connection grows through relationship.
We ask. We listen. We learn how our own intuitive language works.
Learning to Become Spiritually Sovereign
Underneath everything we discussed was a common theme.
Become your own authority.
Heather teaches sovereignty and empowerment because she wants people to develop their own understanding rather than becoming dependent on someone else’s spiritual truth.
That does not mean rejecting teachers, healers or mentors.
It means learning from them without handing over responsibility for your own life.
Your spiritual journey belongs to you.
You can explore different teachings, ask questions, experiment with practices and listen to other people’s experiences while still deciding what resonates with you.
That is where spiritual growth becomes personal.
Listen to the Full Conversation About Spiritual Awakening and the Dark Night of the Soul
This episode went into places we do not always talk about openly.
We discussed spiritual awakening and dark night of the soul, trauma, haunted houses, spirit communication, channeling, manifestation, ancestral healing, past lives and what happens when your understanding of reality begins expanding beyond what you were originally taught.
If you enjoy the deeper conversations around spiritual awakening and want to explore what can exist underneath the surface, I think you will enjoy this one.
Heather Zimmerman is the founder of Divine Ascension Co., author of Becoming Divine and creator of The Self-Spirit Method™.
Listen to the full episode of Spiritual Awakening with Shaz and come down the spiritual rabbit hole with us.
Connect With Heather Zimmerman
You can learn more about Heather and her work through Divine Ascension Co.
Website:
https://www.divineascensionco.com
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/heatherzim815
Podcast:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2555165
YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@DivineAscensionCo
Free Guide: The Ground Went First
Heather has also created a free guide called The Ground Went First, exploring the part of awakening that can feel as though your foundations are disappearing.
You can access the guide here:
https://preview.mailerlite.io/forms/2006028/197201023795726112/share
Heather is also offering listeners 10% off their first session or program.
Use the coupon code PODCAST when purchasing.
