Three Realizations That Fortified My Spiritual Growth

For years I treated spiritual growth like a coat I could put on when the weather got cold.

I would pray when I was broke. I would meditate when I was stressed. I would reach for something grounding when I felt unloved. But as soon as life smoothed out I would hang that coat right back in the closet and return to my old unconscious ways of moving through the world — as if the growth was seasonal, as if the practice was only necessary when things were falling apart.

The problem was that I was growing outward — chasing more titles, more accolades, more external markers of safety — without ever strengthening the foundation beneath my feet. I was building on sand and calling it bedrock because it looked solid from the outside.

Then came the season I now call the Great Stripping.

One by one the things I had relied on to tell me who I was began to vanish. My health struggled. My finances dwindled. The people I thought were my anchors quietly drifted away. I found myself standing in the middle of a life that felt completely unrecognizable — no longer the successful professional, no longer the woman who had it all together, just a soul standing in a storm with nothing left to hide behind.

It was in that raw and terrifying vulnerability that something shifted. Not a lightning bolt. Not a dramatic moment of grace. Just a quiet, unmistakable knowing: now we can finally build something that will not break.

Through the tears and the late-night reckonings three realizations came to me that did not just change my mind. They fortified my very existence.

images by Melissa Shipper

Silence Is Not an Absence. It Is a Requirement.

I used to be terrified of the silence.

I filled my house with noise, my schedule with busyness, and my mind with an endless rotation of to-do lists. I was using noise to drown out the voice of my own intuition — because I was afraid of what it might tell me to change. As long as things were loud enough I could pretend I did not hear what my soul was trying to say.

The realization arrived quietly, the way the most important things always do: you cannot hear the directions for your new life if you are constantly talking over the universe.

I learned that spiritual growth requires what I now call a Sacred Void — a willingness to sit in the quiet without an answer, without a plan, without the noise of everyone else's opinions filling the space where your own wisdom is trying to grow. I had to become comfortable with not knowing. With waiting. With trusting that the silence was not empty but full — full of exactly what I needed to receive if I would only stop filling it.

Silence is the laboratory of the Spirit. It is where the lumps are identified and where the real power is gathered. I no longer experience silence as being alone. I experience it as being available.

Victimhood Was a Cloak. Not a Truth.

This was the hardest realization to swallow and I want to be honest with you about that.

When things went wrong my first instinct was to find someone to blame. My upbringing. The economy. The people who let me down. It felt comfortable to be the victim because victims do not have to do the heavy lifting of change. As long as something or someone else was responsible for my circumstances I did not have to look at what I was contributing to them.

But the universe has a way of showing you the truth whether you are ready for it or not.

I realized that as long as I was the victim of my circumstances I was also the prisoner of them. Even in the situations where I was genuinely not the cause of the problem I was still one hundred percent responsible for my response to it. That distinction — between cause and responsibility — changed everything for me. I had to outgrow the need to be right and embrace the need to be free. Those two things cannot occupy the same space.

I traded my why me for what now. And the moment I made that trade the path forward became visible in a way it never had before. Not because my circumstances changed overnight. Because I did.

Being victorious does not mean you never get hit. It means you refuse to let the hit define the rest of your life.

Comfort Is a Beautiful Place. But Nothing Grows There.

I spent a significant portion of my life chasing comfort. The comfortable job. The comfortable relationship. The comfortable routine that required nothing unexpected of me. Every time I achieved it I thought I had arrived. And every time I arrived my soul began to quietly stagnate.

I would get restless. Irritable. I would start unconsciously attracting disruption just to feel something — because somewhere beneath the comfort my spirit knew it was not being used to its full capacity.

The realization that broke this cycle open was this: the challenges that felt like they were breaking me were actually growth spurts for my soul. The friction, the heat, the pressure of the hard seasons — these were not punishments. They were the tools being used to polish me into something I could not have become in comfort. You do not develop depth in the easy seasons. You develop it in the ones that require everything from you.

I stopped praying for the storm to pass and started praying for the wisdom to understand what the storm was building in me. Spiritual growth is not about avoiding the fire. It is about becoming the kind of person who can walk through it and come out on the other side still standing — and carrying a light for everyone who is still in the dark.

What Are You Trying to Keep Comfortable?

These three realizations did not come through a book or a class or a single moment of inspiration. They came through the grit of living. Through seasons I would not wish on anyone and would not trade for anything.

Today my growth is fortified not because of what I have accumulated but because of what I know to be true about my own power and about the nature of the universe I am moving through. That knowledge does not come from the comfortable seasons. It comes from the ones that stripped everything away and showed me what was left.

I want to ask you something honest before you leave this page. What are you currently trying to keep comfortable that the universe is trying to expand? What storm are you praying to escape that might actually be the very thing that is building your depth?

A tree does not ask the wind to stop blowing. It just grows deeper roots so it can dance with the gale.

The tools we carry at Beads and Potions are designed for exactly this kind of intentional living — not as shortcuts around the hard work but as anchors that support you through it. When you are ready to build a practice that holds you steady in the storm, we are here for that.

Peace and love. Aunty Charmaine Beads & Potions — The Mystikal Apothecary

This content is intended for informational and inspirational purposes only and does not constitute professional medical, psychological, legal, or financial advice. Always seek the guidance of a qualified professional for matters related to your health and wellbeing.

Beads & Potions — The Mystikal Apothecary | Beadsandpotions.com | May 2026