by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
The Myth of Collective Awakening & How It Holds Us Back From REALNESS
I’m getting older which is definitely better than the alternative (as far as I can tell) but which has also given me the ability to see cultural patterns and themes that pop up, make predictions, and then never lead to anything.
I’ve also been involved in self-help, psychology, and so-called ‘spiritual‘ circles for long enough to see ideas come back around in new clothing, with new language, new influencers, and new promises, but always with the same emotional flavour underneath.
One idea that has been astonishingly consistent over the years is the notion that humanity is on the cusp of awakening:
As these stories like to go, we’re apparently just about to cross a tipping point where – once we do – we’ll enter a new era of abundance, purpose, harmony, peace, or whatever combination of words best expresses your personal version of the coming Golden Age.
Technology will save us, consciousness will expand, old systems will collapse, love will prevail and – if we can just hang on for a week or two longer – the world will finally become what it’s ‘supposed’ to be.
This article is about why this idea of collective ‘awakening’ is usually not wisdom at all but the ego projecting its own denial and resistance out into the world:
What it actually is is just a way of creating a psychological bubble to live in so that we can keep avoiding our own emotional ‘stuff’ while still feeling superior, hopeful, or special.
Ironically, growing real as individuals (what this whole site is about) is the only thing that can actually move any of us in the direction of what the Golden Age promises (though probably not the Golden Age itself): more peace, more purpose, more trust, more coherence – not because of some mystical collective awakening, but because people can only wake up at the level of the individual and when individuals change how they relate to themselves, it inevitably changes how they relate to one another.
That is where anything genuinely transformative has always begun and why accepting that REAL ALWAYS WORKS is one of the best things you can do for yourself and the world.
Let’s dig a little deeper:
Humanity is NOT Awakening: What We’ll Cover in this Article
- The Myth of Collective Awakening & How It Holds Us Back From REALNESS
- Awakening & The Nature of a Fragmented World
- The Irony of Perfection & How It Contradicts ‘Awakening’
- The Golden Age of Awakening: An Ancient Pattern in Modern Language
- When Insight the Insight of ‘Awakening’ Becomes Dogma
- Awakening isn’t a Natural Flow
- Getting REAL: Looking at the World We Actually Live In
- Why This Is Actually Good News
- What Growing Real Looks Like in Real Life
- The Final Word on ‘Awakening’: The End of the Illusion Is the Beginning of Something Real
Awakening & The Nature of a Fragmented World
One thing we have to understand – if we want to be honest with ourselves about reality – is that fragmentation, conflict, uncertainty, and things going ‘wrong’ are built into the fabric of human experience and always will be.
This isn’t because of anything demonic, cosmic, or ‘evil’ but because we are finite, embodied, emotionally conditioned creatures living on a planet of limited resources, competing needs, and radically different interpretations of the reality we’ve found ourselves sharing (though the average person treats their interpretations as reality itself).
We are not omniscient, we don’t and can’t see the whole picture, we don’t agree on what matters, and we don’t experience reality in the same way.
We’re shaped by biology, culture, trauma, family systems, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive which means that disagreement and misunderstanding are inevitable.
When you add fear, shame, status-seeking, and the human tendency to avoid emotional pain to the mix then it becomes almost miraculous that cooperation happens at all.
The fantasy of some coming “Golden Age” is usually based on the idea that human beings are going to become some kind of permanently enlightened species, and that the basic fabric of reality itself will somehow shift as a result and so conflict will dissolve, uncertainty will vanish, systems will finally work perfectly and life will become smooth, harmonious, and frictionless.
That might sound nice but it’s not the spiritual maturity it might look like – instead, it’s just the ego in a halo and the ancient belief that, one day, we’ll all be so awake that we effectively become omniscient and omnipotent: able to know everything, control everything, and therefore never be challenged by life again.
None of this is what ‘Awakening’ could ever really mean because the only thing we can awaken to is REALITY and reality means that we embrace and accept our limits (instead of trying to be omniscient and omnipotent because of underlying shame) so that we can work with life instead of against it.
These ‘Golden Age’ dreams of awakening are just what escape looks like dressed up as ‘enlightenment’.
The Irony of Perfection & How It Contradicts ‘Awakening’
The irony is that this quest for Golden Age perfection – which to the ego simply means never being confronted, threatened, or emotionally exposed – actually destroys the very qualities that make us human. in the first place:
Growth, creativity, intimacy, courage, humility, and compassion only exist because life is uncertain, because we don’t have total control, and because we’re forced to meet our limitations again and again until we either grow through them or accept what’s just ‘inevitable’ in our lives.
If everything were ‘perfect’ in the way the ego imagines, there would be no edge to reality where we can actually confront and find ourelves:
No aliveness, no depth, no need for trust, no need for love, even – instead of being living beings in relationship with a dynamic world; we’d simply be insulated operators inside a closed system (which is exactly what the ego is when you think about it).
This is why so many ideas about collective “awakening” fall apart when examined closely:
They’re not about meeting life as it is but are about constructing a version of reality where the ego never has to be challenged.
Real peace does not come from controlling the world until it stops threatening us but from accepting the truth about ourselves, the world, and reality itself so that we can build on something solid (because truth is the only thing we actually can build anything lasting on).
Only when we embrace that it is what it is can we move from force into flow, from fear into trust, and from fragmentation into wholeness.
The Golden Age of Awakening: An Ancient Pattern in Modern Language
The idea of a coming into a sweeping and all-encompassing awakening is not new – in fact, it’s one of the oldest narratives known to humanity (probably because human beings have always wanted to escape from the challenges that life brings).
Every era rediscovers it, repackages it, and announces that this time it is finally happening:
For example, we could argue that in the time of Jesus the language of the “Kingdom of Heaven” served a similar psychological function to modern talk of a spiritually awakened humanity and a transformed world, a new way of being, and an end to suffering as we know it.
The crucial difference between what Jesus said and modern ‘New Age’ (etc.) interpretations, though, is not in the promise, but in the path:
Jesus didn’t teach humanity how to engineer a perfect system or how to bypass its own limitations but instead taught surrender, humility, love, and the relinquishing of control. In other words, he pointed inward, not outward and spoke about a transformation of being, not a utopia of circumstances.
Most modern awakening narratives quietly reverse this and so they speak about inner consciousness, but they’re emotionally invested in an outer result of a world that finally behaves in a way that no longer threatens the ego (instead of growing through ego and finding a foundation of realness instead).
This is not transcendence but spiritualised control freakery and wishful thinking (which is why so many of the modern gurus talking about ‘awakening’ etc. talk about how you can manifest having all of your needs met without any effort and things like that).
When Insight the Insight of ‘Awakening’ Becomes Dogma
Typically, those who speak most passionately about humanity awakening are people who have had a genuine epiphany in their own lives where something has shifted, they may have seen through a layer or tow of illusion, or they’ve experienced a release from a previous identity, addiction, trauma pattern, or worldview.
This, of course, is great (for them) but problems start to arise when personal insight is unconsciously inflated into universal truth and so what was once a breakthrough becomes a dogmatic doctrine.
In these cases, the door that they walked through to return to reality (which was always there waiting because what’s real is always real) is treated as the ONLY POSSIBLE DOOR for everybody else.
“This is the truth”, the ego whispers to itself, “This is the way and if everyone could just see what I see, the world would be healed”.
That’s not awakening, though – it’s just the ego getting excited about it’s own sense of certainty.
It’s for this reason that so many prophecies, spiritual movements, and ideological revolutions so often become dogmatic:
They’re not pluralistic; they don’t honour the irreducible complexity of human life, and they only offer a single lens through which everything must be interpreted (again: a reminder that interpretations of reality are not reality).
In doing so, they increase fragmentation rather than dissolve it because reality itself – in our experience as human beings in fragmented bodies on a fragmented planet – is not one-dimensional.
Whenever someone tells you that humanity is waking up into one interpretation of the truth, what they’re really saying is that the world should conform to their own psychological resolution.
There’s a name for that and it’s not “The Truth”:
It’s projection.
Awakening isn’t a Natural Flow
The deepest problem with the idea that humanity is somehow just going to spontaneously go through an ‘awakening’ is that it contradicts how reality actually works because it treats awakening as a passive, evolutionary inevitability as though consciousness automatically matures over time simply by ‘existing’.
The truth of the matter, though, is that psychological and spiritual development don’t work in the same way as biological ageing and so we don’t become more integrated simply because years pass.
In fact, many people become more defended, more rigid, and more fearful as life confronts them with loss, limitation, and uncertainty.
(If consciousness automatically matured then there wouldn’t be any old people out there who are assholes).
If awakening were automatic, trauma would heal itself, shame would dissolve on its own, and defensive ego identities would gently fade away and lose their grip but history offers no evidence of this.
What we see instead is that without conscious work and EFFORT to let go of the ego and to face our own ‘stuff’, then human beings tend to repeat the same patterns of projection, domination, avoidance, and fragmentation (only with better psychological tools and coping mechanisms as they get older).
Real awakening is not something that just ‘happens’ to us (unless God decides to strike you with lightning or something) – it’s something we CHOOSE to do when we reach the end of what the ego can offer and decide to finally face reality rather than try to escape it.
In my coaching work (and in my books), this always unfolds in the same underlying structure, even though the details are unique to each person:
Awareness (Deconstructing the Ego): Seeing the stories, identities, and beliefs we’ve mistaken for reality itself (and our own realness).
Acceptance (Integrating the Shadow): Meeting the Shadow Self and all of the emotions, wounds, and disowned parts of ourselves that we have been running from.
Action (Trusting Ourselves and Life): Living from what is real rather than what is just safe or familiar by creating a real vision and moving towards it through real action.
None of this can occur without effort (though it eventually becomes effortless as we learn to get into the rhythm of our own realness instead of the ego) because it requires courage, humility, emotional honesty, and sustained practice.
It often begins when the old ways stop working and we are no longer able to maintain our illusions and so we can say that awakening is about letting go of untruths instead of seeking some ‘Golden Age’ that supports everything untrue that we have an emotional need to believe in.
Getting REAL: Looking at the World We Actually Live In
When we tell ourselves that humanity is simply and passively “waking up”, we stop looking honestly at the world as it is.
This is unfortunate because the world, at the moment, is not becoming more integrated and whole but becoming more polarised, more reactive, more identity-driven, and more psychologically fragmented.
Look at how politics is increasingly tribal, at how narcissism is openly rewarded (thanks, social media!), or how online culture amplifies outrage, comparison, and performative morality.
Look at how people have stopped tolerating uncertainty and are clinging harder to certainty and illusion — not because they’re ‘evil’ but because reality is emotionally painful when we’ve been away from it for a while and the ego’s primary function is to protect us from pain.
As the old saying goes, though:
What goes up must come down.
What this means is that all unreal structures – personal (ego) and collective (society and its systems) – eventually reach the end of the line and shadows rise when they can no longer be repressed.
Whether personal or collective any kind of crisis can force what has been avoided into consciousness and so – in this sense – periods of collapse do wake people up but, even then, awakening does not happen at the level of “humanity” but at the level of individuals who choose to meet themselves honestly when their old identities no longer hold.
Many others will go the other direction and cling even more tightly to what is familiar, because clinging is how the ego manages fear.
The long and short of all this is that there’ll never be a moment when the whole world exhales in unison and becomes enlightened because that image belongs to myth – not to life itself.
Why This Is Actually Good News
So let’s get to how you can make all this practical:
Even though this may all sound a little bleak it’s anything but because it places transformation back where it belongs: in your own hands.
The bottom line is that if we stop waiting for a collective awakening, then we’re finally free to focus on the only thing that has ever truly been within our influence which is stepping up and growing real in our own lives.
This means that we stop outsourcing responsibility to some imaginary future, stop spiritualising avoidance, and stop hiding in visions of what the world might become so we can start engaging with what’s actually here (which means we’re building on a foundation of reality, not empty imagination).
The fact is that the only way the world changes is through people who are willing to face themselves – not in theory, not in slogans, but in the nervous system, in relationships, and in the choices we make when fear, shame, and control are triggered.
Reality does not respond to fantasies of perfection – it responds to truth.
Check out my book Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace if you’re ready to go deeper into your own realness and taking action that carries you forward.
What Growing Real Looks Like in Real Life
If ‘awakening’ isn’t a collective event but an individual journey, then the question becomes a practical one:
What does it actually mean to live in a way that’s real?
Here are the foundations (based on the Awareness, Acceptance, and Action model I use with my clients):
1. Practise Awareness: Deconstruct the Ego
Begin noticing the stories you tell about yourself, the world, and about reality itself – especially the ones that justify your fear, your avoidance, or your sense of inferiority/superiority (really, the same thing).
Ask, repeatedly: Is this true or is this just what I need to believe to feel safe?
Awareness is not about self-criticism but about honesty because you can’t wake up from a story you’ve never questioned.
2. Cultivate Acceptance: Integrate the Shadow
Everything you resist within yourself will control you from the Shadow Territory:
Emotional pain, shame, grief, anger, vulnerability – none of these things are obstacles to awakening but are the doorway to it so instead of trying to transcend your humanity, learn to embrace it.
Acceptance doesn’t mean indulgence but just means allowing what is actually there to be seen, felt, and understood so that it no longer needs to be defended against.
3. Take Real Action: Trust Yourself and Life
Insight without embodiment is just another form of escape and so Real Action means making choices aligned with what you know to be true, even when it is uncomfortable.
This might include things like speaking honestly, setting boundaries, or letting go of identities that no longer fit your relationship with yourself and reality.
Trust is not blind faith in a perfect outcome but the willingness to meet reality without armour because you know how to do your best (trust yourself) and forget the rest (trust life).
4. Relate to Others Without Dogma
There is no single ‘correct’ way to be human which is why we can say that growth is pluralistic:
When you stop trying to convert others to your interpretation of the truth and start meeting them as they are, fragmentation dissolves naturally.
5. Measure Progress by Integration, Not Ideals
You’re not becoming more awake because your beliefs sound more spiritual – you’re becoming more awake when you’re less reactive, more present, more honest, and more capable of love in the midst of uncertainty.
That’s honestly the only metric that matters.
The Final Word on ‘Awakening’: The End of the Illusion Is the Beginning of Something Real
Humanity is NOT awakening in the way the myths and ideals might suggest:
There will never be a final tipping point where all conflict dissolves and the world becomes psychologically seamless.
The story of ‘collective awakening’ isn’t wrong because it is too hopeful; it’s wrong because it is rooted in the ego’s refusal to accept the nature of being human in the first place.
Luckily, something far more powerful is always available: the possibility that you can wake up to what is real in your own life.
When enough individuals stop hiding from themselves, stop projecting their denial onto the future, and start living from truth rather than fear, the world changes in the only way it ever can which is from the inside out.
Not through a Golden Age.
Through realness.
Stay real out there,
P.S. If you’re ready to go through the stages of Awareness, Acceptance, and Action so that you can live your real life then book a free coaching session with me and I’ll help you get moving right away.
Trust: A Manual for Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace is a book about learning to return to your realness by cultivating trust in yourself and trust in life.
It contains practical exercises and dedicated meditations (Transformational Bridges) to take you DEEP in knowing yourself and life.
This book will answer many of the questions you have growing REAL and flowing towards wholeness. It covers everything from shame to addiction to the unconscious mind and synchronicity (and way more).
Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness is a book designed to help you look at your life from the inside-out so that you can stop holding yourself back and go get what you really want.
It contains 166 practical ‘Revolutions’ for awareness and over 8,000 Self-Guidance Questions for you to uncover new insight about yourself, the world, and reality that you can translate into action and start building your real life on the realest possible foundation.
Shadow Life is an exploration of the human shadow and the hidden side of our personalities. It looks at the masks we wear, where these masks come from, and how we can take them off.
The book explores how we can better manage our relationships with shame, guilt, and trauma in order to remove the Mask that the world has asked us to wear (and that we forgot we were wearing) so we can live an authentic life with less drama, chaos, or BS whilst we’re still around.
The Flow Builder Journal has everything you need to make the next 21-weeks of your life a turning point.
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