There’s a strange thing that happens when you truly wake up—not performatively, not for appearances, and certainly not to win religious approval. I mean spiritually, from the soul outward. When your eyes open to truth and your ears finally hear what the Spirit’s been whispering all along, something shifts so completely that it changes how you move through the world.
That shift makes people uncomfortable. It makes you uncomfortable, at first. It’s not easy to turn away from people, situations—even entire foundations—that have been part of your life for so long you can’t remember who you were without them. There’s grief. There’s pain. There’s uncertainty.
But, once you’ve encountered the steady, unmistakable presence of God—once you’ve known what it is to be held in something unshakable—you learn to trust that above all else. When you’ve reached that place in your journey—especially when God Himself has shown you who and what must be left in the past—those very people may say you’ve changed.
They will demand that you’ve grown cold. That your refusal to participate in the same chaos, delusion, or codependent dynamics must mean you’re bitter. That because you no longer offer unlimited access or allow yourself to be drained in the name of grace, you must be unforgiving. But the truth is much simpler—and far more sacred.
From my own experience with the spiritual side of this journey—as opposed to the worldly or performative side—I can promise you I’m not bitter. And I doubt you are, either.
We’re not resentful. We’re not cold, willful, defiant, or selfish. What we are is done—done with the world’s misunderstanding of what those things actually mean.
Speaking for myself, it comes down to one simple reality: I am no longer interested in avoidable suffering, and the unfortunate truth is that suffering—and a stagnated or shallow spiritual experience—would be the inevitable result of remaining entangled in any part of the life I lived before awakening.
What Spiritual Awakening Actually Does
No—real spiritual awakening doesn’t make you “nicer.” It makes you cleaner. It doesn’t make you “softer” in the way others expect—it makes you sober—spiritually sober. It teaches you to weigh spirits, to test fruit, to listen not just to words but to patterns.
Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God… (1 John 4:1)
By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? (Matthew 7:16)
What you once called “forgiveness” was often just enabling. What you once called “love” was a soul-tie forged in trauma. And what others now call your “walls” are actually filters, built through fire, trial, loss, and hard-won discernment.
You don’t stop loving people when you awaken. You just stop letting love become a weapon turned against you.
When Peace Becomes Non-Negotiable
As far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. (Romans 12:18)
Here’s what many don’t understand about that verse: peace doesn’t always mean closeness. I only understood this for what it was when 90% of my loved ones and true friends were dead, and I promise you it’s far from what “church” taught me about it.
Sometimes peace means silence. Sometimes peace means distance. Sometimes peace means God says, “Enough.” People love to twist scripture into a call for endless self-sacrifice, but scripture also says:
Do not cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot, and turn and tear you to pieces. (Matthew 7:6)
That’s not a warning against loving people. It’s a warning against wasting God’s sacred things on people who have no reverence for them—including you.
I stopped handing out pearls to people who mistook my peace for a resource to drain, but the cost was the experience of walking the majority of my family home and realizing at the end how many of the people around me who claimed to support me never showed up for me during that process, while blatantly demanding that I not let what my life had become interfere with what my role had previously been in their lives.
At that point, when the dust had settled after laying that last love one to rest, it clicked. Not suddenly, but it seemed that way. And in that moment, one where I heard God very clearly tell me, “rest, now. Let that life go,” I made a choice. I stopped offering access to people who couldn’t even honor their own word. And I stopped giving the benefit of the doubt to those who consistently weaponized my forgiveness.
The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty. (Proverbs 22:3)
When They Miss You, It’s Not Really You
A lot of people only miss your light because of what it did for them. They miss the version of you that tolerated chaos with kindness. That prayed for them while they harmed you. That stood in spiritual intercession while they lived in spiritual rebellion. And now that your light is sealed off—protected—they cry that you’ve become distant.
But they don’t miss you. They miss the benefits. And that access? It’s revoked until it’s earned.
You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. (John 8:32)
That’s what freedom really is: being done with participation in pain cycles dressed up as love stories.
That verse isn’t only about intellectual truth. It’s about liberating clarity. Soul-level revelation. The kind that changes your walk, your voice, your standards.
Discernment Isn’t Cruelty. It’s Obedience.
Be as wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. (Matthew 10:16)
There’s no command in scripture that says “Be endlessly available to everyone.” There are, however, countless instructions to test spirits, guard your heart, and remove yourself from fools, deceivers, and the unrepentant.
Do not make friends with a hot-tempered person… or you may learn their ways. (Proverbs 22:24-25)
Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. (2 Corinthians 6:17)
You can’t walk in alignment with God and still entertain every energy that knocks on your door. You can’t keep your peace and stay accessible to the ones who trade in chaos. And you certainly can’t keep growing if you’re still stuck explaining why your healing is sacred.
Closing Thoughts: Here’s the Truth
This was stated in the introduction of this post, but perhaps I can only rightly speak for myself. That said, I do believe that any fully awakened person can state this, too:
I am not bitter.
I am not resentful.
I am just not interested in suffering anymore.
I’ve seen what suffering does when it’s sanctified by dysfunction. I’ve watched it become identity. I’ve watched it erode boundaries, blur truth, soul-suck and bleed people dry. And I’ve also seen what God can do when someone finally says no more.
This clarity? This silence? This stillness and boundary and wisdom?
It’s not coldness. It’s protection.
It’s not judgment. It’s discernment.
It’s not rejection. It’s alignment.
If anyone’s refusal to re-enter suffering looks like bitterness to someone else, maybe that person should ask why they were so comfortable with others hurting in the first place. None of us owe the world access. We owe God our obedience.
Faith, not fear, requires far more strength than what it would take to walk that past, worldly and spiritually mediocre-at-best, lacking-at-worst path all over again. If we are grateful for God’s grace in our lives and wish to embody it fully, we won’t let anyone—including ourselves—pull us back into what He has already delivered us from.
That’s not hate, fear, judgment, or resentment of the world. It’s love—and reverence—for God, and for what He has walked us safely through. May God help and have mercy on anyone who sees it as anything less, because I promise you, spiritually speaking: their path is not as holy as they might believe it to be if they can’t tell the difference.
The Twin Tree Project 