A Spiral Journey from Ignorance to Embodiment
🌀 Introduction
We like to think growth is a ladder—
up, up, up, until we arrive.
But the human path isn’t straight.
It curves. Loops. Doubles back.
Sometimes it burns the map we were handed.
We don’t rise by climbing.
We rise by spiraling inward.
We don’t ascend out of being human.
We descend into it—again and again.
Each time, we carry something new.
A deeper truth. A softer strength.
A more faithful grace.
But here’s what’s rarely named:
You don’t begin your spiral at zero.
You begin inside a story you didn’t choose.
Some of us inherited numbness and called it discipline.
Some inherited silence and called it strength.
Some were taught to climb—but not to feel.
So this spiral?
It’s not just a path of becoming.
It’s a quiet act of return.
To presence.
To mystery.
To the part of you that never needed to prove a thing.
🧬 The Inheritance
We don’t begin our ascent as blank slates.
We begin inside a pattern.
Inside a system.
Inside a story someone else started for us.
Some of us were raised in homes where love was shown through sacrifice—
but never spoken aloud.
Where success was measured in grades and grit—
but not in gentleness.
Where emotions weren’t denied, exactly—just…
inconvenient.
We were taught to know more, not feel more.
To ascend in knowledge while abandoning the body.
To perform presence instead of becoming it.
At work, this becomes burnout masked as achievement.
In faith, it becomes certainty dressed up as wisdom.
In family, it becomes roles we play instead of people we are.
But beneath every expectation we were handed
lives something older than culture,
deeper than conditioning.
Something waiting to be remembered.
This spiral is not just about becoming.
It is about meeting what formed you—
and choosing, again and again,
what you will carry forward,
and what you will finally lay down.
🌱 The Spiral of Becoming
1. Ignorance
“We start not knowing. And that’s okay.”
There is no shame in ignorance.
It’s just the name for when the light hasn’t reached us yet.
But for many, ignorance was inherited—passed down like tradition.
A legacy of not asking, not feeling, not remembering.
I was 22 when I realized how hard it is to admit what you don’t know
in a room that rewards performance and punishes doubt.
Sometimes silence isn’t ignorance.
It’s survival.
🪞 Ignorance is not failure. It’s the beginning of being human.
2. Knowledge
“We learn the rules. Or at least, someone’s version of them.”
This is where most people stop—because it looks like growth.
But knowledge is often the script of someone else’s safety.
A way to be accepted. A way to stay small.
The world will praise you for knowing the rules.
But it will punish you the moment your wisdom threatens its comfort.
📘 Knowledge fills the mind. But it can still empty the soul.
3. Intelligence
“We begin to make connections.”
This is the click. The thrill. The “aha.”
Patterns form. Ideas link.
And for a while, it feels like enough.
But intelligence can be a mask.
Ego loves how clever it sounds.
It’s loud. Sharp. Impressive.
At 27, I was fluent in systems.
I could diagnose dysfunction in minutes.
But I didn’t yet know how to sit with sorrow.
🧠 Intelligence builds tools. But not tenderness.
4. Judgment
“Now we can choose what matters.”
Judgment isn’t about being right.
It’s about recognizing what no longer fits.
We stop hoarding. We start shedding.
Sometimes what falls away is an identity we were praised for.
And clarity?
Clarity will cost you comfort.
But it will give you your life back.
⚖️ You don’t grow by adding more. You grow by holding less.
5. Discernment
“We learn what to carry. And what to carry it for.”
Discernment is what grows in the quiet.
It doesn’t sparkle. It doesn’t shout.
Here, grace begins to slip in—not as reward, but as remembrance.
You stop asking, “What do I know?”
And start wondering, “What’s worthy of being lived?”
Sometimes, this clarity comes not through books—
but through a single moment of stillness that rearranges your spine.
🌿 Discernment is what survives the fire. It’s what remains when the noise burns away.
6. Embodying
“Wisdom without embodiment is just information.”
You haven’t truly learned something until your body knows it.
Until your feet walk differently.
Until your presence becomes safe for someone else to rest in.
For me, this came when my daughter cried at daycare—
afraid I wouldn’t come back.
I knew her needs. Her routines. Her favorite songs.
But she didn’t need me to know.
She needed me to become.
To become the presence her mother once offered.
To offer safety through stillness.
To love with my full being—not just intention.
💠 Embodiment is grace with skin on.
And it often begins with a child, a wound, or a mirror.
7. Wisdom
“Not knowing everything. But knowing what matters.”
Wisdom doesn’t shout.
It doesn’t need to.
It’s the pause before speaking.
The peace that isn’t shaken by noise.
It’s what’s left when all your striving has emptied itself out.
It’s the sacred weight of a life that no longer performs.
In my mother tongue, we call it அருள்—Arul.
Grace that descends. Grace that finds you.
Not because you earned it,
but because you finally became still enough to receive it.
🕊️ Wisdom isn’t the summit. It’s the soil.
It’s what grows when you stop running from being human.
⛰️ The Descent
Every spiral has a shadow.
Every ascent invites a fall.
Not the kind you recover from with a podcast or a plan.
The kind that empties you.
That strips your certainty bare.
That makes you ask: Was this growth? Or just loss?
Because when you change,
you don’t just gain wisdom.
You lose belonging.
You lose language.
You lose roles you used to know how to play.
You’ll see it in work meetings,
when you no longer know how to stay silent.
You’ll feel it at family dinners,
when the story they still live in no longer fits your skin.
And it hurts.
Because becoming doesn’t always look like rising.
Sometimes it looks like disappointing the people who loved your previous self.
Sometimes it looks like standing alone
because you no longer need to be right,
but you still ache to be understood.
But this is not failure.
This is descent.
And descent, too, is sacred.
It is how the soul sheds what is no longer true.
It is how truth gets into your bones.
The spiral doesn’t just lift you.
It hollows you.
So that what remains is real.
🔁 You Don’t Graduate. You Return.
The Human Ascend isn’t a one-time climb.
It’s a lifelong spiral.
You return to the same places—
but each time, with more presence.
More humility.
More grace.
You don’t ask, “How far have I gone?”
You ask, “How deeply have I arrived?”
Because wisdom isn’t something you carry in your mind.
It’s how you walk.
How you hold.
How you stay.
Wisdom is how you live.
Not what you know. Not what you teach.
But how your life whispers what matters.
And maybe this time—
instead of rushing to rise—
you’ll pause, breathe,
and simply…
hold what you’ve become.