If you've ever wondered whether you're cut out doing healing or spiritual growth wrong because you feel exhausted, confused, or detached, this episode is for you. Today we're talking about the green flags in spiritual growth that feel like red flags. The moments that look like regression, but are actually signs you're moving deeper into your awakening. Welcome to Roots of the Rise with me, Sarah Hope, where spiritual wisdom meets practical tools in short, bite-sized episodes. These are tasters, not deep dives, designed to spark curiosity and guide you toward authentic alignment so you can discover who you truly are, release what holds you back, and rise into your best self. Anyone on the inner growth journey has likely hit that moment when it all just feels like too much. It's too hard, you've been at it too long, and you just don't know if you want to keep doing it anymore. And often that's because, well, first of all, it is that hard and it does feel long, and we all hit that moment of what I usually call soul fatigue, where we're just kind of tired. But also it's because I think many are unclear on what the real destination of inner growth and development actually is. In the beginning, we tend to think it's the end of suffering, the day we finally feel peaceful all the time and you know, never get triggered again. And that's understandable. That's a really understandable goal. I mean, it's what brings most people to the arena of inner development. Just help me stop feeling this pain all the time. Completely valid. But the real destination isn't the end of challenge. It's learning to enjoy the process of inner growth and healing itself. And it's also kind of speeding up the process so that when we are in those moments of challenge, they don't last as long. You know, learning how to grow, to heal, to expand awareness, learning how to turn inward for guidance instead of searching outside ourselves, how to translate trauma into resource. That's the goal. And one of the most important skills we develop along the way is discernment. Because here's the tricky part. Sometimes green flags can feel like red ones during this process. I mean, we usually think of green flags as the moments that feel good, when life flows easily, when things click. But what if what you think is backsliding is actually progress? What if some of the most important green flags in your spiritual journey actually feel uncomfortable, like being completely exhausted or wanting to hermit? Today we're going to explore how to recognize growth feedback in real time, especially when it feels like something's wrong. Before we dive in though, let's just ground a few truths about inner development. First of all, everything is hard before it's easy. No one wakes up, decides to do the inner work, and suddenly everything falls into place and it's all rainbows and sunshine immediately. I mean, we all know this intellectually, but what often surprises people is how defeated they can feel once they realize that this is a work of a lifetime, that we will be letting go, healing, and relearning again and again, just like exercise, right? You never stop exercising if you want to maintain that healthy physical form. It's the same thing with our inner growth. And it can be really discouraging to see the same wounds show up over and over again, the same relationship patterns, the same fears, the same triggers, that feeling of what, this again? I mean, has that happened to you? It still happens to me. You know, if you don't have someone in your corner reminding you that it does get easier or showing you how to make it easier, of course you're gonna hit moments of feeling like, oh, why am I even bothering with this? This is just too much. You know, the fifth time, the 50th time your old patterns resurface, it's easy to think, I'm not getting anywhere. But often you are. You just can't see it yet. You know, inner growth is not a straight line, it's a spiral where we continuously come back to things we thought we understood and see deeper truths. That's a Barry Gillespie quote. And it's one of my all-time favorites because it is so true. The problem is if no one helps you notice how differently you're handling things now, it can feel like you're stuck. One of my mentors often compares it to flying. You know, when you're in takeoff, you feel it, you know the airplane is moving. But once you hit cruising altitude, you don't realize you're going whatever it is, 600 miles per hour. Inner growth can be like that too. Without the skill set or self-inquiry tools to track your own growth, it can all feel like an endless uphill climb or that you've hit that cruising altitude and nothing is changing. But here's the thing: willingness to do hard things opens doors you can't access any other way. That's why Glennon Doyle's We Can Do Hard Things caught fire, because it's a mantra we all need. Learning to be okay with discomfort is one of the most important skills you will ever develop. Hard doesn't mean wrong. It just means it's time to look around and ask, what kind of support do I need? Who can help me move through this with a little more ease? What new skill wants to emerge here? There's no one and done formula for healing, unless that one thing is a really big umbrella, like cultivating the many facets of the heart, because then you get acceptance and joy and forgiveness and compassion, a whole bunch of other things as well. Like any skill, your ability to live from that place, from that new, healthier way of interacting with your life, that's going to ebb and flow. You'll keep your cool one day and lose it the next. You will feel completely aligned in one moment and reactive the next. That's not failure. That's progress. The stages of growth don't move neatly from unaware to enlightened. They look more like first becoming aware of the pattern after it happens, then beginning to notice it as it's happening, then beginning to catch it before it happens, and practicing making a different choice. After enough repetition, that new choice becomes who you are. It shifts from a state to a trait. I often tell people when you're, you know, trying to manage things differently, your first reaction is your programmed one, the one that you have been living with for sometimes decades. It's your second response that matters, how you're trying to change, how you're showing up to become the better version of yourself. That's what really matters, not that initial response. You know, for me, this whole process showed up in my tendency to lie about little things, like whether I'd walked the dogs. I've talked about this before on here. I mean, at first, I would only notice really that I had lied about it a few days later. Then I started catching myself in the moment, saying, you know, internally, oh, I just lied again, but not yet able to change it. And then I'd catch it moments after the fact and set the road record straight. Eventually I stopped. That was more than a decade ago now. And now I don't lie. But that's how change really happens. It wasn't a one and done. It took time. Maybe for you it's people pleasing. At first, you say yes to something you don't want to do all the time. Then you notice, ooh, that didn't feel good. Maybe I don't want to do it this way anymore. Then you learn to pause. Maybe you make it a practice to always say, let me get back to you before agreeing to anything, so that you give yourself space to check in with yourself first. Over time, the pattern unlines. The point is, it's never an immediate fix, it's always a process. And that's where discernment comes in again, because we have to learn how to read our feedback systems physical, emotional, energetic, relational, growth, all of it. It doesn't feel good, isn't by itself the signal that's something wrong. As Till Swan says, the fact that something doesn't feel good is simply an alert, like the sound of a notification on your phone. It doesn't mean stop what you're doing. It just means you've got a message. Our job is to learn to listen to that message, to determine whether or not there is truly something wrong, or if we are just experiencing resistance born of fear, or intensity born of growth. And that's what we're going to explore now. Let's go over six green flags that can feel like red flags on the spiritual path. And as we go through these, keep in mind, none of them are hard and fast rules. This is a process of discernment, not a checklist. One size does not fit all. The first one, exhaustion. Yep, being exhausted can actually be a sign you're on the right track. Think about when you go on vacation. Sometimes you have tons of energy for the first couple days and then you crash. That is your system realizing, oh wait, I can finally relax now. The body lets its guard down, and the fatigue that was being held back floods in. That same thing happens in spiritual growth. When we expand in consciousness, our nervous system, body, outer life, it all has to reorganize to match the new frequency. Basically, you've got integration fatigue. Your body is recalibrating. Several of my mentors agree that the physical body can lag behind the soul's growth by about six months. How you're showing up, both kind of in your life in general, but also your physiology, all of that kind of has to catch up to all this inner development soul growth that you're creating. And that's exhausting. So if you're sleeping more or feeling wiped out, it can actually be a sign that you're up leveling. Now, here's the disclaimer: exhaustion can also mean your system is overloaded. It can be a red flag if you are getting sick often, pushing too hard, or trying to do too much too fast. So that's where the discernment comes in. Check in with your quality of sleep, your stress, your overall pace of life. I mean, sometimes you need rest. Sometimes you need to slow the integration down. Number two, disorientation or emptiness. Sometimes you'll feel lost, even unmotivated, not because you're failing, but because you're shedding an old identity, especially one where stress, fear, or proving your worth were your main motivators. As you start to live from inner authority, tuning into your own guidance system, it can feel really disorienting. I remember when I switched from keeping endless to-do lists that had to be completed every single day to keeping one master list for the week and only doing what I felt genuinely called to do in joy. At first, it was so uncomfortable. I didn't trust that I wouldn't drop a ball. And sometimes I did in the beginning, because again, that's kind of how this works. But that was part of learning to be motivated by joy instead of fear. So if you're in a season of not knowing what drives you, if you're feeling aimless, that can be a green flag that you're moving from force to flow. The caution here: if disorientation turns into persistent hopelessness or detachment from life, that's when to reach out for support. There's a difference between identity shedding and a depressive shutdown. Number three, heightened emotions or sensitivity. Here's the thing: you don't get to choose what you become more aware of. Awareness is awareness. And for many of us, part of what kept us safe before was a layer of numbing. And when that numbing starts to melt, all sorts of emotion can surface. Grief, fear, anger, uh, feeling raw, often all at once. And it can feel like way, way, way too much. But this is actually a sign of your nervous system opening for deeper presence. You're allowing what you used to suppress. And this is one reason why nervous system regulation is so vital in healing work. It's why I love craniosacral therapy and why so many of my clients began experiencing exponential shifts once we integrated it. That said, heightened sensitivity can also mean your system is overloaded. If you're not grounding or getting outside support, you can become destabilized. So if things start to feel like too much, pause, slow down, ground, let someone help you process. Number four, loss of interests or relationship. This one is big and painful. It is the moment you realize that some people are meant to walk with you for only a chapter, not the whole book. It hurts when those relationships shift, when people you thought would be forever aren't. But it's also a natural pruning of what no longer matches your vibration. Often this shows up in interests too. Like I used to love true crime, watching it, reading it, all of it. Now I can't do any of it. I'm too sensitive. I was also never a big drinker, uh, but I did used to obviously like to partake with my girlfriends. I am deeply grateful for them uh for not kicking me out of the club when I stopped drinking altogether. I mean, I still had the occasional, but nothing, you know, like my friend group did. They still loved me, even when I started tapping out at 10 o'clock because, you know, sleep. Some relationships can adapt to your growth. Others can't. The red flag version of this would be withdrawing in judgment or superiority, cutting people off because they're quote unquote not as conscious as you are. But if the loss is happening organically and you're meeting it with compassion and grief, not avoidance, it's probably a green flag of healthy evolution. Number five, periods of quiet or isolation. Sometimes you just need to go quiet. Of course, complete isolation, especially if it's mixed with depression or loneliness, can be a red flag that you need connection and support. But there's another kind of solitude, the cocoon phase before emergence. You might find yourself wanting to retreat, to unplug from noise, just to be able to hear your own voice again. That's not avoidance, it's recalibration. One of my former clients scheduled a solo camping trip every quarter for himself. He'd say, I just need to be me for a few days, not a dad, not a husband, not a son, not a coworker, not a provider, just me. I feel the same way every time I go away on retreat or to a training, which I make sure I always do at least every quarter, if not more often. I never room with anyone when I do that because I want my alone time. That's healthy solitude. It's the kind of stillness that lets your truths come back online. And number six, not knowing what's next. If you've spent most of your life living up to others' expectations, proving your worth, controlling every outcome, then learning to live from trust instead of control can feel deeply unsettling. Suddenly you're no longer the planner or the fixer. You are learning to follow life instead of manage it. And that's vulnerable. As Byron Cady says, life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. You don't have to like it. It's just easier if you do. But integrating that truth, moving from intellectual agreement to embodied trust, takes time. There will be periods of back and forth where part of you believes and part of you panics. And that's normal. The red flag here is if quote unquote not knowing turns into apathy or despair, when it's not surrender, but collapse, when we start pro stop participating in our life, that's when it's time to reach for grounding, community, or professional support. So just pause for a moment and check in. Are you right now experiencing any of these? And if you are, can you soften your judgment even a little? Can you see them as evidence of movement, not failure? On the flip side, let's just briefly name a few green flags that actually feel like green flags, the ones that remind you how far you've come. Uh, let's see. Curiosity beginning to replace self-criticism, uh, rest and body wisdom guiding your choices around physical health, acting from deep alignment and inner authority rather than external approval. Feeling increasingly comfortable with discomfort itself. Embodying Mel Robin's let them theory, letting people be who they are without trying to fix, judge, or change them. And that last one, the let them concept, that's what we're going to dive into a little bit on Thursday, how to offer grace for those who aren't on the path the same way you are. So remember, the six green flags that feel like red flags that we've talked about today are exhaustion, disorientation, heightened sensitivity, loss of interests or relationships, quiet or isolation, and not knowing what's next? These aren't necessarily signs that you're off track. Sometimes they're evidence of just how on path you truly are. And of course, here are a few journaling prompts to help you explore this more deeply. Which of these growth indicators have been showing up for you lately? When discomfort arises, do you tend to label it as wrong? Or can you get curious about what it's teaching you? Where are you being invited to rest, release control, or trust more deeply? And lastly, what support might help you move through this season with more grace? Because growth isn't always graceful, but it is always progress. And it's still the most important work you'll ever do. So this week, notice if any of these alerts come up and see if you can reframe them as signs of movement instead of mistakes. Trust the feedback you're receiving, and take a moment to honor your courage and commitment to keep showing up even when it's hard. Thanks so much for listening. If this episode spoke to you, share it with someone who might need to hear it. And remember to like or subscribe so you don't miss Thursday's conversation about finding peace in relationships with people who aren't doing the deep work you are. And as always, know who you are, love who you've been, and be willing to do the work to become who you're meant to be. Just a quick reminder this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. I am not a licensed therapist, and nothing shared here is meant to replace the guidance of a physician, therapist, or any other qualified provider. That said, I hope it inspires you to grow, heal, and seek the support you need to thrive.