Some people describe a spiritual awakening as a time of trials and inner work, which yes, is a serious transformation, but a time of difficulty, sometimes of losing basically everything in life. Most often this isn't something induced deliberately. It sort of happens when it happens. Some choose to ignore it and try to continue their lives the same way, and some try to either ride the [proverbial] wave and see where it goes, or to face it as a set of challenges. There's no one way to approach such a time in life. We've all got our own inner world to deal with.
On another end of things are the people who think it means they'll suddenly have mystical psychic powers or something like that. But reality is that intuition, success in meditation, success in magical workings whether internal or external, it all takes work by the practitioner. It's not some sudden thing like a cheesy movie. And a lot of these things (at least the realistic ones, unlike the purely fictional things) can be done by anyone who chooses to apply the consistent effort to do so.
I think the gist of the conversation is that any path to personal growth and awakening is a journey that you walk, not a light switch you can flip.
It starts by taking some time to first reflect on who you are, and explore where your personality and tendencies lean. What things grab your attention? What ideas and practices seem more natural and easier to grasp? Those are sign posts and starting points you can work from to move towards who you want to be, and what you want to achieve.
One draws out and gains connection with their spiritual side by putting effort and attention towards it. Reading/learning, meditation, introspection, reflection. To become spiritual try your best to live as if you already are, and continuously make efforts to learn and improve.
There will be periods when you feel like you are racing forward, making discoveries and connections, and feeling uplifted and focused. Those times make it easy to keep learning. There will be other periods (sometimes long ones) where you feel like you are just spinning your tires in the mud. These times are harder, you don't feel the benefits, it feels like there is no point, that it is just wasting energy. Then, suddenly, you revv that engine one more time out of sheer frustration and the wheels catch. You find yourself hurtling off again with a new idea, or a new discovery that rearranges your perspective and you leap forward so suddenly it is almost overwhelming.
Then you have a chance to look back and assess, and you only retrospectively learn that all that tire spinning was spraying away the mud, churning through the flotsam and digging through to a hidden bit of solid ground which is what set you free again. And this means all that tire spinning wasn't a waste after all. It is how you dug yourself free- and the real waste would have been to shut off the engine because then you would never leave the spot.
