22 Powerful Traits That Accelerate Your Spiritual Growth

June 13th, 2025

By Paul A. Philips

Contributing Writer for Wake Up World

Spiritual development in motion is a beautiful, transformative process. However, at some point, you may experience a number of hold-ups, making you feel as if you’re not progressing along the road to enlightenment.

A shift is needed to get you moving along that road again. Therefore, it may be quite effective to review, identify, and ensure that you’re applying the following 22 underlying inherent qualities that help promote your spiritual development.

Here is the list:

1. Know your abilities

It can be quite a challenge to your spiritual development when there are so many aspects of society that you could become tied down to the effect of, including the instillation of limiting beliefs. Your mindset is the underpinning source that either limits or promotes your abilities.

Therefore, if you believe in limitations, the trick is to change your mindset: Identify and then challenge your limiting beliefs. Substitute them with encouraging, forward-moving, constructive, inspiring thought patterns and repetitive positive affirmations, producing a mindset that will contribute to your personal effectiveness.

Surround yourself with upbeat, like-minded people who will further help you to realise your abilities.

2. Able to Get unstuck from old patterns

Deeply embedded behavioral habits and patterns may be serving to entrap you in a no growth situation.

The solution is to identify these old habits and patterns and how they hold you, then get unstuck and replace them with new perspectives and new experiences to grow again.

3. Willingness to change

Following on from 2 (above), resistance to change may be part and parcel of your hold-up to spiritual development. You may be stuck in your behavioral habits and patterns because of the fear of change.

Therefore, it is necessary to escape your familiar comfort zone and confront your fear of change and the unknown. This is the formula for dissolving those behavioral habits and patterns: your willingness to change.

Perhaps you could make a list of specific changes: new connections, new horizons, new opportunities… you intend to see by writing down a timeline (by when they will be accomplished).

4. Willingness to grow

Do you have a growth-oriented mindset? This is what’s needed to grow and progress spiritually. Feed your growth mindset by taking on new challenges and new ways of seeing things to expand your awareness and evolve.

5. Achieve balance through caring for yourself

Following on from 4 (above), it is crucially necessary to maintain a state of balance with your mental and physical well-being. Especially when met with significant challenges along the way to your growth and spiritual development.

Don’t let things run you. You run them.

6. Ability to control your emotions

During your awakening process, you may be emotionally challenged, especially with emotions in relation to deep-seated unresolved conflicts that could cause major hold-ups to your spiritual development.

The ability to control your emotions allows you to avoid the entangling overwhelm.

Take a good look at your emotions. What makes you emotionally tick?

After an evaluation, try processing your feelings. Talk to a friend for guidance, make a journal to monitor your emotions, practice yoga, meditate, or take nature walks to destress… whatever it takes to control your emotions.

7. You’re able to not be affected by external distractions

This modern-day, fast-paced technological world offers so many external distractions, attempting to lure you away from your targets along the road to spiritual transformation. Maintaining the space with your inner world is key.

Simplify your surroundings through minimization, which means decluttering your physical surroundings and mental state. Turn off the TV. Turn off the applications. Set times for yoga or meditation practice, or set aside time to soothe yourself in nature. All of these contribute to a sense of calm and inner peace with a clear, focused mind.

8. Able to protect yourself from negative energy

You may feel yourself getting drawn into the negative energy given off by a number of people in your life or even strangers. Becoming the effects of negative energy, anger, jealousy, envy or hatred… may be a significant holdup on your road towards spiritual development. Empaths can become quite the target for negative energy.

Don’t become a victim of this. Shield yourself by using positive protective affirmations. Choose to be surrounded by more upbeat, high-toned people.

9. You’ve worked through emotional traumas

This is another significant one that could stop you from progressing spiritually. If you are under the debilitating effects of emotional trauma, then seek out the guidance of a counsellor or health professional.

10. Avoided mental and physical burnout

Mental and physical burnout are the consequences of imbalance, leaving you too tired or exhausted to grow spiritually.

Balance in relation to self-care should be at the top of your list of priorities to avoid mental and physical burnout. Make spiritual choices, practices, and teachings that truly resonate and are balanced with your health and well-being.

11. You practice removing energy blocks

Life shows up as a consequence of your thoughts, feelings, and attitude. If any of these aspects have negativity, such as anger, feelings of inadequacy, guilt, shame, or getting stuck in the same old patterns, then it could be related to energy blocks.

To make life go well again and to no longer experience hold-ups along the road to spiritual development, try practicing mindfulness, meditation, and affirmation. It’s useful to keep a journal account of your progress.

You may want to try reiki for energy healing to remove those negative energy blocks.

12. You run your ego rather than it runs you

You have an arm. You have a leg. Inasmuch as you have an ego. Does your ego run you, or do you run it? To control your ego, observe yourself. Observe your behavior. For more on ego, go here.

13. Have a willingness to be supported

Victims are unwilling to be supported. They’re victims because if they had accepted the love, guidance and support of others, they may have succeeded!

Being open to contributions from supportive people, family, and trusted friends certainly makes spiritual awakening easier.

People need support: Non-victimhood comes from having a willingness to be contributed.

14. You’ve found your true path

The inability to find one’s truth path blocks spiritual development. This misalignment with one’s true self results in feeling disconnected, discouraged, and unfulfilled in life.

The remedy for reconnecting with your true path is to devote some time to reflection and bring back those things that gave you joy, fulfilment, and a sense of purpose.

Find something, a project you feel passionate about, that serves as a structure for fulfilment and accomplish it. Communication is key.

15. You express gratitude

Cultivating the attitude of gratitude promotes your spiritual journey. You cultivate it by regularly expressing how grateful you are for the great things you have in life, including loved ones and circumstances.

Research has shown that the expression of gratitude promotes good health and well-being.

16. You maintain good health

Promotion of spirituality and maintaining good health go hand in hand. Good health involves: 1. Optimizing your nutrition, 2. Maintaining psychological well-being (stress handling and sleeping well are included), 3. Getting adequate exercise, and 4. Avoiding environmental toxicity.

These four vital factors contribute to the mind-body-spirit balance.

17. You follow inner guidance by listening to your inner being

Those who don’t listen may experience getting stuck in life as their inner voice from time to time repetitively screams at them. Telling them to “do something” (specific) in their life!

Those who do listen will be guided and take action.

 18. You embrace spirit guides

Be willing to ask for help from spirit guides in the spiritual realm. Heart meditation is one way to attract these guides. Be receptive.

19. You protect yourself from negative energy entities

Attachment of negative energy entities can make you feel energetically drained.

Protective remedies for not attracting these entities include affirmation, visualization, meditation, yoga, and reconnection with nature to ground yourself.

Other remedies include working with a shaman or psychic energy healer to protect you.

20. You connect with nature

Connection to nature has the potential to heal, inspire, energetically refresh, and ground you. It’s an opportunity to rid yourself of modern-day distractions, staying away from TV and other distractive sources such as mobile phones and computers while appreciating its beauty.

Further, it’s conducive to connecting with ourselves. How about doing some outdoor meditation, bathing? Or how about surrounding yourself at home with plants and gardening?

21. You can let go of control

Those who feel they have to control every aspect will prevent themselves from moving forward along the spiritual pathway.

The solution is ‘let go’ of the controlling. Allow yourself to be subject to unpredictability. It’s okay to be vulnerable, as you place your trust in the universe. No longer in a rigid micromanaging state,  life will then move forward again as you have opened up to guidance and true wisdom…

22. You listen to your intuition

Following on from 21 (above), listen to your intuition. Listen to your inner voice coming from your inner being. What is it telling you? Where is it guiding me?

Finally

That concludes this all-too-brief guide to helping you along your path to spiritual development. I hope you gained some insight.

Your spiritual journey and awakening process are unique. Remember your connection to infinity, God, and ALL-THERE-IS. Your connection truly reflects how powerful you are as a spiritual being. Never forget that.

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About the Author:

My blogs, along with the related alternative news website iNewParadigm.com, are about my belief that we can create a world that makes a difference for everyone.

I had graduated in biomedical sciences and worked for a number of years in healthcare. I am now a retiree. My website is slanted on health matters.

However, over the years, I have come to the firm conclusion that practically every subject under the sun needs redefining using more truthful, honest, and integral approaches in theory and practice, hence the website’s name ‘New Paradigm’

From these new approaches, from the ‘imagination of ourselves,’ from our visions… a ‘new era’ in humanity can result!


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