I just recently stumbled across a video during my usual YouTube travels, called '5 dark side-effects of spiritual awakening no-one tells you about'. And I found it to ring true in many ways as I recall having similar conversations and sharing similar advice with many people over the years after going through them myself.
The video itself is very worth a watch;
https://youtu.be/3gVJR7RSKPI?si=tXLgaajkeLnWdbYV
I also thought it might spark up a little conversation. Who else has encountered (or not) these challenges? And what wisdoms of your own have you pulled from them? What kinds of advice would you offer to someone that might differ?
In the video, there was only one bit of advice I disagreed on. One segment focuses on how there can be a stage of confusion and uncertainty and disconnection. In it, a person's budding spiritual awakening is compared to the vulnerability of a young plant. And how you should shelter yourself from people who challenge your beliefs (to protect the tender bud from harm) and instead seek people with similar ideas who support you and your understandings. To protect your confidence I suppose.
My concern is that if you surround yourself with safe and agreeable others only, you set yourself into an echo-chamber of beliefs and the lack of challenge breeds an escape from Self examination. Critical thinking is incredibly important when it comes to keeping your feet on the ground, after all.
I have also gained more from being challenged than I ever have from conversing with someone who nodded in agreement. Being made to articulate my thoughts, alone, has been a powerful tool in keeping them organized. Having to logic and explain where my ideas came from held up a mirror to examine them with so I myself could see how they fit together. And so much more. As frustrating as those conversations can become sometimes... Sometimes passionately argued, sometimes confounded by exposing frayed links or confused and incomplete perspectives, not once have I failed to grow by being challenged. So I tend to advocate allowing yourself to have those conversations.
Don't go seeking them out, mind you. That's wasting energy and inviting a different sort of complication to your path. But when someone comes along who honestly challenges your ideas, pause a moment and Guage if the conversation is worth having. Especially if the person has a point, or introduces an idea not previously considered. Or if a question is asked that you don't know how to answer. ...Especially that last one. That is immediate fuel for learning. Something to explore even after the conversation is long past. Or, at the very least, as an exercise of reducing ego. For, once you do, you might even realize that the idea your opponent is declaring as silly or harmful might actually -be- so.
After all, we are just as capable of being wrong about an idea as anyone else.