Dancing With Duality – From Survival Strain to Spiritual Gain
- Brainz Magazine
- Sep 20, 2025
- 4 min read
Written by Toni Stevens, Healer and Energy Coach
Toni Stevens is a healer and energy coach, well known for her ability to tune into people's energy and create calm. She is the creator of the Chakra Connection, an online healing and coaching course. Toni educates people about emotional freedom, how to calm and reset the nervous system, and how to build deep connection and trust in oneself.
The healing and spiritual journey isn’t one decision you make once to believe in a deity or follow a religion. It isn’t a single choice to pray, meditate, attend church on Sundays, or seek solace on retreat. It is a daily devotion. As my teacher says, it is continuous self-inquiry and consistent conscious choice.
Setting intentions is crucial, and you must do the inner work
As an empath, healer, therapist, mum, wife, and woman in my 40s, you know I have a lot of emotion and energy that I deal with daily. I feel things deeply. It is my gift and my challenge.
I have learned to flow with the energy, a dance of pain and pleasure, to experience the duality of this life in the 3D world. I let it flow through me, feeling it and releasing it. On a conscious level, I know your energy isn’t mine to hold. But to maintain this conscious awareness, I do the inner work!
I am devoted to myself with a daily practice of meditation, mindset, and movement to create balance and harmony in my life. This has grown from a place of experience, understanding, devotion, and intention.
If you struggle with stress or anxiety, as I have, or even burnout or disconnection, there is an upside to these symptoms. They can be a pathway to growth and to living a better life, one that is more aligned with who you really are.
Your gift can be your greatest challenge
Let’s name what many people are experiencing, often in silence:
Stress: Feeling constantly overwhelmed or on edge. No time to rest or breathe. The nervous system is stuck in overdrive, fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.
Anxiety: Racing thoughts, overthinking, worst-case-scenario spirals. Trying to control everything to feel safe. Disconnection from the body, life lived in the head, not the heart.
Burnout: Exhaustion that rest doesn’t seem to fix. Feeling numb, flat, or joyless. Giving more than receiving, especially common for caregivers, healers, and empaths.
Disconnection: A deep sense of loneliness, even when surrounded by people. Numbing out through screens, substances, or busyness. Losing touch with your own needs, dreams, or truth.
If any of this feels familiar, you’re not alone. These experiences are part of the collective journey right now. But they’re not the end of the story.
Spiritual gain: The gifts beneath the surface
Here’s what you can discover when you stop resisting and start listening:
Stress: Invites us to pause and re-evaluate. It shows us where we’re overextending, people-pleasing, or living out of alignment. It asks, What can I release? What truly matters?
Anxiety: Often signals a deeper need for safety and clarity. It opens the door to inner child healing, nervous system regulation, and self-trust. It asks, What part of me is afraid, and how can I hold it with love?
Burnout: Forces us to stop pushing and start receiving. It leads to the rediscovery of play, pleasure, stillness, and the joy of simply being. It asks, Who am I when I’m not doing or proving anything?
Disconnection: Points to the hunger for real, soul-deep connection with ourselves, others, and the sacred. It calls us back into our bodies, into nature, into presence. It asks, What helps me feel real, alive, and connected again?
Coming home to yourself
What if these experiences aren’t signs that we’re broken, but signals that our old ways no longer serve us? Healing doesn’t always look pretty. Sometimes it looks like falling apart, so we can rebuild into something more true. If you're on this path, know you’re not alone. There’s medicine in your mess, and there’s meaning in your struggle. You’re not failing.
You’re awakening
If you are ready for a deeper connection with yourself, with others, and with life, I invite you to chat with me in a free 45-minute introduction session on Zoom. Let’s pinpoint your problems, work on a challenge, and set some powerful intentions to help you move forward. Stop spiritual bypassing, and let’s uncover and empower the deepest parts of you.
Toni Stevens, Healer and Energy Coach
Toni Stevens is a healer and energy coach, empowering men and women to create calm, confidence, and a deep connection to themselves by healing childhood trauma and releasing social conditioning with an intensive, one-on-one, 8-week healing journey. Toni transformed her own anxious symptoms of physical pain, fatigue, and negative thoughts with her personal program of meditation, mindset, and movement. She helps transform stress, anxiety, and overwhelm into a life of peace and empowerment. Her mission together is to raise your consciousness and elevate your vibration.
