By Julie Cardinal, Transformational Leadership Coach
Awakening to your most authentic self
There are moments in life we can’t ignore. Not the dramatic ones, but the quieter, more unsettling kind. The kind where everything around you looks exactly the way you planned it, and yet you have that deep knowing that this is not it…
Let’s be clear, when I use the term spiritual awakening, I’m not talking about retreating to an ashram or leaving everything behind. I mean the moment you realize the life you’ve carefully built no longer fits who you’re becoming. The moment your outer world and your inner truth are not aligned anymore and the gap becomes impossible to ignore.
For many of the women leaders I work with, that gap shows up first at work. It’s the meeting where you nod along to a decision that goes against your values. The promotion you worked years for that suddenly feels hollow. The way you’ve become the person everyone leans on, while no one notices how tired you are.
A spiritual awakening isn’t always a lightning bolt. More often, it arrives as a slow, persistent knowing. It is when life is calling you forward, toward something more aligned, more real, more you. The question is whether you’ll listen.
These are the crossroads where we get to make a choice. The moments when our inner knowing, quietly or sometimes loudly, asks us to trust it. To step out of our comfort zone. To choose differently, for our own well-being, our emotional sanity, and our desire to experience a fuller, truer version of ourselves.
I had it all and I was still unhappy
I know this from the inside. Six years ago, I was at the peak of my career as an Executive Producer in the Visual Effects industry. I was working with A-list directors on high-end films and series. The work was exciting, creative, prestigious and it came with enormous pressure to perform at the highest level, often with far fewer resources than the job demanded.
I loved the work. I loved the people. I was an independent woman, I had money, my own home, I was traveling the world. On paper, I had everything I had ever wanted.
But my body had other things to say.
I developed labyrinthitis, a condition that affects your balance and leaves you in a state of constant disorientation. Looking back, it was the perfect mirror of my life. I was totally out of balance. Working too much, absorbing everyone else’s stress, ignoring my own needs, and violating my own boundaries without even realizing it. And underneath all of it, this also affected my personal life, as I was unable to connect deeply in my personal relationships, the very thing I longed for the most.
From the outside, everything looked perfect. Inside, I was lost and my heart was broken in a thousand pieces.
That was one of my spiritual awakenings (ah yes, we can have many).
And then something shifted.
I was at a crossroads and I was totally fed up with that weight in my heart. I could continue as I was, or I could choose something entirely different and come back into alignment with myself.
I chose differently. I stepped away from the identity I had worked so hard to build (you know, the strong woman who could do it all) and began the slower, more honest work of reconnecting with my true self, my values, my needs, my deeper sense of purpose. That journey eventually brought me here, to this work.
Today, the work I do with women leaders is a direct reflection of that journey, because I know from the inside what it costs to stay misaligned, and I know what becomes possible when you don’t.
This is what I call the gap. The space between outer success and inner truth. And it is far more common than we admit.
How do you know when it’s time?
So how do you recognize these crossroads? How do you know when you’ve outgrown the current version of yourself?
The signs are there if you are willing to see them:
You have achieved what you set out to achieve, and yet you feel unfulfilled
You are exhausted in a way that sleep doesn’t fix
You feel a growing sense of disconnection from your work, your relationships, or yourself
Sunday evenings fill you with dread for the week ahead instead of rest
You say yes at work when every part of you means no
You lead your team well on the outside while quietly running on empty
There is a quiet inner voice that keeps asking: is this really it?
And know that these are not signs that something is wrong with you. They are signs that something in you is ready to grow and evolve.
So what do you do now?
If any of this resonates, the first step is simply to acknowledge what you are feeling without judgment, without rushing to fix it. The discomfort you are sitting with is not a problem to solve. It is an invitation to look more honestly at where you are and where you truly want to go.
Here are a few questions worth sitting with:
What is this feeling trying to tell me?
Where in my life am I performing rather than truly living?
Where at work am I saying yes when I mean no?
What would it look like to lead AND live from a place of alignment?
What am I afraid to want?
Spirituality in the workplace doesn’t mean leaving your ambition at the door. It means bringing more of yourself to everything you do. Your values, your intuition, your humanity. It means building a career and a life that doesn’t ask you to abandon yourself to sustain it. And for those of us who lead, it means creating workplaces where the people around us don’t have to abandon themselves either.
You don’t have to choose between success and fulfillment. That belief is exactly what we are here to question.
For me, the other side looked like this: more spaciousness, more honesty, more energy for the things and people that actually matter. Leading from a place of clarity instead of survival. For my clients, it often starts with one honest conversation, the kind where you finally say out loud what you’ve only been thinking quietly.
That conversation changes things.
Let’s connect
If you are navigating this crossroads, if you feel the pull toward something more aligned, more purposeful, more you, I would love to talk.
I work with women leaders who have achieved success on paper and are now ready to bridge the gap between outer achievement and inner truth. Together, we create the space to reclaim your energy, reconnect with your purpose, and redesign your life and leadership in a way that feels aligned, spacious, and sustainable.
My approach blends Human-Centered Leadership principles, emotional intelligence, and intuitive insight. Together we create space for both your professional ambitions and your deeper humanity, because the two should never be in conflict.
Book your free conversation with Julie
Learn more about leadership coaching for women.
Julie Cardinal | Transformational Leadership Coach | Grow Better Together
About the Author
Julie Cardinal is a certified transformational leadership coach with over 20 years of experience in high-pressure corporate environments, including the VFX and animation industries. She supports awakening women leaders who are navigating burnout, misalignment, and an inner calling for something more, helping them bridge the gap between outer success and inner truth.