Spiritual Emergency and
Spiritual Emergence Guidance

Spiritual Emergency and
Spiritual Emergence Guidance

If you have suffered from a spiritual emergency — a breakdown of your familiar self or ego that results in either psychotic episodes or a spiritual awakening — I can help you discern what has happened to you and how to digest your experience and re-integrate into your daily life.

If you have used psychedelic plant medicines and consequently found yourself experiencing unusual symptoms such as severe anxiety, panic attacks or mood swings, you may be experiencing a "spiritual emergency."

I also provide support, healing, and integration assistance for those who have had a "spiritual emergence" experience. A spiritual emergence is a traumatic or disorienting spiritual experience where you may feel you have had a glimpse of, or an awakening into, your true nature. The ego often reacts with tremendous fear as it senses/feels its dissolution and fears its death.

As well, shamanic journeying, psychic openings, and what is referred to as "kundalini awakenings" are "spiritual emergence" experiences that can morph into a "spiritual emergency" experience, or it can happen the other way around. These experiences can prompt an overwhelming feeling of bodily fear, fear that ressembles psychosis or severe anxiety symptoms. Fear and anxiety that you are unable to manage, can cause you to head to a doctor or therapist's office.

I am trained and experienced in assisting people with discerning if what they are suddenly experiencing is, in fact, a "psychotic break" or a "spiritual emergence".

Whether or not you are currently or have experienced a spiritual emergency or a spiritual emergence, I can guide you towards the integration of your experience and help you release the anxiety and panicky symptoms you are feeling. I have offered assistance to many people who have had their own awakening experiences and are in uncharted waters about how to integrate and incorporate these awakenings into their daily lives.

Guidance for discerning if, when and how to leave a spiritual community

If you are someone who has studied extensively with a spiritual leader or guru, even living in a spiritual community led by your leader or teacher, only to find that your teacher has betrayed you through an abuse of power — such as sexual, money or humiliation abuse — I can help.

I am trained and experienced in guiding you to discern if, how, and when to leave your spiritual community. I am also extensively trained in trauma healing work. As well, I am trained in guiding spiritual community followers into the necessary steps for determining what is best for them in their healing and integration from such experiences.

I went through a process of participating in a spiritual community for eighteen years and then recognizing some subtle abuses by the teacher. After a year of questioning, if I should stay or leave, I determined to leave the community. This occurred eight years ago. It was an excruciating process for me, but I learned much about myself, such as how to stand on my own two spiritual feet — connecting more deeply with my own soul's guidance.

I also learned over a few years what it was about me that led me to seek out such a community and spiritual teacher, projecting onto the teacher my own unmet longing for a perfect spiritual mother who could do no wrong. An abundance of healing occurred once I recognized these projections and worked through them.

For nine months, (between 2019-2020), I participated in a mentorship program with Dr. Mariana Caplan, writer of Yoga and Psyche, The Guru Question, and other books. The focus of the mentorship was to work with spiritual communities in the ways described above. I was trained in and provided preventive psychological support and healing for spiritual leaders and their communities.  I helped them prevent a fall into ethical and moral scandals of power abuses and betrayals. I assisted Dr. Caplan with training for one such spiritual community, an international community with hundreds of members that has the courage and fortitude to work preventively to avoid potential scandals and abusive relationships.

In addition, I am an active member of the Association for Spiritual Integrity, (ASI), a voluntary international organization that provides community support to spiritual teachers/leaders who agree to abide by a code of ethics and commit to ongoing personal, professional spiritual growth and evolution.

Online Workshops for Spiritual Communities and Spiritual Teachers/Leaders

I am available to provide a one-time or series of workshops for spiritual community leaders
and students that address the following:

  • Preventive psycho-spiritual principles and practices for avoiding power-related scandals and abuses
  • Somatic practices for integrating spiritual teachings into the body
  • Working with psychological and spiritual shadow within spiritual communities--a shadow that may be arising between teacher(s) and student(s) or among students. (Every spiritual community contains shadow elements.)
  • Shadow work for spiritual leaders and teachers--to bring shadow elements to conscious awareness. The shadow work consists of working through these projections onto students. I have led year long shadow processing groups for eight years.
Soul Wisdom Online