Coming Out Of The Spiritual Closet

We are excited to announce the launch of the Emerging Kind online store!

All proceeds from tEK clothing and accessories will go into the funding pot to pay for more Peers to be trained to hold safe space groups for people going through the spiritual emergence process over the next year…  (read more about the project HERE)

Not only can you support us to spread the Emerging Kind message, you’ll look cool in ethical clothing and play a part in supporting people in crisis to feel safer in sharing their stories!

To purchase your T -Shirt, Tea Towels and Tote Bags go to:

The Emerging Kind store

At the moment we have these two snazzy designs to choose from…

Our strapline circling tMK logo        and…          “I’m Emerging Kind” statement

But we’d love to add another one designed by YOU!

Would you like your very own T – Shirt design to feature in our store and be worn by people all over the world?

If you are a Peer, and resonate with the message that crises can be part of a painful journey to a positive transformation, then we invite you to send in your design and win the chance to feature as our official ‘Kinda Designer’, and of course receive your winning design on a T- Shirt for free!

Guidelines for your design are:

• It must portray the Emerging Kind message and wording
• Colours must compliment the current brand
• Please send in your design in a high resolution JPEG in full colour
• If you’d like to include our logo, feel free to request it to use for this purpose
  

• To submit your design: CONTACT US HERE

We can’t wait to see what emerges; that thought makes us Kinda Happy!

Would you like to order your own personal copy of Mend the Gap, and avoid giving Amazon most of your money? You can now order Katie’s book direct from HERE, to ensure all proceeds go towards continuing the #EmergingProud campaign…

It’s with great pleasure I introduce you to Elizabeth Sabet, our Emerging Kind Peer Group Facilitator Trainer…

I can’t remember how I crossed paths with Elizabeth, but I’ll be forever grateful to the Universe that we did! It’s one of those synchronistic ‘meant to be’ kind of connections. Yesterday we spent two hours on a video call together, chatting about the project, adjustments to the training program, and life in general… the exchange of love in these connections is the most rewarding part; finding people you know you can trust with your darkest parts, with no judgement or expectation to be any different from how you are. Elizabeth offers that presence, and it’s something we HOPE to offer to others, through the expansion of the Emerging Kind Peer groups all over the world.

Elizabeth has taken on the ‘no mean feat’ of being the Emerging Kind’s official Trainer, Training our Peers to hold safe space for those going through a traumatic spiritual emergence process, and what I love about her the most, is that she’s not afraid of admitting feeling overwhelmed and anxious about the task at hand. Here she explains what qualifies her for this very special role…

“My experiences began in early childhood. At the age of five I remember traveling in wormholes and having past life memories of being a rebel fighter in the American Civil War. I left my body for the first time at the age of nine. At 13, I had a spontaneous mediumship experience that was verified by a family member. Sexual trauma was a part of my childhood experience and no doubt played a part in opening me to non-linear experiences. As a child, I found most of these experiences and encounters confusing and frightening. I had no one to talk to that I could trust.

I married early and devoted myself to being a good parent. I wanted to be a good, stable parent and wife. Even though I had become accustomed to the experiences … as they arose, taking most of them in stride, my husband did not. That and the lack of fuller integration of the spiritual phenomena caused problems in my marriage. Having no safe support except for God, I asked God to make all the “weird stuff” stop.

At the age of 23, the experiences and spiritual gifts went away. I began a meditation and deep breathing practice, not realizing they would be the basis for a spontaneous and unsupported Kundalini awakening. Life would never be the same. The yearning to be of service became overwhelming. I was not satisfied or happy no matter how materially wonderful our life was. My longing to serve caused problems in the marriage as my husband was not supportive of this change in me. My new-found desire to be with God, not through death, but through a life of service and devotion to others beyond our family unit, was a disruption to our normally peaceful lives.

To preserve the marriage, I gave up all service work and slowly began to feel like I was dying. The unhealthy coping mechanisms of my teenage years returned, and I was privately falling into a life of darkness. I opted for divorce after 21 years of marriage, hoping to find redemption. Within two years of filing for divorce, I co-created with friends a community dedicated to developing authentic relationships and acceptance.

Being part of the HOPE community helped me integrate and ground the content of my experiences. I was also able to mature those still underdeveloped aspects of the self that had not been attended to in the past. Group connection and having meaningful work in an accepting community gave me the loving support and accountability I needed to process and synthesize more of my experience. If it were not for my community and support network, I certainly wouldn’t be doing the work I am doing now.

HOPE was not created specifically for spiritual experiencers but—due to the nature of the community—we certainly attracted a lot of them! As one of the community leaders with many spiritual experiences, I seemed to attract people who would privately share their own experiences with me because they knew they were safe. Eventually I become a certified coach and began working professionally with experiencers. HOPE also began offering spiritual growth support groups.

I was invited to join the board of ACISTE in 2015 and am so grateful for the opportunity to be of service!

Why Create Local Support Groups and Community Networks?

Myself and many others are living proof that the benefits of being involved in support groups are long lasting and can positively affect relationships with family, friends, and your work in the world.

Here are just a few of the benefits commonly experienced in safe and accepting groups:

• Reduced feelings of isolation
• New and more authentic friendships
• The opportunity to share things one may never have shared before
• Permission to explore meaning and purpose
• A deeper understanding of what it means to be spiritually integrated
• Increased capacity to be more grounded, focused, and purposeful

ACISTE is dedicated to creating and facilitating the development of experiencer support groups.

It is a pleasure to begin to serve a more expanded community of spiritual experiencers through ACISTE, and now with the Emerging Kind. I look forward to connecting with you and your community soon!”

Elizabeth Sabet, PCC, ACSLC works as a Certified Professional Transformational/Spiritual Coach in private practice, is the Founder and CEO of The Institute of Transformational and Transpersonal Coaching, and the co-founder and former Executive Director of HOPE in Lubbock, Texas. She has recently become President for ACISTE. 

Find out more about ACISTE here: https://aciste.org

Together we are helping to create a society where it’s safer to talk about spiritual experiences; together we are creating the emerging paradigm.

We know from the incredible donations to the campaign, blog and film so far, that there are many amazing artists in the Emerging Proud community; would you like to get your personal creation onto our Emerging Kind project T-Shirts, and have people wearing your design all over the world?

We’re going to be setting up an Emerging Kind store on Teemill to raise some funds to ensure we can continue the project, hopefully indefinitely; training up more and more Peers to create safe space groups for people to journey through the spiritual emergence process together.

Our first job is designing a T-Shirt for sale, and we’d love for one of the Emerging Kind Peers or a ‘proud #Emergee’ to design the artwork that will go on them

Yesterday we held the first Steering Group meeting for our new ‘The Emerging Kind tEK’ project. I thought you might like to meet the team in more detail, so today it’s with great pleasure I introduce you to Dr Mick Collins, tEK advisor and all- round ‘good egg’!

Mick is an Author, University Lecturer with a Phd, Therapist and Coach, but most importantly identifies as a Peer himself…

Some of you will remember Mick from his Emerging Proud interview, from which I’ve taken this snippet to emphasize why ‘kindness’ is so important to those going through the  often very traumatic spiritual emergence process. The Peer groups that the Emerging Kind project aims to create worldwide will offer the kind of support that Mick describes as being vital in helping him when he went through his own crisis, initiated through meditation and repressed trauma…

Follow the blog to hear more about the Emerging Kind team, and the amazing Peers who have Emerged Proud and stepped up to be trained to hold safe spaces for those in need; together you are helping to create the new paradigm in mental health care, and we are so very grateful to you all ❤

Malidoma Some wrote the now acclaimed article ‘What a Shaman sees in a mental hospital’ to demonstrate how “crazy” the Western medical system’s interpretation of craziness seems to the Indigenous traditions that perceive the same experiences as the painful birth of a healer…

The other world can dial anyone’s number, at any given time, and when it happens it can be extremely frightening, especially when that experience is disbelieved or treated as a mental illness. As Malidoma explains, what someone really needs at this time is a community of people who understand; who have been through the same journey and ’emerged’, often shaken, but if appropriately supported, mostly transformed.

This is the intention of setting up the
 Peer support groups; to act as a community for those who have been called and need a safe space in which to navigate their journey…

If the Western world doesn’t understand the importance of this yet and provide appropriate support, then we have to create it ourselves; Sisters (and brothers) are doing it for ourselves!

Not only are we creating community, in a years time we hope to be able to provide some academic outcomes through research to evidence the viability of this approach… More of that to come, but in the mean time; “We’re going back to our roots”