Such beautiful collaboration is happening; A huge “köszönöm” to our Hungarian colleagues for their immense efforts to make the 12th May an international success!
The organisations supporting the Hungarian event are:
The #Emerging Proud International Launch looks set to be HUGE, thanks to the amazing dedication of so many people passionate to see, and create, a more empowering framework and support services for mental health. But what’s actually happening on the 12th May 2017? …
Not all spiritual emergence happens with a ‘bang‘, it can also be a gradual unfolding, like the peeling of layers from an onion. Here Samata Russell from Guernsey, a British Channel Island, beautifully explains why finding meaning in her dark times is so meaningful:
My awakening has been a long and gradual process. I have always been sensitive and when I was a teenager, I was addicted to a number of mind altering substances – I needed something to get me through the day as I found the world too confusing and traumatic.
When I was 18 I attended university and it became clear to me that I couldn’t numb away my days anymore. I stopped cold turkey and cried for months. It was a time of incredible pain and grace. It felt like I was shedding ways of being that I no longer believed in and choosing instead who and what I wanted to become. I felt raw and vulnerable. The universe had my back as I fell into my graduate course in psycho-physical actor training. I undertook yoga, tai chi and a martial art called kalaripayattu five times a week to develop presence on stage. It was the perfect discipline to teach me how to be in my body in this world.
As my sensitivity and ability to sit with myself grew, I began to start feeling a gentle and invisible guiding hand and whispers of intuition that have been my companion ever since. I am very empathic – I feel other people’s pain as my own – which can be a gift and a curse. It isn’t something that is widely recognized and it took a long time to figure out why I would struggle in some situations where others wouldn’t or why I could just know something about what someone else was going through.
With the help of a disciplined meditation and yoga practice, I have experienced moments of pure bliss and transcendence. I have felt in my body complete unconditional love for all creation and a knowing that we are all one. I have a sense of being guided and that there are other realms beyond this one.
I sometimes struggle to fit myself into this world, which currently has a very negative frame of reference for who I am. I personally believe that I am having a spiritual emergence but it can be isolating.
I have since experienced other periods of depression – after trying to integrate into life at home following a period of incredible travel adventures and after my daughter was born.
Through my depression I visited a few counselors but have never taken antidepressants, for which I am profoundly grateful. Each period has turned me inwards and taken me away from the world. It has felt like an internal calibration and though difficult, I come out stronger, wiser and more fulfilled than I was before.
I think we are all spiritual beings and there is an awakening happening all over the planet as more and more people experience depressive episodes, calling them inwards towards higher levels of consciousness. It’s not easy, but put into that framework, it is incredibly meaningful and worthy.
Thank you to Samata for #EmergingProud to support the shift ❤
Cornelia’s journey has been profound. Experiencing anomalous phenomena from the age of 5 led her to teenage years of confusion, anger and self- harm. Thankfully, her parents recognised her experiences as a spiritual transformation process, and were able to prevent her from diagnosis and hospitalisation. Cornelia bares all about how she is now living proof that such extreme emergence processes can be a positive transformation, if understood and supported correctly.
Cornelia’s experiences and subsequent passion have propelled her to set up a SEN (Spiritual Emergence Network) in Romania, alongside colleagues who are supporting her to do so. SEN Romania will be under the ISEN umbrella. Hear Cornelia’s story here:
Cornelia’s synopsis of her journey to LIFE
Life is music.
I remember being a ball of light, traveling with an immense speed. The next thing I know, I was in a small form, a human body, experiencing the most ecstatic and blissful feeling. It was like my whole body was singing this superb harmonic song and my cells were in synchronicity with the whole life. That was my first kundalini awakening.
Life is music.
This life force that was birthing inside my body led to a long period of time in which I was in love with every person that I met, with the nature and animals. On the other hand, this immense Eros also attracted a sexual trauma in the same period of time. I remember very well that I was kind of living in 2 worlds – one was hell – because I was absorbing all the information from the environment and could feel inside my body all the emotions and pain of others like my own, and the other world was heaven – because I was feeling like I’m the Earth’s daughter and all this love was pouring from my heart towards everything that was alive. Being born in a communist country, in a moment of time that the human collective mind was still very constrictive I felt alone, trapped inside a body that was feeling everything and was also hurting a lot, with no one to talk to about this, except for my Self.
Life is music.
As I grew up, I kind of forgot about all the beauty and moved to hell as a resident. For a lot of years I felt the urge, or necessity to die, considering that the only way to end up with the pain I was feeling was by terminating my body and releasing myself out of the torture cage. In the same time I was abusing myself, feeling a lot of guilt and shame for me breathing, feeling a lot of anger – and because I knew that I also poses a very powerful destructive force and didn’t want to harm “others”, at the age of 15, I started cutting my skin – the only way I was feeling liberated from the tension inside.
Life is music.
I continued my dualistic form of living – most of the people who knew me had no idea that inside myself was a war – until finally I had a calling for a big change, through a form of practice that was very familiar – expanded states of consciousness using sounds – binaural beats. Before I being aware of mySelf, at the age of 5, my family is saying that I was always singing and putting myself into a state of trance through this singing, so for me – using sounds as a transformational tool was totally appropriate, and still is.
I was very lucky to have my family’s understanding in this process, because in 5 years of intense transformation there were a couple of times I had asked my mother to hospitalize me in a mental hospital and she refused it – reassuring me that I am and will be fine and it is just a “dark night of the soul”.
In 2015, when I was 30 – I had my sexual trauma healed and also the second kundalini awakening as a result of this powerful healing. I knew that I was being reborn and that I was given new eyes, and a whole body to live in. And remembered that I have never left Eden and that the Original Innocence was always inside myself guiding me through this ”dark night of the soul” – singing me the song of Wholeness:
“Life is music, my child. Just listen.”
Cornelia is now a writer and a life coach. Her book, ‘Eaters of Faces’ is described here:
“ Devoratorii de chipuri (Eaters of Faces) it’s not just a simple book with a dark flavour, it is a book about life, about the mistakes we are endlessly repeating, about the past that keeps chasing us if we don’t integrate it and leave it behind, a past that drags us into the dark maze of our memories. It is a book that brings to the surface the demons from the inside and challenges us to face them, and blend them in. In the same way it challenges us to find love and hope, silence and wholeness. All the dual manifestations – the ones labelled as good and evil – are taking their fight inside our soul, mind and body.” (book overview) Genre: Magic- Realism novel
Cornelia’s beautiful artwork
‘Alignment’ ‘Sun’
‘Simbiosis’
Dan so eloquently describes his rocky journey through pathologisation to having the strength to find meaning in his experiences; meaning that has enabled him to come off all psychiatric medication and live life with a greater sense of well-being, depth and purpose:
Thank you Dan, for your whole- hearted sharing of your journey to help others:
In 2011 and 2012 I experienced a series of altered states and a sense of spiritual crisis which was difficult to handle and resulted in being hospitalized. This was a pretty rough experience as it involved being put into jail cell like solitary confinement for over 48 hours, and being forced to take drugs against my will, without being told what it was they were giving me. While I was going through this stuff, and in the aftermath of those experiences, I was very curious about what exactly did it all mean, and what was really going on there?
The idea that it was just my brain “malfunctioning” in some way, that I was “crazy” or had a “mental illness” did not seem like satisfactory answers to me, and I wanted to explore the deeper meaning of what was going on in those processes. However in the mainstream mental health system, the approach is to not make any attempt to address or understand the meaning of what is going on there, but instead to medicate and suppress it in an attempt to make it go away, so the person can basically try to forget that any of that ever happened, and resume a “normal” life. I came across the idea of “Spiritual Emergency” early on, but in the immediate aftermath of those experiences, I was heavily medicated and felt depressed about the whole situation, and so I was wondering how relevant that idea was for me, because at that point in time I certainly didn’t feel like I was “spiritually awake” or “enlightened” or anything like that.
In 2014 I made an attempt to come off the medication that I was on, and at the same time I was having a rebirth of a sense of creativity and enthusiasm for life, as well as a renewed interest in the topic of Spirituality. At this time I found out about someone doing group meditation sessions / Satsangs, and I decided to give that a try. During my first attempt at meditating in that group, I experienced a radical shift in consciousness, where I woke up to a new level of awareness that has remained with me to this day. To this day I continue to meditate and work with the same spiritual teacher that introduced me to this in 2014. I have found that meditation and spiritual practice has been greatly beneficial to stabilizing in this awakening process, and as I continue in life, and life presents itself with new situations, I continue to be shown more areas in my self to work through, where the mind is clinging and holding on with attachment. For me, Spirituality has become more than just a “personal interest” but a practice that is vitally essential to living my life in a healthy and stable way, and it is a source of a great sense of well being for me.
At this point, I have no doubts about the validity of the process that I went through being a “Spiritual Emergence / Emergency”. The topic of the intersection between Spirituality, Psychology and Mental Health is a central area of interest for me, and I plan on being involved in the world around this in one way or another. It’s also important to mention that I spent last year doing a slow tapering and coming off the one psychiatric medication that I was on, a process that was successfully completed with out much difficulty in November 2016. At the time of writing this I have been medication free for four months.
To mark the launch of #Emerging Proud 2017, a commemorative book featuring all of the personal transformation stories of those who have #Emerged Proud over the last 6 months will be printed.
There will be only 100 limited edition, hardback A4 perfect bound books, printed in full colour throughout the world.
The cover for this very special book will feature the artwork of one of the following #Emerging Proud participants, but whose will it be? Go to the bottom of the page to place your vote for the winning design, and to find out how to grab your copy!
The contenders for the cover deign are:
CAM
LIISA
ALAN
IVY
TEE
Would you like to be one of only 100 people in the world who own one of these special prints? Here’s what you need to do to grab your copy!
CLICK HERE TO SECURE YOUR COPY
Once you have paid, your name is on the list to receive one of the only 100 copies to be printed globally, for the inaugural year, 2017.
Then, please email me the following information ASAP to mendthegap@hotmail.com:
1.) Your postal address where you’d like your book sending
2.) The personal message you would like me to write in your book.
3.) Confirm whether you’d like your personal story to feature in the book, and if you haven’t already, send me your picture and story in approx 500 words.
4.) Confirm if you would like to be mentioned as an official backer in the back of the book + on the film credits, and if so, what name to use?
5.) 2 sentences as a note from you to the reader (if you would like to)
Your book will be printed and distributed to you ready for the launch on 12th May 2017.
Please note that by submitting your picture / story / video, you are giving complete permission for your provided material to be used publicly for the campaign.
All proceeds will go towards the campaign costs.
Thank you on behalf of all the amazing people #Emerging Proud for the shift,
Katie ❤
Susie beautifully explains her journey here:
At the age of 18, despite being outwardly successful, with a place at Cambridge university and high achievements on my violin, I was depressed and suicidal.
That summer, I was told by a renowned voice coach during a theatre course in London, that my voice seemed trapped at the age of thirteen, and that perhaps this was caused by a traumatic incident at that age.
I completely dismissed this and even became angry that he should suggest it.
However, just a year later, while undergoing therapy, I was flung into an intense spiritual awakening experience. I was led back to my childhood to relive certain events, and an outpouring of emotion culminated in a complete liberation of my voice. Suddenly it was deep, resonant, and the range of notes I could reach was staggering.
Not only my voice – my whole body felt free of tension, and my mind felt free of fear and chatter.
I wanted to dance and sing. I felt a strong sense of oneness and connection with all peoples of the world. As I watched people walking past me in London I felt I had known them all before, and a synchronicity seemed to flow as I swapped belongings with different people I met, and was led from one interplay to the next.
This was my most intense extreme state so far, and although it was immensely healing, I had no framework to fully integrate it, and as it faded I stopped thinking about it much anymore.
In my twenties I was diagnosed with bipolar, and advised to take mood-stabilizing medication. This meant that, together with the anti-depressants I’d been on previously, I ended up taking psychiatric medication, on and off, for around fifteen years.
In my thirties, stuck in an admin job that meant nothing to me, and following a relationship breakdown, my extreme states intensified, and I was sectioned three times. Despite becoming wildly out of control, these states were still of enormous value to me. I again relived parts of my childhood and felt the subsequent outpouring of emotion. I let go of all fear and felt a deep knowing that my soul was eternal. I felt intimately connected to nature and cared deeply for the Earth and all living things. I did not care about any of the usual written and unwritten rules of society, and walked through the streets early in the morning, singing. I had not played my violin much for years, but suddenly it was with me all the time, out of its case – I played on trains and buses, in the doctor’s surgery and outside people’s houses. It was as though my soul knew its true vocation, even if I did not. Sometimes I felt slightly psychic, as though I could see what people needed, or what would be healing for them.
One time, walking through a wood at night, I felt pulled into a pool of water. As I went deeper and deeper in, my soul seemed to travel back in time showing me all the traumas it had experienced, leading me back through childhood and then on into glimpses of past lives. I came up, gasping in the moonlight, cleansed like a newborn.
Being in hospital was traumatic, and the treatment was sometimes brutal. I did need help; however no one working on the wards understood my interpretation of what was happening to me, and the medical model completely invalidated it. I was ill, I needed medication – that was it. This made it difficult to integrate my experiences.
Thankfully, in the months and years that followed, I was gradually able to meet others who shared my views, and I discovered the work of Stanislav Grof and others, which gave me great comfort.
I now have not taken regular psychiatric medication for ten years. Led by spirit, I work as a violinist and violin teacher, which brings me great joy. I live with my partner and we have two beautiful daughters. Over the last few years I have been able to embrace and integrate my unique experiences more and more. Every day I feel connected to my soul and seek guidance from spirit. I feel that I can more easily dip in and out of extreme states, which sometimes give me insight into a relationship difficulty or a path to follow. Sometimes the connection helps me to see what people need when I’m teaching them, or helps me to understand the dynamics within my own family more clearly. I still often describe myself as bipolar; however I do not see this as a disorder. I see it as a gateway to a higher consciousness, which, when open, can lead me to great insights, guidance and healing, connecting me to my soul, the greater whole, and to what lies beyond.
I still often feel afraid and ashamed to speak out about what I have experienced. I fear ridicule and confusion. There still seems to be little room in the mainstream for a discussion on spirituality, and the psychiatric medical model continues to dominate, blocking people’s healing, invalidating their spiritual experiences, and preventing the soul connection which is their birthright. I am so happy to be part of this campaign, and I hope that in the future we in the West can discuss spiritual matters much more openly, and that people in crisis can eventually be treated gently, with validation and understanding.
Over the past 30 years, the broken brain and chemical imbalance theory of “mental illness” has had mixed results at best. While sales of psychoactive pharmaceuticals have increased 8000%, suicide and mental health disability rates in the US have also shot up.
It’s time we rethink madness. Are there spiritual aspects to mental illness? Is there a relationship between shamanism, spiritual enlightenment and psychosis? Are these just breakdowns, or can they be breakthroughs?
CRAZYWISE film in collaboration with Shades of Awakening invites you to a live discussion about how we can bring change to the current paradigm that governs the diagnosis and treatment of severe mental emotional distress.
It’s time to shift the conversation, in our homes, in our hospitals and in our communities.
Join host Dabney Alix of Shades of Awakening for a live discussion and Q&A with panelists Gabor Mate, Robert Whitaker, Will Hall, Ekhaya Esima and CRAZYWISE director Phil Borges.
Receive a FREE link to the documentary film CRAZYWISE for all who register.
Let’s come together to reframe the experience called ‘mental illness’
Host:
Dabney Alix is the creator of Shades of Awakening, a online speaker series and global community that brings together both peers and professionals in rich discussion of how to integrate and claim the gifts from spiritual emergency. After her own profound spiritual crisis in 2003 she went on to train as a shamanic practitioner and energy healer and later as a spiritual business & purpose coach. http://www.shadesofawakening.com / www.dabneyalix.com
Panelists:
Robert Whitaker, Pulitzer Prize nominated Journalist & Author: His most recent book, Anatomy of an Epidemic, challenges the chemical imbalance theory of ‘mental illness’ and takes a critical look at the effectiveness of our pharmaceutical approach that currently dominates our mental health care system.
Gabor Mate, MD, Author: Dr. Mate is a physician who specializes in neurology, psychiatry, and psychology, as well as the study and treatment of addiction. A renowned lecturer and best-selling author, Dr. Mate believes mental distress and pathology are largely a result of a materialist culture that “idealizes individualism and ignores our emotional needs”.
Will Hall, MA, DIPL.PW: Therapist & Mental Health Advocate: Will Hall is an articulate bright light in the survivor-led movement advocating for a change in the way mental illness is defined and treated. As a leader in the movement Will lectures and gives workshops worldwide. He has faced his own struggles with madness and speaks to us about the alternative treatment approaches that have worked for him. www.willhall.net
Ekhaya Esima, Survivor, & Mental Health Counselor: Ekhaya’s story is highlighted in the film. After severe suicidal depression, her first ray of hope for recovery came when she found the peer-led mental health organization, Baltic Street, in New York. The second profound moment in her healing came when a South African healer, known as a Sangoma, redefined her ‘mental illness’, and began her initiation and training in an age-old Shamanic tradition.
Phil Borges, CRAZYWISE Director & Producer: Phil Borges has been documenting indigenous cultures and the human rights issues they face for over 25 years. His award winning books and exhibitions are known worldwide. He has produced several films in collaboration with organizations like Amnesty International, UN Women and CARE. Phil has given several TED talks; including TED in 2007, TEDxRainier in 2012 and TEDxUMKC in 2013 and hosted television documentaries for Discovery and National Geographic.
Reframing Mental distress as a potential catalyst for positive change 