Natural Spirituality --

Mental Health has been defined without a relationship with something bigger than ourselves. Up until recently speaking about our personal relationship with a creator has been labeled as “psychotic.”
I spent six years at the University of Connecticut Medical School researching the after effects of people who have had a Near-Death Experience under the direction of C. Bruce Greyson, MD. We both have popular books and scholarly papers published on this topic. We led support groups for experiencers and taught extensively to professional groups and lay public conferences.
Our research participants (over 500) and the hundreds of people we did one on one interviews with – proved time and time again that we (I am an experiencer too) are just as mentally healthy as the general population. This was not a “Psychotic break” but something incredibly relevant to make the rest of our lives more meaningful including our relationship with ourselves and our loved ones.

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could be a very positive thing, anything that helps someone who suffers mental illness.

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Recovering addicts need natural spirituality. Without it, they will start using again. My experience shows that my research into Near-Death Experiences demonstrates that (and this was the name of my classes at Rutger’s U and other conferences) “When the 12th step happens first.” Most addicts who have a spiritual experience first have a much easier time staying sober. There is research now giving addicts a spiritual experience with psychedelics. The stats are impressive. Addicts have as many positive changes as the general public who have spontaneous near-death experiences. Other triggers for these experiences are child birth, bottoming out from loss, helping a loved one die, reading spiritual literature or hearing a spiritual talk, yoga, intense prayer and "Trauma/transcendence interface…

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I have been a psychedelic therapist for roughly a decade mostly working with people using cannabis and ketamine. I specialize in treating PTSD and C-PTSD, which are the underlying causes of addictions of all kinds. Understanding what PTSD actually is and why it causes compulsive management strategies is key to healing it and it can be healed. One of the underlying currents in what we refer to as ‘mental illness’ is a disconnection from ourselves, our families and our spirituality. When someone has an experience of themselves from a spiritual perspective they feel and know they belong to a larger reality and that their experiences do not define them. In short they are worthy. That is profoundly healing. Then they have the solution they need to begin to release the memories and beliefs that underly their PTSD, previously vehemently suppressed/dissociated because no solution existed. That is what addiction is, vehemently suppressed, dangerous feeling memory, belief and emotion.

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Well said!

Some years back I came across Michael Brown’s book The Presence Process, which, incompletely and reductively put, is about integrating the underlying unresolved emotional conditions (blocked energy if one wants to take it that far) that can source addiction and other behaviors and conditions. The integrated breathwork practice laid out therein (and insights too) have facilitated my 19 plus years of recovery from alcoholism. As an aside, Brown didn’t go down the path of the business of spirituality, guru and all that. My sense is he almost did, then sort of said my book is out there, so’s my website (https://www.thepresenceprocessportal.com), it’s there for those who want it. All FWIW.