The Stormy Search for the Self-Christina and Stan Grof

This book is a fantastic resource for anyone in spiritual emergency. Before finding and reading this book, I would have thought I was going mad. Yes, there is a chemical component at play here. But there is also some thing deeper.  They include a spiritual poem from Lalleshwari:Spiritual Poems by a Great Siddha Yogini:

When your impurities are burned
through suffering
you will become more lustrous
than a mirror in the sun,
more pure than
the most perfect of pearls....
This seems to capture the essence of spiritual emergency and benzo withdrawal. I find it interested that the symptoms of spiritual emergency also parallel that of a benzo withdrawal. The kundalini awakening, visions, shaking, tremors, fear, the feeling of straddling two worlds at the same time.

Not everyone sees the process of withdrawal in this spiritual way. For me, I feel drawn to seeing things from this perspective, trusting that the burning, the suffering and depths of this experience will resolve and ultimately heal you in a way that 20 years of therapy could not. 

We know that shaking is the way the nervous system comes back into balance and healing. I know many people are scared by the shaking, but trusting and allowing it and knowing that it means the nervous system is healing.

This book talks about something important which is straddling two worlds. Many people cannot quit their jobs and just delve into their unconscious material full force. There are mouths to feed, places to go, dinners to attend etc. Now, some of us are too sick to do any of that. I have been too. Lately, I have intuitively been scaling back on all levels to make room and space for the two worlds to co-exist, even though maybe the time would be shortened if I gave myself permission to fully surrender and let go of everything. 

Yesterday was an up and down day. Spending time with friends=good, Going to a mall =BAD. I noticed myself becoming very agitated and felt removed from the crowds of people. Like-what are they rushing around for? what are they buying? Can I return to the busy, frenetic normal life? I can reach for it but I can't touch it.  It's like wearing a plastic covering over your body where you feel detached, unable to connect and understand how life is just moving along. I guess in Benzo terms it would be called DP/DR, I won't try to label it. 

Today I did nothing. I ruminated to be fair. Obsessive looping happening. I forced myself to read and meditate and am keeping it simple.

One day people will understand the idea of spiritual emergency on a deeper level and be able to support and guide people through times like these without the use of labels, medications, and misunderstandings. The human being naturally wants to access perinatal, biological and transpersonal /non ordinary states of consciousness in an effort to connect with oneness and the divine, to heal and live in the light and out of suffering.