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1. Interview: Michelle Anne Hobart
77 Plays3 years ago
Michelle Anne Hobart, MA, SEC, AMFT is a teacher, writer, and Associate Marriage and Family Therapist at The Marin School. She trained as a Spiritual Emergence Coach with Emma Bragdon, works closely with the Gnosis Retreat Center project, has an online Spiritual Emergence Course with Kyle Buller called Awakening Healers, and other collaborations. Michelle provides a safe and sacred space and supports the clarity and alignment of her clients. She offers individual and group therapy, and leads community wellness workshops and retreats.
Awakening Healers Course: https://settingsunwellness.teachable.com/p/awakening-healers
Holding Sacred Space book: https://store.bookbaby.com/book/holding-sacred-space
Emma Bragdon's SE Coaching Program: https://imhu.org/courses/spiritual-emergence-coach-certification/
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Pursuit of Infinity podcast hosted by Joe and Josh, and I'm Josh. Today I have an interview with Michelle Ann Hobart, who is a writer, teacher, coach, and therapist with a BS in biology, MA in philosophy, cosmology, and consciousness from CIIS. She also has written two books, Becoming Sacred Space and Holding Sacred Space.
00:00:29
Speaker
And links to all of the coaching courses that she offers will be in the show notes. But before we get to that, I would just like to request and ask if anybody would like to, to please give this episode and this podcast a five star rating on whichever podcast provider you listen to.
00:00:50
Speaker
And if you so choose, please visit our Patreon at patreon.com slash pursuit of infinity. Also we're on Instagram at pursuit of infinity pod.
Michelle's Career and Passion
00:01:04
Speaker
So without further ado, please welcome our guests today, Michelle and Hobart.
00:01:36
Speaker
Michelle, welcome. Thank you. Thank you so much. So good to have you. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for reaching out and giving me an opportunity to share some of the things that are really on my heart and that I'm really passionate about. I've been looking forward to it. So why don't we start out by you just describing who you are and what you do. And it's funny because
00:02:05
Speaker
There's been so many manifestations of who I am and what I do. And what I'm noticing is since my experience, more of my different aspects of myself are starting to come together. It's like I feel like the work itself is integration, right? We talk a lot about that in different fields, whether it's spiritual emergence and emergency, or we talk about it within psychedelics.
00:02:30
Speaker
But I feel like it's true that we are given these gifts. For me, it was like this interest in love of biology. I started out as a biology teacher, and then I wanted to expand to the subtle realms. And I did philosophy, cosmology, and consciousness at CIS. And that was when I first came into contact with Stan's work. And then, yeah.
00:03:01
Speaker
I really feel like, you know, since then it was like I wanted to deepen into the body. So I did body work. And I noticed that in doing body work, I was having a lot of exchanges of energy. So that was when I would say my spiritual emergence really started to kick off was when I noticed how porous those of us who are sensitive are to
00:03:23
Speaker
energies and to other realms you know and so I wanted to start deepening into that and understanding that with the mind of a biologist with the heart of a biologist and so I bring that into this work right that we talk about the subtle ecologies so that is something that is still very present for me when I'm working with people who are in spiritual emergence and we'll get into a little bit more about what that is and what that means
00:03:52
Speaker
But just to say it's a framework that is another way of understanding what happens when people are going into these openings instead of the pathology paradigm being the only option. So I work with folks as a spiritual emergence coach. I am also a school counselor right now.
00:04:12
Speaker
which is amazing working with teens and working with a progressive school that is just really open to understanding the need for neurodiversity as a framework and just all types of diversity and the power dynamics that underlie systems of oppression. Those are some of the things that I'm working on now. I am going to study and sit for the exam for the LMFT.
Understanding Spiritual Emergence
00:04:40
Speaker
Uh, next summer for the emergent family therapist, I was on the fence whether or not I was going to do a license, but I think I'm going to go ahead and do it. So that's where I'm at with my work right now. Yeah. I wish you luck with that. Thank you.
00:04:55
Speaker
So I first discovered you via a class offered by psychedelics today called integrating psychedelics and navigating psychedelics for clinicians and therapists. And I saw your lecture on spiritual emergence, which was very interesting to me. So can we go into a little bit of what spiritual emergence is?
00:05:17
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. And from what I remember about that time is that I was combining a lot of the work because I used to have a wellness center. So working with the energy work and the self care and bring all of those tools into the way I understand what we're doing when we're working with spiritual emergence because it's such a sensitive state. And so what I mean by spiritual emergence is
00:05:47
Speaker
And we can say it's spontaneous or induced, right? And that's the way that I kind of hold it, which is that sometimes people go into openings. Let's say it's a near-death experience or traumatic experience or a Kundalini awakening from, let's say somebody gets Shaktipat or someone goes into a 10-day Vipassana retreat and has an opening.
00:06:10
Speaker
where they're starting to have experiences, what we call either extraordinary experiences or extreme state experiences. Most people in the dominant paradigm would look at that and say they're having hallucinations, they're delusional, et cetera, right? And they would say they need to be hospitalized. That's like the sort of the state of things in mainstream mental health, right? But what we're saying is that there's actually
00:06:38
Speaker
another possibility of what's going on. And it is a spiritual experience, a spiritual type of opening. And there's actually different categories of spiritual emergence, which we go over, Kyle and I go over in our Awakening Healers course. But just to say that the ones that I mainly have folks gravitate to me, because the way that I hold the work is that we go through these experiences because we're going to be in service in that way.
00:07:03
Speaker
So kundalini awakening, near-death experience, and psychic opening. Those are the main trifecta of areas that I work when people are opening into their intuitive gifts, feeling overwhelmed, feeling like they don't know how to sort out all the data that they're receiving on all the levels, and it becomes ungrounding and destabilizing and potentially troubling for other people in their lives as well. And so sometimes we're dealing with it, and we're always really dealing with it on a systemic level.
00:07:32
Speaker
like whether it's a family system, a partnership, community, right? Or just culture in general right now, what we're dealing with collectively. Yeah. So what are some of the causes that you see of a spiritual emergence or what we see as a spiritual emergency, which is sort of like, um, the, for lack of a better word, the negative side of a spiritual emergence experience.
00:07:59
Speaker
Yeah, that's great. And thank you for drawing that out because that's one of the things too that I want to mention is that the way I think of it, just like I kind of do everything is that there's a continuum, right? And the continuum is based on two things. It's the inner experience of what's happening and how
00:08:19
Speaker
how manageable that is or unmanageable that is to integrate. And then also how people are being received by the outer world. And so whether it goes into spiritual emergency has to do with both of those factors. What's going on? Am I having an experience that's way too challenging for me to be able to internally incorporate? Or is it so overwhelming that the people and the workplace or whatever
00:08:48
Speaker
manage what's going on for me. And so both of those things come into play as to whether it's an emergency.
Causes and Effects of Spiritual Emergence
00:08:56
Speaker
And of course, in an emergency, it's already gone past the point sometimes at which the things that you would normally have access to to help take care of somebody is going to be what works.
00:09:09
Speaker
And so there's going to be a little bit more need for like maybe say 24 seven, like tending and sort of like holistic practitioners like I think of teams really of people that can then kind of depending on what's needed, you know you want to have a nutritional person you want to have somebody who's working.
00:09:28
Speaker
like shamanically, you want to have somebody who's doing grounding work, body work, breath work, etc. So yeah, so in an emergency state is more intensified, and needs more care. And oftentimes, that is when people get hospitalized, that is when people
00:09:50
Speaker
need like more interventions, but people don't realize that there's alternatives to that. And why does it happen? On the side of spontaneous, I think spontaneous is actually a way of saying we may not realize what the etiology is, but there is something that's happening.
00:10:12
Speaker
whether it's something happening karmically that opens up, maybe somebody is doing their spiritual practices and has an opening, or maybe someone's working with medicines, and that would be more of the induced form if there's practices that activate someone into these states. But like I said, if it's spontaneous, then it's something where there's a little bit of a question of whether it was consensual. And of course,
00:10:41
Speaker
You know my in in my newest piece like the balance of non duality it's like what it depends on what level we're at and how to really honor the person's experience. But that yes, there is a there is a place where it's like we can really understand that there's.
00:10:58
Speaker
We're like lightning rods. So there is something going on, whether it's, like I said, the system, the direct system, the family system, or in the culture that is being channeled, that is being worked, being metabolized by those that are sensitive. And these are the folks that I say that often go into spiritual emergence or emergency.
00:11:24
Speaker
So in my life personally, I find that my spiritual emergence has been very beneficial to my outlook on life, my outlook on reality. It's completely altered many of the things that I do and to find myself as. So that being said, do you think that spiritual emergence is a desirable thing? Should people go for it? Should they attempt to try to achieve it? Or do you think that's sort of like,
00:11:53
Speaker
It's sort of like a dangerous road to travel down. I think that spiritual emergence is why we're here.
00:12:08
Speaker
And what I mean by that is that being in bodies and being incarnate, like moving towards wholeness, you know, holotropic is one way to think about it, moving towards integration, moving towards the full capacity and sharing of our gifts.
00:12:27
Speaker
That is what spiritual emergence offers, and that's what I think the path is. And I think that as long as we have people in our lives that can hold us and see us, and that's not a given. I know that.
00:12:47
Speaker
It's such a blessing to have people that can see you. So as long as we have those nodal points in place and we have some frameworks to understand what's happening and to kind of orient
00:13:06
Speaker
then I think it is desirable and I think it is a deep way to live and it's a way to continue to expand ourselves. And I think it's necessary now too. I don't think we have a choice is what I'm saying. Yeah.
00:13:24
Speaker
You said the word holotropic, which is defined by Graf as moving toward wholeness. Now he described particularly psychedelics as nonspecific amplifiers. Do you find that there are, along with psychedelics, other types of nonspecific amplifiers that can induce these types of experiences? Definitely.
00:13:54
Speaker
And like I said, and kind of when we said what sort of causes it or what activates these states, we think about certain practices that have been kind of cultivated over thousands of years in spiritual lineages. And that is to achieve states, expanded states.
00:14:18
Speaker
And so things like, yeah, breath work, meditation. Yeah, and breath work, and by that, I mean pranayam, as well as like whole tribe of breath work, you know, or other variations of that. And so there are ways that we can access these states naturally. And with our own bodies, we don't have endogenously, right? We don't have to take something from outside into our bodies.
00:14:48
Speaker
And yes, there's a lot of there's a lot of ways to do that. I think
00:14:57
Speaker
trauma is less commonly spoke of as like, it's not a method, but it is something that we have to talk about. We have to understand that sometimes trauma does trigger these states also, and that there's a lot of trauma that's happening. And so whether or not people are intending to go into extreme states or going into expanded states, often that is also an amplifier.
00:15:27
Speaker
Yeah, so like I say, there's there's sort of three types of trauma. There's the trauma that sort of sets the stage for the sensitivity. Right. And then there's the trauma of the experience itself. Right. Sometimes these these extreme states can be traumatic in and of themselves. And then there's the trauma of how it's held or not held. So there's like these layers of like needing to be trauma informed when we're dealing with with non ordinary states.
00:15:55
Speaker
So how how trauma informed would you say a person should be or how informed of these concepts should a person be before they start to navigate this world?
00:16:09
Speaker
I wish that it was a requirement and I know there's like undergrounds plural so that there's not necessarily some standard of what's required but if I could have a wish it would be that people you know take you know trauma courses and understand the nervous system understand the body how the body holds trauma and and you know how those things are connected to psyche connected to spirit
00:16:36
Speaker
And if we could, you know, do training in spiritual emergence and emergency so that people aren't necessarily just jumping to like this is psychosis or this is, you know, a mental illness. And then I would also say, you know, people being well versed in the non physical realms.
00:16:56
Speaker
being able to move in these spaces that are actual places that we are visitors to, like diplomacy, right? Like humility, diplomacy, like honoring needs and negotiations. So those are the three areas, I would say, sort of the non-physical realm, trauma and spiritual emergence.
00:17:21
Speaker
Yeah, it seems like today instead of informing ourselves with these concepts, most of the time these experiences are seen as trivial, they're pathologized, people are called crazy, and that often is what leads to a spiritual emergency. Like you said, it's
00:17:40
Speaker
the environment and the people around you, if they're not treating it in a way that is supportive of you getting through it and kind of transmuting that experience, then it often does lead to an emergency situation. Exactly. Exactly. And
00:17:59
Speaker
I'm delicate here because I use the same diplomacy in the non-physical that I try to do in the physical, which is I'm not trying to alienate anybody by speaking on these edges, right? So what I want to say is like the reason education is so important is so that the people that are in their fear and in their like, oh my God, what do I do? We hospitalize them, right? Because they don't know that that's not necessarily
00:18:25
Speaker
going to be the thing that's going to be supportive. So I'm not trying to judge the people that are misinformed or ignorant, but it just puts even more of like a responsibility and a sense of urgency onto those of us who are doing this work to kind of get the word out more.
00:18:42
Speaker
And of course, I am in a lineage of these amazing, amazing beings and constantly evolving the work. But it does need to come back to the forefront, I think, in the conversation, for sure.
Education and Advocacy in Spiritual Emergence
00:18:58
Speaker
And speaking of getting the word out, in what ways are you getting the word out?
00:19:06
Speaker
Well, there's online courses, and we're going to be expanding our offering, you know, as well with psychedelics today, but also Awakening Healers, which is an online course, which includes spiritual emergence, trauma, neurodiversity, and compassionate space holding. It has a lot of resources as well for self-care.
00:19:28
Speaker
I just got an article published in the Journal of Human Sick Psychology, which feels really huge. It's like my first one, so it's kind of like the threshold. And there's something too about being able to have these conversations in professional psychological journals, like the fact that they're having multiple anthologies of extreme states
00:19:52
Speaker
experiencers and work and practitioners. So I think it's amazing that the journal is doing that work. So I'm just giving a shout out to them. And yeah, and hopefully I'll be working on my TEDx application at some point. Oh, I'm looking forward to that for sure. So in terms of the courses, what exactly are the details of the teachings?
00:20:24
Speaker
Well, like I said, I'm trying to thread together a lot of lineages. So spiritual emergence as one, but also neurodiversity, the neurodiversity paradigm, which is started out with people who are on the autism spectrum saying that there is another way of processing information and understanding the world and experiencing the world and embodying
00:20:52
Speaker
that just because it's not quote unquote normal, that actually normal is a system of oppression. And so bringing that piece in, I think with spiritual emergence is really, really important because then we can start to say, you know, who wrote the DSM? Who's funding the research? You know, we need to ask the hard questions, sort of like I said, the freedom from aspect of cognitive liberty.
00:21:19
Speaker
And then also I do a lot of work with the Langian community and the Gnosis Retreat Center project. So they're trying to raise funds to create a space, a center, a home, basically, for people to go through their experiences without medication. Treatment is how we treat one another.
00:21:44
Speaker
Kingsley Hall and things like that. So we're trying to bring in sort of Lang's work as well as Stan's work and then also the neurodiversity paradigm and cognitive liberty. So threading all of those pieces together, I think that's all represented in Awakening Healers and will definitely be represented in whatever we do for Kyle and Jo's course too.
00:22:06
Speaker
Yeah, oh, and I have a book, two books. So my book, Holding Sacred Space, that is the one where I speak about spiritual emergence and emergency my own and also working with it clinically and working with it as a spiritual emergence coach and definitely bringing together a lot of my teachers and their work and sharing that along with what I've learned myself in my own process.
00:22:37
Speaker
who are some of your teachers and some of the more influential people on your outlook and your ability to do the work that you're doing? Yes, so this is where I'm like, I'm gonna go internal and just kind of, this is like the part of the prayer where we honor lineage.
00:22:55
Speaker
So Stan, of course. And the thing for me that was really powerful was that because I had been exposed to Stan's work in PCC before my spiritual emergency, even in the midst of it, there was some part of me.
00:23:13
Speaker
that knew that there was something else, there was another way. And I owe so much of my, for life a better term of like freeing myself from the brainwashing of the pathology paradigm, right, to my PCC community.
00:23:32
Speaker
And also Brandt Courtright, who was in ICB, the integral counseling psychology program, and he did beautiful, beautiful work with integral yoga and spiritual emergence, and was my spiritual emergence mentor when I was in the therapy program.
00:23:47
Speaker
Emma Bragden, who Kyle also took the SCC training, which is the spiritual emergence coaching training through integrated mental health for you. And she has done amazing work over the years and also incorporates the spiritist traditions of working with the non-physical and the beings and their needs.
00:24:11
Speaker
And yeah, Michael Cornwall, Nida Gage, Nida and I, she's a shamanic breathwork practitioner and over the last six years I've been able to assist with her with
00:24:25
Speaker
Dina Tyler and Will Hall, we assist every summer at the Lane Conference. So yeah, and Will Hall and I have been working closely together in terms of supporting the sort of ethical space holding and people in those delicate, vulnerable states to be taking care of properly.
Ethical Challenges in Spiritual Work
00:24:54
Speaker
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because that seems to be a problem permeating this space is the ethical treatment of people who are under the influence of whether it be endogenous experiences or exogenous experiences, exogenous experiences. So do you assist in any way people who have gone through traumatic experiences within that realm?
00:25:23
Speaker
Yeah, I think the recovery process is so, so important to have support and have allies, people who are trauma-informed, people who understand high control group dynamics also, so that they understand that when we're in such an open, open state like that, like the trauma gets in so, so deep.
00:25:48
Speaker
So yes, being an ally, an advocate, an activist, and a supporter behind the scenes of people who are needing help that have been harmed in psychedelic spaces.
00:26:02
Speaker
And you're seeing more and more of this happening. I'm seeing articles pop up all over the place, whether it be through ayahuasca ceremonies or breath work, all types of things, or people are being abused. And a lot of times they don't know that they're being abused because these states are so altering to their minds. So have you had people, individuals come to you who have been abused?
00:26:28
Speaker
Yes, yeah. Definitely it is coming out more now I think, you know, as soon as the bales start lifting and people start hearing their own story being told by someone else it's like,
00:26:41
Speaker
when people start to come forward, it allows people to start recognizing what's been happening and start to understand like this is not okay. And then the veil start to fall, the brainwashing starts to break down. The internal conflict of like trying to make it okay and all of that starts to fall away.
00:27:07
Speaker
and then people start to reach out and and it is important to know that I'm a safe place for people if they have had those experiences and that I I'm also a hub of resources for people if they want to go to like support groups and things like that as well so you know definitely people can reach out to me if they they need support around that.
00:27:28
Speaker
So what do we do about that problem in a more meta way? Like how, cause this could definitely halt a lot of the progress that these sorts of things have been gaining traction on. So what do we do about this?
00:27:48
Speaker
And I like the way that you ask that because it's not assuming that it's going to. Because I think there's been silencing that's been happening for a long time that people are like, don't say anything or you're going to ruin it for everybody. You're going to ruin the Renaissance, right? But I think what needs to happen is like we're detoxing to make it cleaner, clearer, safer, better.
00:28:17
Speaker
um and if we didn't do this work then it could continue to do harm and ultimately it would
00:28:24
Speaker
it would fall apart from the inside. It would eat itself because of that. So this is necessary work. And I think if anything, we just keep putting these ethical protocols in place. I'm not saying that medicalization is the answer, though, either, because then we're dealing with big pharma and economics and patriarchy and capitalism and all of that, all those systems of oppression.
00:28:54
Speaker
But what I am saying is we need to have an independent body, right, who might then not be beholden to these other forces that people could come and say, you know, I'm having concerns about this, and that that would protect them if it's, you know, for the illegality that they're afraid of incriminating themselves, that there needs to be more bodies like that, I think.
Integration of Holistic and Scientific Approaches
00:29:18
Speaker
That would be one way that I would say we could make some real progress.
00:29:24
Speaker
And speaking of the medical model, do you see anything that the medical model has right and that they're doing correctly? That's a really fast question because then we have to go back really far and ask about like,
00:29:51
Speaker
allopathy in the history of medical treatment and mistreatment. I mean, look at Bob Whittaker's work and see all of the abuses in the medical system and how it has separated us from the natural world and our own bodies in certain fundamental ways by fighting illness and da, da, da, da, right? So for me,
00:30:17
Speaker
I think my focus is more on holistic and integrative medicine, alternative medicine, and bringing those things together in harmony with allopathic medicine, not medicalization per se, if that makes sense.
00:30:34
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Cause medicalization seems to be the way that things enter into our culture because I feel that science seems to be the gatekeeper and as you, and you seem to have entered this field through biology, which is obviously a main science. So do you think that there's potential for a new modality that sort of takes
00:31:05
Speaker
takes something from the scientific realm, but ultimately introduces a new way to deal with these types of situations.
00:31:15
Speaker
Yes, I mean, that is the vision. And so many of us who have had these experiences are carriers of this vision, whether it's centers, multimodality spaces, where there's all types of different healing that's happening, sound healing, body work, sort of like I said, the nutritional aspect, like food is medicine, right?
00:31:38
Speaker
nature, like getting connected to nature and herbs and just the indigenous ways. And we all have indigenous ways. I'm not talking about appropriation. I'm talking about reclaiming our connection to the earth.
00:31:55
Speaker
and our rightful place on the earth in harmony, in balance. So yes, I think as a carrier of this vision there is a new way and I think we are all holding a piece of that and the more that we come together and share the vision, I think that the new will start to emerge and it is going to be bringing together everybody's gifts.
00:32:18
Speaker
And that includes Western medicine, right, of course, but it has its place and it's not the, it's not
00:32:28
Speaker
It's not the only one, and it's not the authority or authoritarian in this situation. So I think everybody's voice needs to be heard. And we need to really look at the power dynamics and start to make some shifts, which is why I love spiritual emergence coaching, because it's peer support. It's peer-led peer support. We're all experiencers. And yes, we have training.
00:32:57
Speaker
And I also bring my therapeutic and clinical training to my coaching work, but it's not a power dynamic. It's not like I'm going to tell you what's true about you, about your life, about your experience, and here's what I think you should do. Because that's a violation of their own sovereignty. Yeah. Yeah, I find that there is a fine line between sitting with someone and
00:33:25
Speaker
keeping yourself from imposing your own viewpoints and your own will on them and on their experience by telling them what they're feeling, telling them what they're experiencing. So how do you find the balance of sitting with someone going through a spiritual emergence process while not imposing your will upon them?
Navigating Power Dynamics and Family Systems
00:33:44
Speaker
For me, it's like it's this exquisite attunement where it's like I'm actually like, and I do this in my other work too, my energy work, where I'm like an instrument.
00:33:57
Speaker
I'm picking up on what they're experiencing. And then I'm being curious and open. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm feeling this. Is that something that you're experiencing as well? Do you want to give voice to this aspect of the unspoken? Do you want to tell me the story about this archetypal realm that you're experiencing? Because it's real. That's the foundations that I'm saying to them, I see you. It's real.
00:34:25
Speaker
And please, I want to know more. I want to feel more. I want to be with you in it. And it takes a lot of grounding and stability and my own rootedness to be able to go into these spaces without succumbing to those, because it's very powerful energy as people are working with.
00:34:49
Speaker
And so it's taken a lot of practice and so therefore the self-care piece and the, you know, doing my own practices and having my own healers and my own therapists and my own right to my own team to be able to do that work.
00:35:04
Speaker
And we're also oftentimes dealing with the family system. So we're dealing with like, I'm holding the space for them. And I'm also, you know, the mom is really afraid and I'm working with that or, you know, and I'm trying to navigate the whole system with them. And one thing that I love about the land conferences, like, also,
00:35:26
Speaker
Thinking about the team of people around them, right, is actually like that the metabolic system. Right, so everybody is potentially able to help support.
00:35:41
Speaker
by metabolizing in their own way, different parts of it. Because usually what happens is that everybody that's going through their spiritual emergency is taking on the whole system, right? It's like they're dealing with the shadow of the system and they're metabolizing everything, right? So if everybody claims back, they're part of whatever it is that they need to do. And that's something that we kind of, you know, promote too, is like, okay, what if this is yours to do? And sorting that too, so.
00:36:11
Speaker
It's really important because it can be overwhelming. Just the amount of data, the amount of
00:36:18
Speaker
sensation and feeling that people are experiencing can be overwhelming. So to help ground some of that out, to help create safe space energetically for them. So that's the other reason I love working in spiritual emergence and as an energy healer or energy worker is because then I'm also helping them with skills to work with the energies that they're interacting with.
00:36:43
Speaker
It seems crucial that these types of things are done communally. And I think that's one of the special pieces of particularly holotropic breath work and breath work workshops. Can you talk a little bit about the benefits of having a community and performing sort of these ritualistic workshops within groups, as opposed to just by yourself?
00:37:15
Speaker
essential. It's essential. And what I love about altruistic breathwork or shamanic breathwork in the case that you know that I've been sitting up in and walking the floor with is that there's the breather but then there's the still point, right? The sitter and then there's the floor walkers, right? So it's like and then so we have this container
00:37:37
Speaker
And everybody that comes into it brings with it whatever needs to be worked on in that space. So the space itself is an active alchemical vessel where we're doing this work and we're metabolizing stuff. And so if everybody's opening up into these expanded states, then we're all a team working together to work these energies.
00:38:01
Speaker
And what I find is so beautiful about that is that sometimes it does get overflowing, right? And it becomes so much a person and then they have that support that can help move it, help, you know, clear it, right? And then also we see it move through the field. So there's something there and then it kind of like, it goes over here to the next person, the next, and it's like this ripple effect of like something moving through and moving out.
00:38:27
Speaker
or activating something. And so I do think that, you know, the next Buddha is the Sangha, you know, so to speak there. It's like we are, we're the cells of the body and working together is so essential. And whether that's, you know, sometimes there is an appropriateness to doing, you know, solo work or having a sitter there is really important.
00:38:51
Speaker
But I do think that there's some real power and beauty in doing these communal practices.
Exploring Spiritual Realms and Experiences
00:39:00
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So which gives just a little bit, let's talk a little bit about spirituality. Do you think that or do you find that these types of states coincide or induce a non dual sense of reality?
00:39:23
Speaker
So funny that you're bringing that up. Because I think I mentioned that earlier that like I just wrote a piece that was sort of a critique of not the non-dual, because the non-dual is what it is, but the way that it's held. Because sometimes what happens with, if we go there too soon,
00:39:47
Speaker
it can feel like it is de-validating the experience of this plane, right, or of the dual or of the relational dialectic. So yes, I think we have access to those spaces, but I think we also have access to
00:40:09
Speaker
um more compassion and that's what we're not going to to non-duality to to do bypass.
00:40:19
Speaker
We're going to that to be like, yes, it's all connected. It's all connected and we're all a part of, like we said, this larger body. But not to go there to be like this plane doesn't have as much value or we need to escape and that can lend itself to disembodiment and dissociation.
00:40:42
Speaker
victim blaming, gaslighting, and not tending in the way that we need to, to some of these larger collective issues that are up right now. Yeah, and so I think we do have access to unitive states. We also have access to hell realms and ecstatic realms. We have access to creativity.
00:41:10
Speaker
And also trauma, not just ours, right? And so that's the other thing is when we're opening up into these spaces, it's like we don't really know what realm we're going to come into contact with. And I think that's what I love about some of Stan and Rick's work too, was that they were looking at the transits at the time of these states, these experiences, whether spontaneous or induced.
00:41:36
Speaker
And they were seeing the correlations, right? And into the archetypal dynamics. And I think that that's really useful, a useful tool, orienting tool also. Do you find that there's a way that you can direct whether or not you find yourself in a hell realm or a heaven realm? Preparation.
00:42:06
Speaker
clearing. And so by preparation, I mean like on all levels. So getting clear mentally, getting clear emotionally, doing what we can to prepare. And they talk about preparation sessions and stuff like that. Yes, definitely, by all means, like have another practitioner that you're not an empowered dynamic that doesn't know about trauma and spiritual emergence. So ideally, the guy that you'd be doing preparation with would have all of those things in place and would be an ethical guide.
00:42:35
Speaker
And that being the case, then yes, get the extra support to do the preparation. And, but also like, you know, cleansing the body channel, right, energetically, nutritionally, all of that. So go in with as clear of a vessel as you can.
00:42:55
Speaker
really setting the space and I'm talking about like sort of magical protocols here right that we're actually talking about this is a space like let's set it and let's put things in place so that we can create the highest efficacy right of this being a useful space and yes if we end up needing to go
00:43:16
Speaker
Some are challenging because that work needs to be done, some kind of clearing or some sort of access to something. Yes, of course. But then also have your team with you, meaning, yes, maybe there's a guide or a support person and then a support team that's kind of on call, right? And then also the non-physical team.
00:43:36
Speaker
So all the guides and helpers, ancestors, angels, whoever it is that you feel called to work with. And then so you're really setting yourself up for having the most beneficial session. Doesn't mean it won't be challenging, but it will be a little bit more held in a way that feels supportive.
00:44:01
Speaker
Yeah. And there's definitely a difference between a bad experience and a challenging experience. And I feel like the difference mainly lies within the way that you prepare for it and within the way that you interpret it. So in terms of that, how prepared should a person be? Is there a such thing as over preparation? Because obviously there is a such thing as under preparation, but is there, can you over prepare?
00:44:30
Speaker
If it gets to a place where it starts to feel like anxiety provoking, then it might be going over the edge, meaning that you can think too much about trying to control it. And then there's a point where we have to sort of
00:44:49
Speaker
allow the universe to have a part in it. And so it's a delicate balance of honoring. To me, it's like when we do preparation, it's like setting the altar in a way. It's like everything has a place and everything has meaning. But I'm not trying to do it. If I try to do it myself, it's also going to go wonky. So it's like, yeah, letting go and letting the universe have its role in the process.
00:45:18
Speaker
And you also mentioned how we interpret it. And I love that because how we tell the story matters. And that's what we're doing is like we're creating a new story, whether it's with spiritual emergence and our diversity, whether it's how we tell the story of what's happening on the planet right now, and what happened in a ceremony space.
Conclusion and Gratitude
00:45:42
Speaker
you know, like interpreting it, that's part of the magic of it. That's part of the mystery of it is like, you know, allowing it to kind of do its work on you, kind of like a dream. You know, if we jump too quickly to the analysis, you might miss some of like, it's kind of doing a process, a chemical process. And then it's like, it's going to show itself.
00:46:03
Speaker
what the meaning is. And it's not out of context either. You know, one journey, it's like part of a larger arc of work. So we have to see the whole context and see how it's part of, you know, a process that we're in too.
00:46:17
Speaker
Yeah. And it seems that like you touched on a little earlier that spiritually emergence is necessary for solving the problems that our society currently faces. And it really does feel that way when you're in a spiritually emergence process, it definitely feels like this is the type of thing that can help to heal the world. So I assume you feel that way.
00:46:46
Speaker
Yes, I don't tend to use this, but it feels appropriate right now to say like there is a why when these experiences happen. And for me, part of the reason is to be activated into our gifts, to be able to be of service.
00:47:07
Speaker
And getting on the other side of it, meaning, yes, I'm always in spiritual emergency. It's a constant process, but I'm on the other side of the emergency so that I can then support others and educate others. And so, yes, I do think that we're being called to action. I really do. And those of us who are sensitive enough,
00:47:29
Speaker
are going to be affected, whether we're feeling this depth of depression or anxiety or existential grief, or if people are experiencing overwhelm, panic attacks, like all of these things, these are all so-called symptoms of a larger systemic issue of imbalance that's happening. And so, yeah, the lightning rod experiences are happening more and more.
00:47:56
Speaker
right now and I believe that that's why because the Earth is calling out for us to create some big changes. Yeah. Well, Michelle, thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it. I would just like to end with a quote from Stan Graff.
00:48:21
Speaker
And it is a radical inner transformation and rise to a new level of consciousness might be the only real hope we have in the current global crisis brought on by the dominance of Western mechanistic paradigm. Yes, exactly.
00:48:39
Speaker
Thank you so much, Josh. It was so beautiful to be with you and your powerful questions. I'm just feeling really honored to have had this time with you and to be able to just re-engage in all of these ways and to get the word out some more. So thank you for this opportunity.