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Existential & transpersonal crises

Do you sometimes feel lost in the world or find it difficult to find meaning and your place in the world? Do you have dreams that worry you or do you want to see your dreams from a broader perspective? Do you have experiences in your dreams that you find difficult to understand or cope with? For instance, big dreams, nightmares, or lucid dreams?

Perhaps you have had spiritual experiences, glimpses of previous incarnations, kundalini experiences, kundalini syndrome including symptoms such as heavy energy moving around in the body, pain in different areas of your body, numbness, etc. Kundalini awakening in different degrees, out-of-body experiences, a changed sense of time, strong synchronicities, a feeling of death, seeing your life pass by, dark periods that make you associate with the "dark night of the soul," or a feeling of living in a limbo-land. These experiences may be difficult for you to cope with or simply arouse curiosity. Maybe you feel stuck and have hit a wall.

All these different kinds of experiences - and many more - can occur during a transpersonal crisis. Transpersonal in the sense that your experience of identity goes beyond your everyday consciousness. Often, we experience many dreams during periods of existential crisis or turbulent periods in our lives. Dreams can provide an unique perspective on your life and offer guidelines for your personal and spiritual development.

It is possible to experience minor or even extreme spiritual openings through dreams, meditation, or triggered by a life crisis, pregnancy, or childbirth.

Extreme spiritual openings are characterized by lightning-fast new insights; time may seem to speed up or slow down significantly. You may have periodic access to altered states of consciousness, changes in perception, wonderful joy, excitement, and new insights, but you may also experience worries or even anxiety, wondering what on earth is happening.

Suddenly, you might also gain quick and deep access to all your shadows or traumas - everything that you suppressed early in your life or did not want to confront, perhaps because it was too painful at the time. Both the light and the dark aspects that emerge in these openings need to be worked through, integrated, and balanced, which can be hard work.

The psychiatrist Stanislav Grof, considered one of the primary developers of transpersonal psychology, who has conducted decades of research in the area of non-ordinary states of consciousness, refers to these conditions and periods as "spiritual emergency" - extreme spiritual openings and experiences that we need to integrate into our worldview, so as not to risk losing grounding or, in the worst case, experiencing psychosis.

It is essential to know that spiritual openings can - and most likely will - involve both dark and light elements and recognitions. Both are necessary elements in genuine transpersonal and spiritual development because purification and healing of old wounds or karmic bindings from the past always come before transpersonal development. By transpersonal development, I mean the development of consciousness or "soul infusion," to use Alice Bailey's expression. Genuine spirituality and transpersonal development always involve shadow work and grounding; there are no shortcuts.

A spiritual emergency can be a soulful invitation to heal quickly from wounds in your past, but you have to pass through the burning ground. A breakthrough can be disguised as a breakdown at first, so it is crucial to know the difference.

Finding guidance in such periods can be very difficult, if not impossible. Mainstream psychology does not yet have a clue, and neither do your family and friends most likely, on how to understand and guide you through transpersonal experiences or transpersonal crises. In the worst case, they may not even acknowledge such experiences at all. Transpersonal psychology is still in its infancy.

In such periods of our lives, we often need to reframe our worldview and handle the impact that such experiences have on us. Everything can change during these periods: our relationships, our view of ourselves, our perspective, our lives, and our sense of meaning. We might even lose interest and meaning in our job, among other things. Our familiar life may fall apart, but we are also presented with new opportunities. In the long term, these experiences will most likely change our lives in a positive and more meaningful direction. However, there can be extended periods of feeling lost before we reach a new solid platform, perspective, and meaning, fully integrating these experiences into a new worldview.

In my experience, spirituality and the development of consciousness require continuous work, even though the process can accelerate at times. The search for meaning is often initiated by some form of loss, crisis, or a sense of meaninglessness. On any authentic inner path, we need to confront our wounds, losses, pains, and illusions piece by piece. We must recognize where we truly are and acknowledge our resources and gifts to develop our consciousness. Most spiritual development occurs through navigating deep crises or, perhaps, a spiritual emergency. It is through experiencing pain or meaninglessness that we begin to yearn for our soul.

I am an autodidact in dream interpretation, and I have more than 30 years of personal experience with dreams and experiences that arise at significant times in life, such as crises, periods of spiritual openings and transpersonal crises and development, kundalini experiences, kundalini syndrome, guiding dreams, lucid dreams, nightmares, out-of-body experiences, and various types of peak experiences. My ongoing interest in this area has been initiated by my own personal journey over the last 30 years.

Over the past 30 years, I have besides my personal experiences, studied various approaches (in addition to astrology) to understanding dreams and spiritual experiences, spiritual openings, and spiritual emergencies. These include the approaches of Carl Gustav Jung, Psychosynthesis by Roberto Assagioli, transpersonal psychology by Stanislav Grof, as I mentioned earlier, Carlos Castaneda, Martinus, Alice Bailey, Theosophy, and many more.

Based on that, I provide conversations or coaching based on my experience as a fellow human, astrologer, and coach to assist you in navigating and integrating these types of experiences. Please note that I do not claim to be an expert.

A consultation typically lasts 1½-2 hours.

If needed, it is also possible to combine this with an astrology reading, which can be very helpful in navigating through times of existential or transpersonal crisis.

Existential & transpersonal crises
Existential & transpersonal crises
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