My Awakening
My own experiences with ill family members lead directly to my spiritual awakening. And what I’ve learned since then has been extremely helpful. Yes, there has been healing for my loved ones. But to an even greater extent, the experience has sent me on a journey of my own…a path of self-awareness, spiritual consciousness and healing that could have happened in no other way.
The pain and fear that I experienced forced me out of complacency. My low expectations…my drifting purposelessly through middle age, waiting for it to be over…disappeared. I found that I had inner resources to draw upon that I never suspected were available. I lost my job of nearly twenty years, but that forced me to find my true calling as a spiritual mentor and healer. And through working with hundreds of clients and learning more about the connection between our personalities, physical experiences and the upper-dimensional aspects of ourselves, I’ve come to understand that mental illness, like everything else, has roots in the spiritual realm…and that these souls who are experiencing these disturbances have come into our lives for a reason. They’re here to teach us something.
Sometimes, things can go wrong
Some of what I’ve learned in my work and through my own experiences is that there can be certain inappropriate attachments between souls that can hinder how we’re able to deal with our loved ones’ condition. As well, the caregivers themselves can have energetically flawed conditions, sometimes in place for many lifetimes, that can also get in the way and add unnecessary stress on top of the natural strain of keeping up. Helping your loved one can be exhausting; how much more so if you happen to have energy-draining situations going on at a soul level?
My experiences
In 1985, my wife endured her first psychotic episode since our marriage (she’d had one years before). She was 36 at the time and we had two children. She had another episode several years later. In late 2007 my son had his first display of psychosis – he was 29. His second episode also happened after a few years.
My wife has been recovered since the early 90’s, and my son is well on his way.
But when my wife had her first episode, I was completely naive; I had no idea what to do except to rely on “the system” to do what could be done. I found myself in even more grief (and more than a little guilt) when my son collapsed years later. How could I have been so stupid as to not realize the genetic component of the illness and be prepared? The fact that, at the time, there probably would have been little to be done to prevent his breakdown was no consolation. I should have known. He’d been a promising software developer with a Fortune 100 company…now he was incapable of caring for himself. I should have protected him.
The effect on the caretakers
When someone we love has such a breakdown, our own life can seem to be shattered. Whether it’s a spouse, child, sibling or parent…we find that there’s a new normal. Plans for the future…gone. The idea of rest and relaxation can become a joke. Depending on the amount of help available (in my case I was pretty much on my own), there is, in fact, no relaxing. When the insurance, if any, runs out and the patient is declared to be “OK” enough to leave the hospital, who’s there to see that they don’t wander off…forget to bathe or eat for days at a time…rack up thousands in debt on a credit card? You are.
I am not a medical or psychiatric professional or licensed therapist, and don’t claim to be. But in my work as a healing facilitator and coach, I’ve helped hundreds of people across the world to sort out all manner of issues. Early on, my hope was that I could somehow “heal” the seriously ill. What I have learned is that, yes, I can do some good for them. But I cannot completely heal them. I believe that’s possible, but that it takes not only a variety of approaches, but most importantly it takes time. I do believe that there’s always hope, but that your loved one’s condition needs to play out in its own time because it serves a purpose for them, and for you. Sometimes it’s hard to see what good could come from such turmoil and pain…but if you take a wider perspective it becomes possible to understand. And pretty much the only way to gain that perspective is to rise above it, to put yourself on a higher plane of consciousness. It’s like climbing a tree – you can see a lot further. You might even be able to see a bright, sunlit clearing when you think that the dark forest you’re in is all there is.
The Squared Circle program is not for those who have been diagnosed with mental illness. If you have been diagnosed, you’re of course welcome to listen in (I’d have a hell of a time trying to prevent it)…but we won’t really be addressing your issues. We’re going to share with one another our own pain and try to help one another to help you. You may hear things you don’t like. Or, you may hear things for the first time that will show you how much your family loves you and want you to get better. So, if you do choose to listen in, you’re responsible for your own reaction to it.
