From the Darkest Night to the Brightest Light

Discovering and learning to integrate her spiritual gifts became key in Line's healing when a head trauma pushed her deep into darkness.

Meet Line Louise. She once was my client in total despair, she then turned into my awesome co-creator of Zonika, and now 4 years later, she's ready to take new steps on her path.?

Read this story about her process and our co-work, and you might be inspired to look at the world and people around you, mental health and the unseen world of universal energies from another perspective. This is part 1 of 2.

Rock bottom

"Kathrine, can you come, please? I need your help. I've been hospitalized."

It was Line on the phone. Some months back she had attended yoga therapy classes with me to treat her burnout following a concussion, she'd suffered. But she hadn't followed through.

Line's voice was different this time. I remembered she was a speed talker, but now her tone sounded very strange. Something was wrong.

"I'm at the psychiatric hospital diagnosed with a psychosis, and I know you and yoga can help me," she said.

Have you ever looked into the eyes of a person with a psychosis? They seem pitch black.

I'll never forget Line's eyes when I saw her at the hospital. They were frightened, confused and dark, and although her body appeared calm, her breath was fast and superficial.

Two nurses were in her room to support her. The whole situation felt like slow-motion and off track.

"It is you. Yes. I can see you. Thank you," she said and took an even closer look at me.

"Kathrine can help me. Kathrine can help me. It is you. Yes. You can help me," she repeated.

Somehow I knew that Line was right. I could help her. And I wanted to. What neither of us knew then, was how rewarding and mind blowing a journey we were about to embark together.

Breathwork, yoga therapy and meditation to recover overall health

Every week for almost a year, Line and I worked together on her healing in parallel with the medical treaments and counselling she received.

The first month, all she could do was to lie on her bed, observing her breath and slowly take deeper breaths, initially as four short inhalations followed by four short exhalations. No music, quiet voices, dimmed light.

Then she began to walk a bit. 3-4 steps and a break to catch breath and catch up with her body. Line described it as if she were walking beside herself.

We could now move our sessions to a nice bright space at the hospital, where Line could look at the garden while doing a few yoga exercises, relaxation and meditation. Still no music in the background, but I could sing mantras to her, and she found my voice soothing.

Intuitively I responded to Line's needs although she could not really name them.?I found gentle and uplifting ways for her to embrace her sadness and situation with compassion, and to face and release dark thoughts, find out what triggered them and allow brighter thoughts take over.

I noticed that she always pointed in a certain direction, when she told me about the darkness. So she learned to work with her own energy and enforce the electromagnetic field of her body to shield herself from negative impact with confidence and light – not based on fear.

Slowly her body also accepted her hands touching her heart – in the beginning they litterally got pushed away. Little by little, Line became aware of the self healing abilities we all have, and she was learning to self regulate.

Line's eyes were starting to shine again. A smile on her face. Laughter. She gained strength and could dance to her music within.

The doctors and nurses noticed Line's progress and were surprised by the effect of the yoga therapy and how well she benefitted from the medical treatments.

She participated in group activities and longer walks, and one day it was time for her to practice going home.

A big shift was awaiting. With this a potential set back.?Luckily we were allowed to continue our sessions at her house during this transition, because going home meant facing old situations and locations that had sent her off track.

Eventually Line would have to reinvent herself in a life and work that would be very different from what she once knew.

A look in the rearview mirror

You see, Line had lived her life in the fast-track lane studying, working, travelling, hanging out with friends.?She's always been passionate about music, litterature and films. But when she suffered that concussion and the symptoms continued to be persistent...

She closed the curtains - the light was disturbing.?She had a limited tolerance for sounds, music, screen, and phone calls.?She hardly left her house and had no visits except for her parents and a few close friends to maintain an important minimum of social life.

For months Line isolated herself and shut off the world to avoid overstimulation, regain energy and recover faster.

But what she didn't know of was the risk of too little stimuli in her life. That per se can make you feel very lonely.?It can also negatively affect your health on all levels. Just like stress.

Inside Line there was non-stop speed talk and a tremendous longing for connection and joy.

Voices in her head - mostly awful messages. Her body had begun to make odd moves by itself. She'd even had powerful spiritual experiences.

Line had never really paid attention to spirituality. Her intuition, however, had sometimes shown her what was about to happen, and she'd listened to kind advice from what she perceived as her inner voice.

But... what on earth was happening to her?

Our sessions, Line's healing, and later, her channeling gifts suggest that Line had probably experienced a so called spontaneous, spiritual awakening* in combination with the concussion and burnout.

From awakening to emergency to understanding

In some people spiritual awakenings can cause 'persistent involuntary movements of the body and challenging extrasensory-like experiences' among other symptoms, and 'the subject finds themself stripped of all pre-existing beliefs and concepts of life without an appropriate framework through which to interpret their newly-gained insight, and often without an appropriate support system to which they can turn'.

Line had had no one to talk to about her experiences – and so, she was scared.

When I came into the picture, I recognized Line's body movements and her experience of energy and universal expansion. Only, I was not scared.

For years, my body had adjusted itself with 'involuntary movements' during relaxations, sound healings or while sleeping. My yoga therapy teachers had witnessed its moves, and it always felt safe. My inner voice was loving, not mean.

I knew the body is intelligent and that we can all access our self-healing potential, inner wisdom and connect with our soul. Trauma can crash our nervous system and energy and thus cause the soul consciousness to stay outside of the body.

It's a matter of consciously opening from within to this inner wisdom and spiritual nature in a way that suits the person – and if the person wants to. We all have a free will, and allowing spiritual growth requires the person face their issues and continuously do inner work which may not at all feel pleasant at times, and so, having a mentor or group of people to support the process is crucial.

I think, what happened to Line is that she was pushed by outer circumstances into a wider consciousness too unfamiliar for her to handle, and she was all alone. Her unknown – and unshared – awakening then led to a so called spiritual emergency, often recognized by psychiatrists as an 'acute psychotic experience'.

The combination of medical care and our holistic, energetic approach has helped Line balance on the edge of the known and unknown.

It created a safe space for her to explore and integrate the new. First at the hospital, then in her own home, and 18 months after her phone call from the hospital, at my office and yoga studio working as my assistant.

Allowing transformation

Through trauma Line discovered a new version of herself that she could choose to embrace.

"It's not always easy to combine my logical mind with spiritual insight," she says, "I still feel sceptical at times. At the same time, it can be hard to see spiritual guidance and channeling as a gift because it just feels normal and is an integrated part of my everyday life. I'm so grateful and still me. I have learnt to stop and listen to my body and my needs, and I trust my intuition. If my story can help others go through difficult times, everything makes even more sense."

I have never in my life witnessed a person going through such a deep transformation. I have never met anyone this brave and persistent. Being part of Line's journey has changed my view of the world too and taught me so much about myself. Remember, what we witness in life is always a mirror.

In part 2 of this story, I'll share some challenges, insights and experiences we've had working with the Spirit guides to develop a concept and business and what we’ve both learned from it. Hopefully, you'll learn a few things too.

#mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #spirituality #awakening #psychosis #yoga #meditation #breathwork #energy #darknightofthesoul

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*) Spiritual awakening: "In some cases, spiritual and kundalini awakenings trigger challenging short or long-term sensory, affective, cognitive, and physical effects (Neumann and Campbell, 1964; Grof and Grof, 2017; Woollacott et al., 2020) such as, but not limited to: panic, disorganised thoughts and behaviours, persistent involuntary movements of the body, uncomfortable sensations of heat and burning in the body, digestive problems, and challenging extrasensory-like experiences (Greyson, 1993; Taylor, 2015; Grof and Grof, 2017; Woollacott et al., 2020)—additionally, these experiences have been linked to a better performance in psi tasks involving precognition (Storm and Goretzki, 2020). Distressing awakening experiences, also known as spiritual emergencies or crises, may arise as a direct consequence of the initial experience, when an individual is left feeling overwhelmed, confused, or challenged by the drastic perceptual shifts that tend to emerge from these experiences, and by their potentially powerful energetic nature. Spiritual emergencies may also occur during the integration period following an awakening experience (Grof and Grof, 2017), as the subject finds themself stripped of all pre-existing beliefs and concepts of life without an appropriate framework through which to interpret their newly-gained insight, and often without an appropriate support system to which they can turn (Lukoff and Everest, 1985). Because of this, it is assumed that spiritual emergencies may more frequently occur in cases of sudden or spontaneous awakening (St Arnaud and Cormier, 2017), and outside of a religious or spiritual context (Taylor, 2013). However blissful initially, the experience of deep psychological change catalysed by spiritual or kundalini awakenings may provoke distress leading to spiritual emergency, which psychiatrists are likely to diagnose as acute psychotic experience indicative of psychopathology (Menezes and Moreira-Almeida, 2010; Grof and Grof, 2017)." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8417526/