When real, physical threats arise, human instincts take over and can create extraordinary feats of focused attention and action. The “awe-full” qualities of horror and terror we can experience at such times share essential roots with profoundly transformative states such as flow, awe, presence, timelessness, and ecstasy as they reach far beyond the limiting mind.  The bridging of these states with everyday awareness can be a key feature of spiritual growth and expansion. It can promote the experience of timelessness and presence sometimes referred to in meditation systems as the eternal now.

Trauma stands in the way of this integration by locking us up in a ‘freeze’ mode and inhibiting the activation that gives us access to the ‘fight or flight’ energized states. The ability to access and integrate this bound energy determines whether it will be debilitating or vitalizing. In yoga, awakening of the Kundalini has long been utilized as a vehicle for spiritual transformation. Trauma produces a similar mobilization of survival activation, but with such intensity and rapidity that it is overwhelming. We are unable to utilize this energy as it is bound to rigid and frozen response patterns. 

As we bring awareness to our wounds and gradually access and integrate this energy into our nervous system and psychic structures, we begin to experience greater freedom, expansion and connection to our true self. As we integrate those wounds, the instinctual survival response embedded within trauma can catalyze authentic spiritual transformation. 

Join Peter Levine PhD, Efu Nyaki SEP, and Joshua Sylvae PhD for a 3-part, online program.

Who is this online retreat for? 

This will be an in-depth program, suitable for therapists, spiritual seekers and anyone looking for a profound, experiential understanding of the relationship between traumatic imprint and the spiritual journey. 

Why attend?

• Understand the relationship between trauma healing and various spiritual states
• Become familiar with the energetic basis of survival instincts
• Discover how to work with altered states in dealing with the residue of deep trauma
• Access portals to the deep self through the spiritual components of trauma
• Recognize how conventional approaches to spiritual practice can generate trauma
• Practice embodiment for effective (and safe) spiritual practice
• Discover intersections between mystical energy systems and the modern scientific understanding of the nervous system
• Integrate trauma as a doorway to nondual awareness