Katie Mottram is an author, blogger, speaker, activist, and project coordinator. As well as in her own book, Mend The Gap, her personal story is featured in the 2016 publication by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Spirituality and Narrative in Psychiatric Practice: Stories of Mind and Soul. She is the founder of the grassroots social movement Emerging Proud and its companion film. Katie’s latest project is The Emerging Kind, an outcome of the Emerging Proud launch that took place in 12 countries on May 12, 2017. The question the event asked participants was: “What do we need in order to create a society in which it’s safe to talk about extreme human experiences?” Key responses from all 12 countries included: the need for validation, safe spaces to openly talk and feel heard without fear of judgment, and support from peers who understand what it feels like. Here Katie shares with us her own journey toward integration.

1. Dissolution of Duality Consciousness

It’s difficult to pinpoint when an STE begins. Until quite recently I would have marked that pivotal moment in my life as being the moment of epiphany when I experienced an intense and spontaneous awakening to unity consciousness in the spring of 2012 during a meditation. In that moment, I experienced the euphoric, ineffable connection to “all that is,” an energetic, universal love. However, six years on, and after many cringe-worthy reflective moments along the bumpy road to integration, I’d now say it began a couple of years earlier, when my sense of self began to crack and finally shatter.

Until that point of existential crisis, I had identified only with my human self, one that was fraught with insecurity and repressed self-hatred. Despite not being a particularly enjoyable ego identity to claim, I had clung on for dear life – or so it had seemed. It felt safe in its familiarity, at least safer than launching myself into the abyss of the unknown.

That all changed in March of 2012. My soul had another plan, of which my human self had been totally unaware. Today I couldn’t be more grateful for having been launched into the abyss, for it was in the darkness that I finally came to meet my true self for the first time.

2. Over-Identification with Unity Consciousness

After 36 years of quiet self-loathing, a glimpse of my spiritual Self as a perfect energetic expression of pure light was bound to induce euphoria, and so it did. It was a feeling so blissful that it became the new identity to which I clung. I was no longer a mere human; I was a soul! Nothing else seemed important: a spirit doesn’t need a stable home, money, or relationships to exist. It’s omnipresent and immortal!

What ensued for me was typical of the first stage of awakening: boundless energy and a passion to work for hours on end for no payment; working to help others; and living on adrenaline and the ego’s wish to ‘achieve’ in a non-conventional sense. This, I have come to realize, is ego’s sneaky way of replacing the I’m-not-good-enough-human-being identity with the I-am-a-compassionate-spiritual-being alternative. On awakening we often receive the message of “I’m here to save the world!” It takes quite some time to realize that what that message actually means is that we’re here to save ourselves, because each of us is actually a tiny speck of the Universe.

3. Sinking Back into the Human Perspective: The Paradoxical Nature of Reality

It’s inevitable that after such a high must come a fall. While going through periods of what I call the “Dark Night of the Ego,” I found it vital to recognize the dual nature and impermanence of these ego states with their corresponding moods. The pendulum effect between the polarities of our spiritual and human selves naturally has a bio-psychological impact on our mood and behavior.

Luckily, by the time it started to happen to me for the second time, I had researched enough and found trust-worthy mentors to help guide me through and sit with the darkness. I discovered here the paradoxical nature of mindfulness too; that it is necessary to help stabilize the nervous system and regulate the neural pathways following an awakening, but those efforts also have the potential to keep us stuck in duality consciousness. If all we do is “witness” our thoughts and emotions without delving into them to explore and process the deeper meaning, we can be suspended in spiritual bypassing mode – an avoidance of facing our trauma due to the pain it induces.

This is also a clever trick of the ego that often goes unrecognized because we can be lulled into thinking that sitting in a state of equanimity makes us more spiritual than most. It doesn’t; in fact, it can keep us stagnated in a state of “non-action” because avoidance of facing our pain is an alluring place to stay.

Facing the reality that being a “healer” and ultimately healing the world means that healing our human self must take priority, can be excruciatingly difficult. We can again be plunged back into the painful darkness of our self-loathing as we compare it with the time we’ve spent basking in the “Messiah complex.” Feelings of guilt and shame can surface powerfully as we work through old egöic patterns of self-protection. Holding onto the knowing that this painful working-through is a necessary and natural part of integration is vital if we are going to continue the Hero’s journey.

4. Healing from the Messiah Complex: Scrutinizing and Loving Our Shadow

At this stage, we get to choose to embrace the fundamentally paradoxical and uncertain ebbs and flows of life, or to drown in our own shadow. For me, the realization was that my profound awakening message was both true and at the same time not the whole truth. Humanity is on a healing journey whether I do my bit or not. I have a choice not to take it all so damn seriously, lighten up a bit, and live in joy, which in fact, raises my vibration and the impact I have on the world. If only I’d learned THAT in school!

I have learned to embrace the fact that the world will not stop revolving if I put my foot on the breaks. Healing ourselves is the least selfish thing we can do. We ARE the world, and therefore, if each and every one of us would just heal ourselves, then the world itself would be healed. Relief and panic often rush in here. Hallelujah, I don’t have to save the world all by myself! BUT, I do have to work as hard as I can on healing myself. Diving into the shadow is the only way; it is painful and ‘icky’ at times, and leaves us feeling really, really vulnerable.

5. Accepting Vulnerability

The acceptance of the shadow aspects of our personality feels counter-intuitive, when all you want to do is embrace love and light. But, as Jung pointed out, when you actually dare to look, there is much gold to be mined in the shadow. I soon began to realize that it’s definitely less painful to examine my shadow parts than to keep them repressed, like festering boils causing pain beneath the fragile skin of the psyche. Once I dared to pop each  boil, more and more psychological relief would come and with it, more and more joy. As my façade lowers I am able to embrace more of who I truly am and live with integrity. This authenticity provides the biggest relief of all, which ironically, makes me feel less vulnerable.

6. Gratitude for Challenges: Finding the ‘Neutral Spot’ between the Polarities

Sitting in the “sweet spot” where we can be going through a really painful and challenging time, but at the same time see the blessing and growth in it, has to be the best place to be in our life’s tumultuous journey. It’s not that the challenges end: hell no! But allowing for uncertainty and non-attachment to outcomes makes us as infallible as we can be as humans.

I used to think these were all meaningless spiritual clichés. Now I have learned to live them on a daily basis. Holding onto conscious awareness is sometimes like keeping hold of a hot potato; it’s a juggling act, but also makes life much more fun!

7. Peer Connection and Collaboration

Once we embrace our healing path and dive into our vulnerabilities, we will bear witness to the spiraling nature of healing. The same issues come up again and again, like deeper layers peeling away from an onion, only with each layer, more conscious awareness of the issue grows. Healing starts to feel enjoyable, even when it hurts. It’s as if pleasure and pain are two sides of the same coin. Finding and connecting with others who understand and are willing to be authentically raw, messy, and vulnerable with us is the sweetest reward of our integration journey.

Experiencing trust and deep heart connection with others who have dared to lower their guard is now as important to me as the oxygen I breathe. Running the #Emerging Proud campaign has certainly been part of my own exhilarating and exhausting integration journey. What sweet cosmic irony to realize now that while I thought I was running the campaign to help others, it was really there to support my own integration from a previously emotionally unstable, transient life where making authentic connections was painfully difficult, to creating my own sustainable, heart-directed empire of a soul family!

Now, the recently established Emerging Kind Peer Support Project feels like I’ve been inadvertently building the foundations for my new home—if home is indeed where the heart is. To everyone who has walked this journey alongside me, with understanding and without judgment, I am forever grateful; don’t go anywhere – there is still so much more to do!

To learn more about Katie and her work, please visit www.emergingproud.com.