Finding the Right Supports

I am both a scholarly researcher and also long-time practitioner and teacher of certain forms of meditation, yoga, shamanism, and other Asian contemplative traditions. But, I am not qualified to work with sufferers of meditation sickness as a spiritual teacher or guide.

As a scholar, I am interested in discovering, describing, and translating traditional practice guidance for meditation challenges — including severely debilitating side-effects. That information is all made freely available in the Research tab of this website.

As a spiritual coach or guide, I do provide some materials that can help to orient practitioners to the wide range of experiences and phenomenology they might encounter in contemplative practice. Sometimes, if you are feeling confused about what’s happening in your practice, a new map of the territory can help you to re-orient yourself. If you think you would benefit from that kind of reframing or recontextualizing information, you might find some of the resources in the section below to be helpful.

If, however, you have crossed over into meditation sickness — that is, if you are experiencing a mental or physical health crisis — then it is no longer a question of just needing context. You need capable, informed, professional help to put the pieces back together.

If you are experiencing a true emergency, please seek medical help immediately. For crises that are less urgent, there are many people with the expertise to be able to support you who are operating within traditional lineages of contemplative practice. But, if you are not finding the support you need in your community, you might look into these additional sources of support:

• Cheetah House (www.cheetahhouse.org)
• Spiritual Emergence Network (www.spiritualemergence.org)
• Spiritual Crisis Network (www.spiritualcrisisnetwork.uk)
• Spiritual Emergence Anonymous (www.spiritualemergenceanonymous.org)

Note I do not have a formal connection with any of these organizations, and am recommending them solely on a word of mouth basis.

Resources

Here you may find some information to contextualize or reframe your contemplative experiences, as long as you are not experiencing an acute crisis.