I Thought I Was Losing My Mind—How I Turned a Spiritual Emergency into My Greatest Gift

What can I tell you about spiritual emergencies?

A spiritual emergency can occur when an individual cannot integrate the challenging experience, and their life spirals out of control.

That’s precisely what I went through. Let me tell you what happened.

“I doubted everything: myself, my path, the medicine, even God.”

— Nina Izel

More than a decade ago, when I started on my plant medicine path in the Peruvian jungle, my naive ignorance made me commit all the mistakes a beginner can make.

What’s Happening to Me?

I had very little preparation for what was to come, and no understanding of the journey ahead of me. I drank a lot of medicine and participated in a lot of ceremonies within a very short amount of time. With zero follow-up after my dieta, I had no idea what integration was at all.

On the physical level, my life totally collapsed; I had just moved to Mexico, I was entirely alone in a foreign land, I had no money or work, and I didn’t even have a stable place to sleep yet. I experienced worry and anxiety on a whole other level; in other words, the situation freaked me out as hell. 

Desperate, I went to another plant medicine ceremony to figure out what this all meant. Still, instead of answers, I lost the last bit of sanity and hope I had in an instant, and I entered into my spiritual emergency—one of the darkest nights of my soul.

Panic, Despair, and the Search for Help

After that ceremony, I found myself in a never-ending panic and terror. I couldn’t stop crying, and I was simply in a state of shock. I fell into despair; the experience convinced me that I was losing my mind and would end up in a mental hospital. In a way, I found it funny how my search for clarity and enlightenment made me feel completely lost in confusion and darkness, but I couldn’t laugh at that moment. 

I felt I had no control over what was happening to me, and I have genuinely no idea how to stop it. I doubted everything: myself, my path, the medicine, even God, and a powerful fear of losing myself and my sanity completely consumed me. Needless to say, I couldn’t eat or sleep or even calm down and stop crying. I was exhausted and defeated, and I could only pray and ask for some help.

Help Is Always Available

The best thing you can do if you find yourself in a situation like this is to reach out for help. I remembered that one of the only people I knew in Mexico was a powerful healer and medicine carrier. So I called her. It took several moments for me to stop crying and start speaking on the phone, and I am sure whatever I said didn’t make much sense. But she knew that I needed help.

So she helped me and weaved her magic to support me through this crisis. Explained to me that I am going through a spiritual rebirth due to my intensive plant medicine work. She gave me guidelines to continue this work. Referring me to other healers, she said I should take all the support I could. She connected with like-minded people who had gone through similar experiences. But most of all, she told me to stop drinking medicine for a while and focus on my integration process.

With time, conscious effort, and dedicated work, I turned my breakdown into a beautiful rebirth, a fresh new beginning, and a stronger, happier, and more confident me. But it wasn’t easy, and it took me almost two years!

The Hidden Gifts of Spiritual Emergencies

According to Dr Stanislav Grof in his book, Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes a Crisis, while intensely challenging, spiritual emergencies contain profound opportunities for healing and transformation, and this is my personal experience as well.

For me, the most significant gift of this breakdown was finding and connecting with my inner compass and internal guidance. As I was losing external frameworks such as beliefs, ideas, values, priorities, and my identity, I was pushed inside, toward my heart, toward my own wisdom and power. Finally, I found my soul, my true self, and my direct connection to the divine universe.

From this place, I started to receive clarity, strength, guidance, and support on healing and transforming my dark night of the soul into a new dawn. With this power, I was able to process, heal, and integrate past wounds and generational trauma patterns that kept me ignorant and powerless.

I awakened to my true power and my real essence. That was an enlightening experience.

But the best just started to manifest. This journey allowed me to begin to integrate the fragmented parts of myself, dissolve inner limitations, claim my gifts and purpose, and step into more authentic self-expression.

A Natural Healing Process

With the necessary support, guidance, and container, I firmly believe you can turn most spiritual emergencies into spiritual rebirths and a breakthrough experience. And if you work with powerful sacred plants, you have a bigger chance of experiencing something like that. The best advice anyone can give is to prepare yourself and have your guides, teachers, support system, and professional containers if you are going through something substantial that can break you. You can turn it into a breakthrough.

If you experience significant challenges, remember to reach out for support, but be careful about who you ask for help from. Unfortunately, Western medicine and traditional psychology lack the necessary framework and understanding to support you effectively during experiences like these. It’s vital that you get support from somebody with extensive training and personal experience, like a plant medicine integration therapist or a shamanic practitioner.

From Crisis to Breakthrough

My personal experience allowed me to support others through their spiritual emergency and turn it into a beautiful beginning worth sharing. If you want to know more, listen to Hande’s story and discover how her life turned into a horrible nightmare after an Ayahuasca ceremony when she received shocking information that left her terrified and pushed her to the edge of sanity. Hande felt utterly lost and confused as her life spiraled out of control, and she thought she was truly losing her mind for good. In the end, Hande took her power back over her life by participating in my psychedelic integration program and turned her spiritual emergency into a breakthrough experience with Ayahuasca, the medicine of Love. 

In my case, the lack of adequate preparation and integration between the ceremonies resulted in a complete overwhelm that created a spiritual emergency. That’s why informing yourself and preparing before drinking the most powerful plant medicine is essential.

The good news is that in most cases, responsible and ethical conduct can prevent spiritual emergencies, and even if they occur, proper support can sometimes transform them into a deeply empowering breakthrough experience. The most important thing to remember is to reach out for help!

— Nina Izel