Coming Off a Spiritual High

When I was a Christian, a key feature of my spiritual life and Faith was worship sessions.

Evangelical Christianity is often called, “happy clappy”, because a big part of church services and events are the emotional songs set to contempory music. Whether it was Sunday church, an event, a weekend away, a conference, or a festival, you would expect to spend a lot of your time in worship.

How it would work

Start with an inspiring talk by a charismatic (and often good looking) speaker, pastor, or the vicar, followed by emotional worship music where we would be encouraged to lift our hands and put all our heart into it.

We knew all the songs, there would be a band, and if the place was fancy, there would be dancers too.

At some point, people would start crying, some would fall down, and some would even speak in tongues. It would be highly emotional and you would feel like you could “feel God”. I remember multiple occasions where I felt euphoric and like I could tangibly feel God’s presence inside of me.

This was so well known, that if you ever went on a weekend away, Saturday night would be known as the night when, “everybody cries”.

It would be usually after this where most people who were on the fence about Christianity would convert and, “give their lives over to Jesus”.

Even if you were devout, you would still feel so inspired and ecstatic that you would commit to reading the Bible more and you would pray even more fervently, desperately trying to recreate that euphoric experience.

Once that high subsided, you would either feel disillusioned and leave the Church, or immerse yourself in the Church, go to more weekends away, and pray harder.

You can often tell who these people are by the manic/passionate look in their eyes as they talk about their love of God and Jesus. Many of them go on to become Pastors or leaders.

New Age Euphoria

When I left the Church and jumped into the new age and conscious world, I didn’t immediately see the similarities.

It was just such a beautiful world where you could be free!

I did the tantra workshops, spiritual workshops, went to retreats, did ecstatic dancing, breathwork, shaking, processing, group stuff, touch work, cacao, de-armouring, the lot.

I had emotional breakthroughs, cried my eyes out, shaken, danced, had orgasms, cried some more, hugged people, gazed into peoples’ eyes, prayed, and just walked around with a big smile on my face.

I don’t regret a thing, by the way, because these experiences enabled me to access blissful states, break out of old patterns, and have big realizations that set me on the path I’m on now.

But they also came with painful lessons too.

If you’re reading this, it’s highly likely you’ve had a few of these ecstatic experiences- either in Faith settings, the wellness/conscious/tantric world- or both.

Powerful stuff, isn’t it?

When you’ve had a mammoth emotional experience and you’re on the floor crying your eyes out. Everybody is beautiful, and maybe you form a strong emotional or erotic connections with people through the exercises you are doing.

You just feel so amazing and you leave this setting on a real high, like a brand new person.

You’re going to make big changes now, you’re going to take on the world, you’re going to live in this state of bliss every day!

… Until you go home and you feel the bump as you hit “the real world” again.

Are you noticing a pattern yet?

What you have experienced is an ecstatic experience, or what some people call an activating exercise.

It doesn’t matter what label you slap on it- Christian, new age, or anything else.

Whether you’ve commited to praying and reading the Bible every day, or do doing your bliss practices, dancing, meditating, manifesting, or whatever it was that you just did.

You just want to feel and live in this blissful, transcendent state all the time.

Normal life sucks after now. Why should you feel depressed and anxious when you can just feel soooooo blissful?

And if you’ve met somebody you feel an out of this world connection with, why ever go back to “normal” relationships or sex now?

Your teachers are saying that you can access this state all the time, and that it’s your birthright!

Fuck normal, I choose butterflies every time.

Except a lot can go wrong, and you’re going to read why and how.

Humans like to get high

Ecstatic and transcendent exercises exist in all religions and spiritual practices, they are as old as humanity.

Sometimes they involve substances known as “plant medicine”- ayahuasca, peyote, Kambo, shrooms, cacao, or cannabis other substances like DMT or LSD, sometimes not.

Humans have always done this, and they become woven into cultures and communities. Many great works of creativity, art, and music, have come from these experiences.

They can be powerful and healing. They can be just what you need to get out of the state you are in, and open up to new possibilities, and make positive life changes.

You may have experienced profound healing and shifts in these places, which could have been just what you needed at that time.

However, there is something you need to know, and something I believe any practitioner who is facilitating this must be aware of and prepare for:

In these highly activated and ecstatic states, you are in an altered state of consciousness.

You may not have taken any substances or plant medicine, but you are still effectively high as a kite.

Your brain is flooded with dopamine and you are in a different brain state, like a hypnotic trance.

This means that you are highly suggestible and susceptible to doing things or agreeing to things you would not do when not in this state.

This leaves you incredibly vulnerable, whether you realize it or not- yes, even if you feel more empowered and fearless than ever, you are still vulnerable!

Why? Because in this rapturous state, the facilitators can then drop in any kind of teaching around energy, cosmos, divine energy, divine power, the spiritual powers of the leader, Jesus, or anything else.

You will feel on top of the world and convinced that YES! This is the answer! This is the cure/meaning of life/I’ve found my calling, YESSS!!

If you are in a conscious sexuality or tantric setting, you may be highly aroused and agree to sexual contact that you are not fully aware of or ready for.

It is a ripe environment for boundary violations and for unethical practitioners to exploit the power dynamic by hitting on students.

I trust that most practitioners and leaders have good intentions, and simply want to create a transformative and healing experience… but there are many who aren’t.

This is when many will slip in with the sales pitch to entice you to spend more money- to sign up for the next workshop (“Hurry and get this special early bird discount right now- the table is at the end of the hall!”), retreat, program, or products.

Motivational speakers, coaches, “gurus”, and MLM sales companies use this tactic at every conference or event they run, and it works every time.

Or they will slip in the sales pitch to join their organization which turns out to be a cult.

Or they will just hit on vulnerable students (often young women).

But even if you aren’t being sold to, recruited, or hit on, you are still vulnerable to something else…

The come down

Because what goes up must come down.

This altered state of consciousness is not sustainable long-term, it’s only meant to be a short-term experience. Your brain, body, and nervous system cannot sustain it and you will make yourself ill trying to (more on this later).

You will experience a dopamine drop which will feel like a massive downer, similar to sub-drop for those who do BDSM.

You may feel sad, tired, depressed, emotional or even regretful.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing when you know to expect it, and you’ve prepared beforehand to have rest and self-care so you can integrate it.

The problem happens when you have no idea this will happen or what to expect.

I’ve heard of many stories and have personally have been in spaces where participants were given little to no support on how to downregulate during or after the event.

There was little to no closing up or guidance on how to close up, nothing.

You aren’t told this is a temporary state, so please for the love of god/goddess, DON’T make any big decisions in the next few days or weeks so it can assimilate (I could have saved myself a lot of heartache.)

Sometimes you are told to, “go gently”, or, “land gently” afterwards, but that’s it.

Many exercises and processes that happen in the conscious, new age, and tantric world are shrouded in mystery. You aren’t told what to expect beforehand, and in many tantric and sexuality events, the exercises turn out to be much more sexual than was advertised.

So what happens?

If you’re lucky and reasonably mentally and emotionally healthy, you’ll be really spaced out for a few days, and feel like you’ve just come off acid- which you kind of have.

You’ll probably still be buzzing, but also feeling sad that, “real life” has hit you, and wishing you could go back to your soul family.

Hopefully, you’ll be feeling positive about your experience, inspired, and motivated to make some life changes.

But if you’re unlucky, and you have unresolved emotional issues and trauma (like many of us), you’re potentially in for some psychological and emotional chaos.

You are wide open- energetically, emotionally, and psychologically- and you are completely dysregulated.

Your nervous system will be out of sorts because it’s trying to process everything that’s happened.

Without coping strategies or internal resources, it can be very dangerous. You could make some very poor decisions that could have big consequences down the line- such as finances, relationships, family, and career.

For many people, it can also trigger a mental health crash.

If you haven’t been prepared for this and don’t know what is going on, and/or or your practitioner/coach/guru instead tells you some spiritual talk that you’re ascending/awakening/evolving/embodying the sacred sexual dragon and we are all going to dissolve into an orgasmic cosmic sploosh bubble, you are even more vulnerable.

For those with emotional instability, history of trauma or addictions, or with neurodiversity, this feeling is irresistible.

This is what makes people get hooked on workshops, retreats, courses, programs, and a never-ending cycle of self-development and motivation.

You’re just trying to recreate this transcendant feeling, and it does not work longterm.

No matter how good you feel now or how many promises your coach or guru has made, you WILL have a crash- be it physical, mental, spiritual, or all of them– if you don’t learn to down-regulate.

In my next post, I’ll give some self-care simple tips to make your workshops a life-enriching and positive experience, rather than a mental health risk.

For now, if you can take away one thing from this post, it’s this:

The high you get from a workshop or ecstatic exercise is not real life and nor should it be.

You need to be able to integrate what you experienced into everyday life and learn how to appreciate the small things.

What do you think? Have you had an experience like this? What do you wish had happened? Tell me in the comments below.

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