In our modern world, there is little room for chaos. We prize stability, comfort, and predictability — and anything that disturbs those is quickly labeled, medicated, or hidden away. When someone begins to see visions, hear voices, feel disoriented, or lose their place in the consensus reality, we often rush to call it “psychosis.” We speak of it as a failure of the mind, a problem to be fixed, something to be feared.
These trials of the soul can sometimes be activated after working with plant medicines or psychedelics. It is not uncommon for people to blame the medicines or the rituals for the ‘breakdown.’
Yet in many Indigenous traditions, such moments are seen differently. They can be signs that the person is standing at a threshold — a sacred initiation on the healer’s path. Such experiences are not proof of brokenness, but signs that something powerful has arrived.
The Indigenous View: Energies That Disturb the Mind
According to teachings I’ve received from the Huni Kuin people of the Amazon, confusion, disorientation, nightmares, relentless negative thoughts, loss of appetite, and inability to sleep — what we might call mental breakdown — often arise from negative energies or entities that have entered our field.
These external energies can have many forms:
– Other people’s envy, judgment, or criticism
– Harmful projections and unkind words
– Expectations and demands placed upon us
– The worry, fear, and emotions of others that we carry around
– Disempowering collective narratives and stories that create a climate of fear
– Intentional spells or witchcraft meant to cause harm
When we become entangled in these heavy, dense energies — especially fear — we may find ourselves perpetuating them through our attention, and even magnetizing them as we navigate in the same dense realms as the ‘hungry ghosts’ spoken of in many traditions. These wandering spirits, or other energetic beings, can interfere with the mind and spirit, feeding off our vital life force — which can result in serious harm, even death, if not addressed.
Indigenous peoples work with prayer, plant and animal medicines, and alliances in the spirit realms to clear and rebalance in such situations — a topic I may explore more in a separate post.
The Western Reflex and the Shamanic Path
In the dominant culture, we are taught to avoid discomfort at all costs. Anything unpleasant should be eliminated, and anything strange controlled. But in shamanic traditions, these turbulent states are understood as part of a larger journey.
They may be the fire in which a healer’s abilities are forged and power reclaimed — the dark night of the soul where the old self dissolves and a deeper truth emerges. When these moments come, the task is not always to push them away, but to walk through them with guidance, strength, and community, allowing the soul to learn what it came here to learn.
Projection, Victimhood, and the Collective Storm
One reason these passages can feel so overwhelming is that we live in a time of collective psychosis. When we avoid looking at our own darkness — our fears, destructive habits, or the harm we’ve caused — we often project it outward, feeding the very energies we fear. We judge and blame others instead of meeting ourselves honestly.
When life or nature sends a challenge that shakes our world, it can throw us into victim mode. The clash of different worldviews, the struggle to reconcile competing ‘truths,’ can create the inner chaos we label as mental illness — when in fact it may be a profound spiritual initiation.
In moments of spiritual crisis, the urge to label and explain can feed a fear-driven spiral, seeking reasons to blame. This can deepen the trauma vortex — a place many on the healing path know well. We may never fully understand the origins of such experiences or patterns, and constant digging into the past can sometimes pull us away from the present, where new choices become possible.
A key part of the healing process — whether the source feels external or internal — is to recognize how our own thoughts, words, and actions impact us and those around us. True healing begins when we take responsibility for feeling our own feelings, rewriting our inner stories, tending to our own needs, and helping each other in a spirit of collaboration. It also means practicing good energy hygiene, so we neither absorb unnecessary burdens from others nor pass along our own unprocessed heaviness.
Finding Our Way Back to Truth
One pathway out of both personal and collective madness is becoming aware of the illusions we have inherited and carried. This includes accepting the raw, sometimes hurtful nature of life and of ourselves. When we stop taking everything so personally, we can see that everyone is simply trying to survive and fulfill their needs and desires.
As we grow aware of how we may have fed cycles of judgment, blame, and control, we can begin to question our mental stories and get curious about what our heart and soul are guiding us towards. Sometimes it takes a ‘tower moment’ — what some call psychosis — to shake us free from patterns that keep us stuck. Stripping away these patterns allows us to meet ourselves and others with vulnerability and respect, to remember connection, restore trust, and rediscover joy.
This is not easy work. It is the work of a lifetime. But it is sacred work, and it is possible.
Walking the Path with Support
For those in the midst of such a passage — or walking alongside someone who is — know this: you are not alone. What feels like disintegration may be the beginning of something holy. There are ways to navigate these waters without losing sight of the light.
This is why I am creating the Sacred Plant Medicine Journey online course and an online community platform called SIriani’s Sanctuary — resources for those undergoing soul-awakening, ego-death processes, and other intense spiritual transformations. They willHu offers tools, perspectives, and practices to help you anchor in your truth, understand what is unfolding, and walk through the darkness toward a deeper wholeness.
My husband Rua Inu Huni Kuin and I also offer private Spiritual Support sessions with sacred treasures from the forest and prayers to help clear negative energies and bring the soul back into the body. I also offer 1-on-1 sessions to guide people back into connection with their bodies and inner knowing, so they can navigate life’s challenges with greater confidence and ease.
You can read about our 1-on-1 offerings here: https://www.enchantedboa.love/1-on-1-private-sessions/
If you’d like to be notified when my Sacred Plant Medicine Journey online course and Siriani’s Sanctuary online community become available, and receive other news about our work and offering, I invite you to join my newsletter here: https://www.enchantedboa.love/#newsletter
May we learn to meet these moments not with fear, but with reverence. For sometimes, the soul’s breaking is simply the sound of the shell giving way to the wings.