Spritual Teachers

I would like to Honour my Spiritual Teachers Venerable Namgyel and Sri Devamitta Holland with this "reflective" article in appreciation of everything they do for Humanity and for me personally.

After a spiritual retreat, I become a little withdrawn and go very deep introspectively to search for, and process, all the possible things I’ve learned that can help me to become a better human being.
The end of this retreat has been no different and one of the many focal points of my learning has been to come to a deep appreciation for my spiritual teachers who have guided me along my journey’s path.

The question floating around in my mind, over the last day or so, has been: “Do we really, and truly, appreciate our spiritual teachers and everything they have been through in order to be in the position they are in to teach us?”

We are all teachers to one another and, every day, we are in this perpetual cycle of learning and teaching - but are we fully aware of it? Or does each lesson pass us by without us giving it the appropriate amount of attention?

Everything we say and do is the product of a lesson we have learned from someone at some particular moment in time - and, although we may not realise it, at the time, everything we say and do also serves as a lesson for someone else.

However, it is my humble opinion that Spiritual Teachers (especially travelling ones) are so very precious, and genuine ones may be a little rarer to find in this day and age when everyone can become a self proclaimed "spiritual guru".

Some Spiritual Teachers travel long distances; enduring the hardships of airports and sleeping in a different bed every week in a different country. And, whoever has travelled a lot knows how difficult airports can be with their policy of being there 2 hours before, the stress of security checks, queues, extortionate prices for food and let’s not mention the need to get up at absurd times of the morning, perhaps with little to no sleep, in order not to miss their flight.

They spend so much of their precious time, and their life, on a plane and suffering chaotic travel conditions for our sake.

I wonder if we fully appreciate how much constant flying, and crossing multiple time zones, in a pressurised cabin, affects the body and, ultimately, health itself.

I, also, wonder if we fully appreciate how tired a teacher must feel when he/she spends his/her day giving so much of himself/herself - sharing precious wisdom, answering all our questions and giving each and every one of us enough attention.

During each retreat/teachings, a teacher may have 30, different, people to respond to. It must be very taxing mentally and physically. That’s not to mention how many emails a teacher has to answer nowadays of other students far far away from the retreat in course.

I think we, sometimes, fail to remember that a Spiritual teacher is still a human being, like us - made of flesh and blood. The only difference between us is that they have optimised their full spiritual potential whereas we haven’t even started to scratch the surface. 



We take so much from them, and, perhaps a little selfishly, expect them to just keep giving and giving and giving but I ask myself how much we, actually, give them back and when I say give back, I mean by looking after them, and their well-being, so that they may always have their batteries fully charged, be in good health, and be able to benefit even more people on their journey’s path that takes them around the world. 



As a event organiser, and a devoted student, I reach out to all retreat organisers around the world to truly value the precious teacher you are hosting. It’s imperative to let our teachers rest appropriately. We all benefit from a refreshed mind in a relaxed body.

It costs nothing to let our teacher rest a day, before any retreat, after a long trip, and it costs nothing to let them rest a day or two after the teachings so they may fully recover.



My wish is that, as retreat organisers, we may show the same compassion, love, patience and kindness to our Spiritual Teachers as they show us. After all, are love, patience, kindness and compassion not the very things our Teachers are trying to teach us?

What use is learning if we can’t put what we learn into practice with the very people that show us the way?

Wherever you are, whoever you are, as a fellow student, I ask you ... please ... love, take care of, and appreciate all teachers in this world because, if they are no longer able to teach, through ill health, who will we all turn to?

All of our "Life" Teachers give us wings (some more than others and some literally) and they also give us the ability to consistently transform/improve ourselves. It's up to us to choose whether to fly or not and what greater Honour is there, for our Teacher, than to see us fly the way they taught us to!
Have a beautiful day one and all.

A simple act of kindness

Dear New World citizens,

Yesterday I spoke about how a simple smile can change the world, can you imagine what a random act of kindness could do?

You may not believe it but a simple act of kindness can travel across the world and last for decades and decades. It is something that, to you, could mean very little but, to someone else, mean the world. Perhaps the person in front of you has never received an act of kindness from anyone. How sad is that?

If you have ever been on the receiving end of kindness, you know how nice it feels. You know how special it is to have been the centre of someone’s attention; albeit for just a few moments. The simple fact that someone shifted their focus from their own world to direct their attention to you and give you their time is an act that should be honoured and treasured.

Before the days of commerce and having to pay for things, we all gave each other our time. We hunted together in community spirit, we shared our food, we protected each other and knew the name of everyone in our village. We had no money. So, all we had to give was our time. Our time spent together is what made our bonds grow stronger and kept us together.

Nowadays, in a society where we cannot, conventionally, survive without money, the last thing we have for each other is time. It is this lack of time that keeps us separate. 



We have children but we don’t really watch them grow up because we are too busy providing for them. 

We mortgage ourselves to the hilts for a house that we end up spending no more than 10 hours a day in - and for 8 of those we are, most likely, sleeping. We get so stressed, with our jobs, that we end up leading unhappy & unfulfilling lives. This leads to frustration that, then, might get vented during the first opportunity you have to spend with your family.


We all only have a certain amount of time on this planet and most of it is consumed with surviving. So, giving someone your time, no matter how small, no matter how insignificant you think it is, is, in fact, the MOST PRECIOUS gift you can give anyone.

A simple act of kindness is giving someone your time and, within that time, taking the opportunity to make someone’s life a little easier, a little less stressful, a little lighter and definitely a little happier.

The beauty of kindness is that it is infectious. It’s like a virus. Once it’s been carried out, it will carry on producing good energy for days, weeks, months and, in some cases, for decades and decades to come. Maybe for a few people, your one simple act of kindness will be remembered with affection and create warmth for the rest of their lives.

Just think - How amazingly beautiful is it that You were able to give that gift to someone. If you are on the receiving end of someone’s effort to be kind to you then think about what a beautiful gift it is for you too and be grateful. 



Our Universal consciousness loves gratitude. When we’re grateful, we attract more of what we’re grateful for.

Teach children to remain innocent

Yesterday, I said that you could help the planet by planting a tree. Well, today I'm going to show you another way you can help.

You can teach your children to keep their innocence instead of showing them how to lose it.

Yes, we, as adults, are responsible for the loss of innocence in our children. We don't do it intentionally. We probably don't even realise that we're doing it. We think we are giving them life skills but, in reality, we are teaching them to judge and be discriminating.

By teaching children what is right and wrong, we are giving them our opinion based on the opinion of the majority that we've accepted as resonating with us as our truth. But, It might not be based on fact nor be an absolute reality. By introducing them to the concepts of happy/sad, good/bad, hot/cold, we are teaching them to judge so that they may avoid unduly suffering. Our intentions are good. We want to protect them from the pain we've been through in our lives.

Yet suffering serves a purpose, too, and it teaches us invaluable lessons; lessons that perhaps we cannot learn any other way than facing our pain head on, learning from it and releasing it.

All of us lose our innocence when we start to discriminate. If we are to live on this planet, as the one Human Race that we are, we MUST teach our children to NOT discriminate. I understand that, with all the tragic fighting and wars, death and devastation, it's very hard to teach our children not to judge BUT ... the majority of you, reading this, probably have the privilege to live in a war free zone. So, you can teach your children to show love, kindness and compassion.

Do we all not search for love our entire lives? Is the hope, then, that love will, eventually, heal everything - even the deepest wounds? Well, what if love is never lost? It is inside us the whole time but we never see it until, one day, someone comes along who reflects it right back at us.

When we teach our children how to discriminate, we are effectively teaching them how to judge and while we're distracted, by judging each other in the physical plane, we miss the beautiful qualities that truly make up who we are, and who we are is one and the same. There is no difference between you and I. When we realise there is no difference, we can no longer live in separation and that is when we become one - The One Human race we have always been.

Trust in Love ...

No matter how far we travel in life; spiritually, physically or emotionally - eventually, everything comes full circle and we find ourselves right back where we started - albeit a little older and wiser (one hopes.) In our quest for growth (as individuals and as communities), we need to let cycles come to their natural end and allow new ones to freely begin.

When everything, finally, makes perfect sense we no longer feel sorrow, nor anger nor regret. We leave behind fears, doubts and insecurities. Like a snake, we shed our old skin so a new one can take its place. We drop the masks that have served to protect us and we surrender the need to be, constantly, defensive. When we do that, we have no reason to fight each other for anything because when all negative energies are cleared, all that remains is pure, unconditional, love and kindness, gratitude and compassion ...

We realise that everything we have been through and everyone we have ever encountered brought us to where we are now ... and where we are now is exactly where we're meant to be.

From here, with no more mental, emotional or spiritual chains to bind us, we can only move forward.

Where this new cycle will take us - nobody knows - but with such an unconditional trust in love, anywhere will be just perfect because it is meant to be

Happy Women's Day to every woman, girl, child and baby around the world.

To all the beautiful ladies around the world,

It's not easy being a woman nowadays. So much pressure is put upon us to be one way or another, to behave one way or another, to look one way or another. We're given false illusions of what beauty truly is. Everywhere we turn, we're led to believe we're not good enough. We're laughed at, ridiculed, bullied and name called when we don't fit the false standard big corporations (making the money) set for us.

Well, ladies of the world ... let me tell you. You don't have to be any one particular way. There is no right or wrong way of looking, behaving or being as long as you are being true to yourself. You don't have to look like some plastic "Hollywood" fabrication to be accepted. You don't have to dress with as little as possible to show who you are. You are neither your looks nor your clothes. These are cleverly designed marketing strategies to make you feel inadequate. The more you buy, the more big commercial companies laugh all the way tot he bank.

These companies would have you believe you're not beautiful just so you would buy their latest makeup or sunglasses to hide your real beauty. They would have you believe you're not thin enough just so you buy into the latest diet fad and line their pockets with your hard earned cash. They would make you believe that you're never going to fall in love unless you comply to rules they have set, for you, according to their own desire for greed and power.

I'm here to tell you that all you need to be beautiful, radiant, full of love and desirable, is to be a woman of substance - A woman of compassion, a woman who knows what she wants and how to get it - A woman who doesn't need to trample all over others to get to where she wants to go. All you need is to have the inner strength to stand up and be who you truly are within you, and trust me, who you truly are within is more beautiful than makeup, clothes and the latest fad diet.

All you need to receive love, kindness and compassion from others is to give that love, kindness and compassion. However, let me tell you that there is no greater love in this world than the love you can give yourself. If you want happiness, learn to be happy and share that happiness with others.  Whatever you put out into this world is what you will get back tenfold.

All you need is to shine bright like the true star you really are and illuminate the way for yourself and others. Be firm if necessary but never lose your tenderness. Be strong but don't forget to be flexible and delicate. Cry if you have to but 9 times out of 10 make sure they're tears of happiness. See beauty everywhere you go and beauty will be seen in you. Learn to forgive and forget and, for sure, others will forgive and forget too. Laugh out loud and others will laugh with you. Be infectious and spread the light you have within.

Above all just be yourself and if "yourself" doesn't fit in with everyone else, be proud that you stand out from the crowd. The world needs people who are different and who break free from the chains that binds society. Don't be afraid to be that difference and make a difference.

When you look at yourself in the mirror, be proud of who you are and what you've become. Honour yourself. Love every curve and every line for only you can know the true extent of this life journey you've been on.  Be proud to be one of life's survivors. Be proud to be a woman.

Most of all ... don't forget to simply "be a woman."

Don't forget one important thing ... Don't let anyone tell you "you can't". You can be whatever you want. You can whatever you set your mind, body and soul to. All you need is the determination to succeed and the courage to see your dreams through. Remember, all dreams are just dreams until you put them into practice. Add the effort on your part and they become reality. Just go for it!

Happy women's day!

Please feel free to share this if you think it contains a message that is relevant for any woman you know.

Photo courtesy of http://www.fantasticprovence.com

Two wrongs don't make a right!

Physically, we’re all built the same way. Physiologically, we all function the same way. We all experience emotions the same way; when we’re happy we smile, when we’re sad we cry. We’re all fighting to survive in this crazy topsy turvy world. 

Some people may possess more physical things than others. Some may be financially better off than others, but at the end of the day a human being is a human being. Nothing else matters, not the colour of one’s skin, not what nationality we are, not what religious doctrine we adhere to, not our beliefs or culture, nor anything else you can think of that makes you “think” we’re different. 

In reality, the only things that make us think we are different to one another are our own construed, and somewhat distorted beliefs and our ignorance. 

Please note that when I use the word ignorance I mean it in the sense of “lack of knowledge and a consequential lack of understanding.” I also refer to ignorance as the lack of interest to discover and enquire. 

When we learn something, we come to know it. When we know it, we can grow to appreciate it. We can come to terms with it. We can investigate it further if we wish. We can create a big enough database of  its characteristics in order to begin to fully understand it. Thus, we can start to make educated formulated opinions about it instead of using third party here-say and guesswork.  

Of course, there is one golden ingredient that’s essential for any type of learning and understanding to take place. We need to have curiosity. Motivated by curiosity, we’re driven by interest in the subject matter. 

As many of you know from your own experiences, if we’re not interested in something we never learn about it. No matter how much information comes at us about it, we simply discard it. We pay no attention to it and dare I say, we even close ourselves off to the notion of it. 

Likewise, if we don’t have a certain flexibility of or within our belief system, we’ll simply reject any new possibilities that arise from any topic relevant information coming at us. Pardon me, but in doing so we cocoon ourselves. We voluntarily become ignorant. But, under the circumstances it’s not because of lack of information. 

When ignorance is due to lack of instruction or knowledge, it’s excusable and even forgivable; to an extent. I say to an extent because, even without instruction, most of us have a conscience. We all have a little inner voice, or an inner sixth sense that guides us through right and wrong. Most of us are also equipped with common sense which, when it’s followed honestly and open heartedly, also guides us in a positive way. 

Quite frankly, I strongly believe that laziness and hatred are the major culprits behind voluntary ignorance. Laziness, because we can’t be bothered to do our own due diligence. Half the time, we expect others to spoon feed us with information; be it right or wrong.

Most of us are so indoctrinated to look up to our elders and respect ruling authorities, that we choose to blindly trust anyone we think has a little more education than us.  Worst of all, we blindly put our lives in the hands of those we think have a more important role in society than we do. Yet, it’s exactly this mentality that’s made us lazy in the first place.  It’s this handing over of responsibility to others, for our welfare, that allows us to continue to be in denial and live blame free. 

If a bomb explodes somewhere, it wasn’t us. It was some militant or military of some government of some country for some reason. Yet, who elected the government who ordered the military to detonate the bomb. Isn’t that the same elected government some militants are fighting against because they see the evil of its members? 

We all have responsibility every single day in every little thing that happens in every single country around the world.

Most of the time, because we only hear bad news coming at us, we switch off and go back into our little blame free world of denial. We might empathise for a short while, but human memory is short-lived. 

I hear people say to me: “Well, what can I do? - I can’t do anything.” There is always something we can do. Half the time, we just can’t be bothered to find out what it is we can do. Doing nothing is worse than doing even something minute.

Hatred is the worst of all evils. One of the most useful things my step-mother ever said to me was: “You should never hate anything or anyone in life. Dislike it, but don’t hate it.” She’s right. Hatred is a very strong emotion. The word alone carries with it very heavy connotations. The sentiments behind it are even stronger. Both the word and the sentiment are charged with so much negative energy. 

Hatred is a destructive emotion. It doesn’t create anything positive. It only creates more of the same. It wedges barriers between people. It destroys mother nature and this very planet we live on and depend on for the sustenance of life. 

Whether we think it or verbalise it, we’re sending out poison into the world by way of our energy. Similarly, any time someone else sends out poison into the world, we’re influenced by it. 

If we were to analyse hatred, I think we’d find that really it’s only motivated and fueled by ego, pride, a sense of superiority, arrogance, stubbornness, un unwillingness to adjust who we are in front of someone else or something else. In fact, many times we knowingly, and sometimes unknowingly, cut off our noses off to spite our face; all in the name of a proud ego.

Just like love, kindness and compassion feed off and spread love, kindness and compassion, so too does hatred, anger and rage feed off and spread hatred, anger and rage.  

You’ve all heard the sayings: Two wrongs don’t make a right and you reap what you sow. It’s true, we generally get back from the world what we put out there. We can’t expect to receive love if we give hatred or indifference. Similarly, nothing will ever change unless we start taking back responsibility for ourselves, our actions, thoughts and beliefs and, of course, the environment around us. 

Transpersonal Psychology and Crisis Intervention (Part 1)

“I’m going to die”

She cried compulsively as she buried her head into my shoulder; trying to remember the details of what happened the day she left all her belongings behind in her house. I put my arms around her and kissed her head in silence.

“There was mud coming in everywhere. I saw the wall coming down.” I didn’t know what to do. I heard someone shouting out to me; telling me to run. I ran as fast as I could but I’m an old lady. I thought I was going to die. I managed to escape just in time. When I turned around. I saw my house begin to collapse. I’d been there 40 years. All my photos are gone. All my clothes are gone. I’ve got nothing left. Where am I going to live? I’ve worked all my life. What am I going to do? I get 250 euros a month. I can’t afford to rebuild a new house or buy a new place. What’s going to happen to me?” she said almost in one breath, in a flood of tears. I continued to hold her in silence.

“Maybe it was better if I’d died. Why did I live to see this?”

This is just one of the many heart-breaking accounts I’ve heard since the 21st February 2010 and just a couple of the many questions people asked.

Everyone and their family had a story: Dnª Joana, Dnª Rosa, Dnª Ana, Helena, Dnª Ana (Nº 2), Dnª Graça, Sr. José, Sr. João, Dnª Maria, Dnª Edoarda, Dnª Leonora, Dnª Rosa, Dnª Helena (Nº 2), Fam. Silva, Fam. Fernandes, Fam. Teixeira, Fam. Camacho, Dnª Maria (Nº 2), Dnª Albertina, Dnª Idalina and all the people who are not mentioned here because the list is too long. They all have an account to share in some way, and this is just a partial list of people who were made homeless and came to stay in the army barracks with us for a while.

In the field, out in the countryside, there are hundreds of thousands more accounts. In my estimation, it’s fair to say that there are probably as many accounts as people living on the island. Everyone was affected in some way.

Although it was internationally publicised, on the 20th February 2010, Madeira island was hit by a “freak storm” that flooded the capital city of Funchal, isolated the towns of Tabua and Curral das Freiras; caused immeasurable damage in Ribeira Brava and Serra D’Água and provoked severe landslides in other areas of the island like: Jardim da Serra, Trapicho, Monte, Santo Antonio, Santa Cruz and many more. The disaster was of proportions nobody could have foretold.

Many, within a matter of hours, lost everything they possessed. They were barely saved from their homes with nothing more than the clothes they were wearing. Many lost more than that. They lost their loved ones; a husband, a child, a son, a daughter, a father, a brother, a wife.

One young man lost his entire family; eight people gone within minutes. One man, seeing the mud coming and trying to protect his family, told his wife and child to run out of the car to what he thought would be safety, as they were trapped in a shopping mall car park, but they died and he survived. One family took refuge in another family’s house, thinking it would be safer from the mud; only to have a crane fall on the house and kill all nine people.

Shopping malls and underground car-parks were filled meters high with mud. Thousands of cars were destroyed in the streets. Hundreds of video clips and photos circulated on the Internet. These living memories, and images, are just some of the traumas facing the collective conscience of the people who live in Madeira and those who are watching abroad. They need to be overcome effectively for the Madeiran community to have half a chance of any kind of re-establishment of “normality of life” in the future.

It has already been noted that people are afraid to park in underground car-parks. I have also already spoken to people who refuse to shop in certain shopping malls because they feel they are graveyards. During one rainfall, a friend of mine called her partner 28 times. He didn’t reply. When he eventually did, they ended up having an argument. When she phoned me, she was fully aware that although she thought she hadn’t been affected, she was suffering with a form of post-storm trauma. Her compulsive telephoning behaviour was due to her preoccupation with his welfare during the downpour.

These are just a few examples. The worst repercussions, in my opinion, are yet to come. At present, we are entering summertime. The rain is subsiding. People are quickly trying to forget and avoid the memories. Nightclubs have registered an all time high alcoholic consumption. At Easter, an incredibly high number of Madeirans opted to leave the island for their Easter break.

At present, people are planning their holidays; talking about their suntan; thinking about their next vacation but nobody is really thinking about next winter and what will happen when the next storm strikes. I’m not saying the next storm will cause the same physical damage as this one did, but psychologically people will be affected.

Presently, people are using avoidance techniques to sidestep dealing with the real issues that underlie the fear that was instilled this last February. Yet, when next winter comes and we have torrential downpours, the memories and the fear will come back. Panic will set in.

The truth is, when we don’t know how to deal with something, we run away because it’s the easier option. Not having to face a trauma means not having to deal with the pain associated with it. Yet, in not facing pain of any kind, at a later date we find ourselves less in a position of being able to disassociate from that pain.

A natural part of any healing process is to recognise, feel and acknowledge pain, along with any memories, in order to disassociate the emotional attachment we have to them.

Personally, I’ve been working as a volunteer since the 21st February. I was brought on board as part of the psychological support team. Here in Madeira, I am the only person, to the best of my knowledge, who is a Transpersonal Psychologist with experience in Emergency and Crisis intervention and a solid background in the Transpersonal field.

During my time in the army barracks, I was also assigned to Caritas as co-ordinator for one of the main distribution depots in the army base; where the homeless were being received and temporarily housed.

When I got there, the depot was a mess. Clothes, shoes, and bedding were thrown in piles all over the floor. People were climbing all over them to get items. They were tossed and juggled. It was chaos and a mess. The people who had lost everything came in to get something and, understandably, started crying.

One by one, I escorted them out for a walk around the courtyard and gave them a defusing and debriefing session; all rolled into one. Yet, clearly I knew that wasn’t the only solution. When I went back into the depot, I kindly asked the other volunteers to transform the depot into a shop front.

My argument was: “The people who come to us for item have lost everything. They have, more than likely, never had to ask for anything in their lives. They are people with pride, honour and self-worth. We’re not going to take those qualities away from them as well. They probably see this as a bad thing. They probably feel like beggars. We need to restore their self-worth, their dignity and their pride. We need to make them feel like nothing bad has happened. By transforming this depot into something that looks like a shop, we can modify their concept of needing something from us. We can give them back something of their self-worth. If they have their self-worth, their pride and their dignity restored, they can start to rebuild their lives again. They can build a new beginning on that. If we take away that too, they have nothing left to build on.”

The volunteers understood and within a day, we had a shop front we renamed Zara RG3. RG3 is the name of the army barracks. From that time on, instead of crying when they came into the depot, people started asking if we had matching items. Some volunteers complained people were becoming a little too demanding and arrogant. Yet, it was better to see that little touch of arrogance than unrecoverable depression from which recovery could take years. If improperly treated, some people never even recover over an entire lifetime; which is sadly what happened with some of the soldiers who took part in the Falklands war whom I met, and who never received adequate post war counselling.

In fact, one such soldier, when I met him, had suicidal tendencies due to sever depression he couldn’t explain. He admitted he had had difficulties reintegrating back into society after the war. Yet, he couldn’t explain his depression. After talking to him for a while, we came to the conclusion, and agreed that his depression and suicidal tendencies were due to the fact that his conscience weighed heavy at having killed other human beings.

Killing was against his very nature. His philosophy of living was to preserve life and not take it. He had carried out orders as a member of the Forces but it contradicted everything he was “spiritually” programmed to believe in. This contradiction caused him severe inner subconscious distress. Once he learned forgiveness and to make peace between the material world; what was demanded of him under “exceptional circumstances” and the spiritual world; restoring his “spiritual state of being”, he was able to let go and start again.

In the RG3 army barracks, many tears were shed by the people who all lost something, many hugs were given and a lot of time was spent slowly, day after day, helping to rebuild confidence, trust and a vision that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and the future will be brighter.

Each case was different and had to be treated in a different way.

For one woman, physical separation from her aunt meant emotional and affectionate separation. For her, that loss was traumatic; possibly worse than the loss of her house. It was the loss of her point of reference; her security, her comfort zone, her family nucleus and such a drastic change in life that she didn’t know how to face the future.

I met her when she came into the depot for a pair of shoes. She was looking through the boxes and found one of a pair that she liked, but she couldn’t find the other one. She was there compulsively looking for the other. Instantly, I recognised, the issue wasn’t the shoe. I casually approached and asked her to escort me for a walk. That’s when I discovered her aunt had been taken into an old people’s home when she’d been removed from their home.

I tried to explain that physical separation didn’t mean emotional separation but I could sense that my words were half falling on deaf ears; not through any fault of the lady’s nor as any criticism or judgement. When a person is suffering a trauma or a profound sense of distress, although all the senses are somewhat heightened, all cognitive processing capabilities are weakened. On a cognitive level, a person appears almost in a surreal or semi dreamlike state.

After the walk, I told her to go and relax somewhere and that we’d find the shoe. We did. When I gave her the pair, she clutched them as if they were gold dust. In an absurd kind of way, they became her new point of reference.

Meanwhile, a few days later, we found out in which old people’s home the lady’s aunt was. I, personally, drove the lady and her husband to the home so they could restore the bond with their aunt. After the visit, the lady, her husband were completely different people. The husband, who had barely spoken since he’d arrived at the barracks, didn’t stop talking. The lady was happy and talkative. That night, the shoes were stolen from her room in the army barracks but she didn’t care. She had restored her original point of reference. She had her family nucleus back and intact on a physical, mental and spiritual level.

Although this was the first time I had held an “official” emergency and crisis intervention post, this was not the first time I had been involved in situations where I was able to apply Transpersonal techniques and further study transpersonal approaches and their efficacy in Crisis and Emergency Intervention.

In 1996, I unofficially devised and studied the efficacy of transpersonal defusing and debriefing techniques with hotel clients and English speaking Cypriot citizens who endured the 6.8 earthquake that was followed by a hail stone storm, of great magnitude, the following day.

In 1997, in Cyprus, once again we lived in a state of Emergency as we became under direct threat of war with Turkey. Since Cyprus has no real army to speak of, my colleagues (the barmen) kept machine guns, hand grenades and gas masks on standby behind the bar; in case of attack. Early in the mornings, we would awake to the sound of Turkish jet fighters being chased by Greek ones.

Once again, it became an opportunity for me to unofficially test my own Transpersonal debriefing techniques. For a while, we all lived with the impending uncertainty of life or death. It was also a time when I re-evaluated my own personal beliefs and my own perspective on life.

In 1998, I unofficially experimented these Transpersonal techniques on US seals in Oman who had been employed in the Gulf war and were suffering post war trauma. The classical symptoms were nightmares, feelings of persecution, paranoias about their personal safety, avoidance and denial.

Furthermore, in 1998,1999 and the year 2000, I unofficially tested my theories further about transpersonal techniques and their intervention efficacy with US, Arabic and British Forces in Bahrain and Dubai, pre and post gulf assignments.

Prior to these dates, in 1995, I had worked on Forces bases in Germany in Minden, Osnabrück, Monchengladbach and Gütersloh. It was there, with the constant bomb checks and other safety procedures that I started to wonder what psychological repercussions arise in a person.

Using myself as a study subject, I slowly noticed how my awareness grew and my habitual carefree patterns of life and living began to change. I started taking my safety less for granted and from a psychological point of view; fear had crept in. My behaviour was changing by mere suggestion of what could be and not by what “actually” was.

Yet, my love for psychology really emerged from being a professional entertainer. As I performed night after night, my curiosity arose from how music had the ability to manipulate people’s moods and emotions and completely change the atmosphere in a venue; sometimes effortlessly and sometimes with a great deal of effort. So, in 1993 I embarked on my Psychology degree.

Yet, I was consciously aware that not all entertainers have the same ability to make this change in people nor touch the inner being of people in the same way. When I completed my degree, I still couldn’t find an explanation for this occurrence in conventional psychology and that’s when I realised its limitations and turned to the transpersonal approach.

In 2001, I tested my theories a little further about psychological transpersonal techniques and interconnectivity in Shanghai, China: 1) In cases of child/adult abuse and with young girls forced into prostitution as a means of survival, and 2) with police officers when I was arrested in the airport and spent a considerable amount of time in the chief of police’s office. The outcome was I made new friends in unimaginable places under unthinkable circumstances.

All my tests and experiments were unofficial, unwitting and for my own satisfaction. They were never officially recorded anywhere nor were they officially declared to any presiding psychological society. Yet, with a little push from a couple of very nice colleagues here in Madeira, I feel that the time is now right to start bringing my research out into the open little by little, making it official and perhaps make a little bit of a difference to someone somewhere; even if that be by helping another psychologist to help a client/patient.

The transpersonal models I have created are guidelines for swift simultaneous “attachment and detachment” methods in order to create instant bonds and safe environments between people in moments of Emergency and Crisis Intervention.

Until 2008, I didn’t even know the techniques I was using were determined “Transpersonal”. It was only when I came to study with Atlantic University that I was finally able to assign the label “Transpersonal” to the methods I’d been using. Until then, I’d just entitled them “Humanistic” psychological approaches.

Since 2007, I have been healing people online and offline using an integrative methods of Transpersonal Psychology and Natural Medicine. There are testimonials on my website. www.venerinaconti.com

In 2009, while debating whether I should continue with my Doctorate in Natural Medicine, pursue a Doctorate in Transpersonal Psychology, or start from the beginning and pursue a degree in Medicine, I visited Nepal. While I was there, I volunteered in a Tibetan Nunnery Clinic. I also visited a Tibetan refugee camp. It was there that I finally found self confidence in the craft I had turned into an art form - I finally realised my methods of Transpersonal approaches are completely cross-cultural.

Reflecting back on this, I can only award this very important factor to having worked with, interacted with, learnt from and assimilated something from all the people I have met in life. For that I am truly grateful. They were people literally from all over the world. I have lived among, worked with or met and learnt something from someone from just about every country on this planet.

They are people of all ages, from all walks of life, all socio-economical backgrounds, all traditions, cultures, beliefs and religions; and they have all left me with a new piece of knowledge.

I’ve always been of the opinion that conventional psychology is limiting. I wrote an article about the Psychology of Past lives and Reincarnation where I explicitly state the need for a more integrative approach to psychological intervention that falls outside the outdated models currently being used.

Now, as I sit and reflect upon the flood events in Madeira and my previous experience, I am resolute in my opinion that Clinical Psychology needs a shake up. If Psychologists of the future are to offer better services to their clients/patients then they need to have a more holistic training, more complete tools and a better approach; one that integrates mind, body and soul.

I believe that in situations like emergency and crisis, the least “clinically” said, the better. People just need to be heard, comforted and reassured. Emotional distresses need to defused and/or debriefed but not in a clinical way.

Formal clinical training is an essential part of training for psychologists, but there are no clinical models that can help in an emergency situation, and every human being will react and respond in a different way. It’s all a question of trial and error. What works with one person may not necessarily work with another. Assumptions should never be made and parrot fashion text book style approaches are useless.

One mistake many psychologists make, in an emergency and crisis situation, is saying: “I understand,” at the end of a “trauma” person’s sentence.

Unless we truly go through what people in this situation have been through, we cannot begin to understand. So, there is nothing we can inwardly draw upon to even begin to understand. A simple statement like this can make matters worse. It’s better to be honest and say: “I can’t begin to understand what you’re going through but ....” and offer reassurance or comfort.
Honesty is a must. If you are dishonest, trust will be broken and the person who has just lost everything will fall further into depression and harbour feelings of resentment; not just against you but also against fellow colleagues in support positions.

As psychologists working with Transpersonal methods, we need to learn to respect all beliefs, traditions and religious faiths. This is easier for me, since, as a Buddhist, part of our philosophy is just that.

One day, as I was walking through the dining hall, two women stopped me and asked me why God punished the “more humble” by destroying their houses; making them homeless and apparently never took anything away from the rich. My first question was: “Do you both believe in God?” They replied: “Yes.” So, I said: “Do you have faith in him?” “We don’t want to lose our faith” They replied.

So, I sat with them and began to explain the reasons Funchal flooded. I began to explain the physics of river length versus depth and width. I began to show them the potential architectural structural differences between the houses that were destroyed and those that weren’t. I made them think about geographic choice of locations for more humble abodes versus more upper market properties. I offered them scientific data for climatic changes and so on, until one of them said: “So, really it has nothing to do with God punishing anyone.” I simply smiled at her.

Then, the other lady hit with a question I wasn’t expecting. She said: “What about the people who died?” My reply was honest, I said: “I don’t know. I know it’s not a punishment because God is a God of love. Maybe, with all the disasters everywhere in the world at the moment, God can’t help us and protect us all at the same time. So, maybe he needed some extra Angels to help him watch over us from up there.”

In situations of Emergency and Crisis Intervention, a psychologist (or any individual in a support position) needs to be able to:

Attach and Detach simultaneously.
Show compassion and kindness.
Respect spiritual, traditional and cultural differences.
Be calm within themselves to project and instill calmness in others.
Be empathetic and sympathetic but not patronising.
Recognise their own limitations.
Be honest and open hearted.
Practice, teach and offer integrative alternatives to conventional methods of psychological treatment.
Recognise each case as an individual case.

Anyone, regardless of whether you’re a psychologist or not, can apply these few principles when helping someone to overcome a difficult situation in their life.