Tom stopped sleeping after a ten-day silent retreat in Portugal. Colours looked too bright. His heart raced at night. He felt connected to everything and terrified of it at the same time. Online forums told him he was awakening and should surrender. His sister told him he was having a breakdown. He sat in my online room on day nineteen with a pulse of 110 and asked which one was true.
Intense spiritual experiences sometimes bring anxiety symptoms: racing heart, insomnia, feeling unreal or overwhelmed by meaning. A spiritual awakening tends to leave you more open and able to function. Anxiety, panic or something more serious leaves you frightened, sleepless and less able to cope. Hearing voices, believing you have special powers, or going days without sleep needs a doctor the same day.
01When awakening and anxiety overlap
Psychiatrists Stanislav and Christina Grof used the term spiritual emergency for a spiritual experience which overwhelms a person. Intensive meditation, psychedelics, grief, birth and near-death experiences are common triggers.
The body reacts to big inner change the way it reacts to danger. Adrenaline rises. Sleep breaks. The world looks strange. None of this proves a spiritual meaning, and none of it rules one out.
02How to tell the difference
Depersonalisation, the sense of watching yourself from outside or of the world looking flat and unreal, often follows panic and intense meditation. It feels alarming and it is common. It responds well to grounding and therapy.
A real opening does not ask you to stop eating, sleeping or answering your sister’s calls.
Kita Tabachka, relational therapist
03Grounding when it gets too much
- Pause intensive practice. Long meditation sessions, breathwork and fasting add fuel. Short walks and simple routines take it away.
- Eat regular meals with protein, and cut caffeine.
- Name five things you see and four you hear, out loud.
- Put your feet on the floor and breathe out for longer than you breathe in.
- Tell someone who knows you well what is happening, in plain words.
04Getting the right help
See your GP first, to check sleep, thyroid, heart rhythm and any substances or medication involved. Then find a therapist who respects spiritual experience without treating every symptom as sacred.
Tom stopped meditating for a month, ate breakfast, walked every morning and slept seven hours by week three. The sense of connection stayed. The terror went. We still talk about what the retreat opened in him. Individual therapy gives you a steady place to make sense of an experience like his, and anxiety therapy helps when the fear outlasts the experience.
Seek medical help the same day if you hear voices others do not hear, believe you have special powers or a mission, have gone two nights without sleep, or feel unsafe. In the UK, call NHS 111 or 999 in an emergency. Samaritans are free on 116 123, day or night. Abroad, contact local emergency services.
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Kita Tabachka
I am a BACP-registered relational therapist. I work with individuals and couples, many of them living far from where they began, on relationship anxiety, attachment, intimacy and the strange business of building a self in a new country. The stories here are composites. The patterns are real. My writing is a door into the work, never a substitute for it.
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This article is written by Kita Tabachka, MBACP, and is for general education and reflection. It describes patterns seen in clinical work, but it is not therapy, and it is not a substitute for individual advice from a qualified therapist, doctor or other professional who knows your situation.
Reading it cannot diagnose anything or replace your own judgement about what you need. If something here resonates and you would like support, you are welcome to learn more about my practice or book a free consultation. If you are in crisis or immediate danger, please contact local emergency services or an urgent mental health line in your country.
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