Psychiatric Sobriety

03/16/2025

THE WOUNDED HEALER: BRAVERY, FAITH, AND THE FIRE THAT PURIFIES

“All things work together for good. There are no exceptions except in the ego’s judgment.” (A Course in Miracles, T-4.V.1:1-2)

There is an image I have carried with me for years. A woman, her back pierced with arrows, kneeling beside a little girl who has but one. The woman, impossibly burdened yet unwavering, reaches out and asks, Are you okay?

This is no trite cartoon. This is a picture of proof. Proof of suffering, yes—but also of something deeper: the power of presence, the strength of bearing witness, the quiet resilience of the Wounded Healer.

It speaks to me because I have lived it. I have spent a lifetime trying to heal, trying to fix, trying to repair what seemed irreparable. And after all these years, I have learned a truth that the self-help industry would rather we never discover:

Some wounds do not heal.

And that is not a failure.

It is a calling.

THE WOUNDED HEALER AND THE UNHEALED WOUND

A Course in Miracles speaks of the unhealed healer, the one who still believes he can fix others without first healing himself. I am not that. I do not claim to heal anyone. But I do know that I can be with others in their pain, not as someone who has conquered suffering, but as someone who understands it intimately.

It is because I have not resolved my own story that I can sit with others in theirs. It is because my wounds remain open that I can recognize theirs. Pain, trauma, childhood grief—these are not things I have moved beyond. They are things I have learned to carry with grace. And in carrying them, I have discovered that healing is not about erasing wounds.

It is about allowing them to transform us.

The Wounded Healer does not emerge from suffering unscathed. The Wounded Healer is the one who has been in the fire long enough that the fire itself has purified him.

THE BRAVERY OF MOTHER TERESA

Mother Teresa understood this truth in a way few ever have.

After her death, the world discovered her secret torment—decades of spiritual darkness, of doubt, of feeling abandoned by God. She did not walk in bliss. She walked in absence, in silence, in the long, unrelenting ache of a soul that could not feel the presence it most longed for.

And yet—she kept going.

She did not wait to be healed before she served. She simply continued.

That is bravery.

That is faith.

Not the certainty that God would answer, but the willingness to act even in the face of silence.

Faith is not about knowing. It is about going on anyway.

THE MYTH OF HEALING

We live in a world obsessed with fixing, curing, erasing pain. But what if pain is not meant to be erased?

A Course in Miracles teaches:

“All things work together for good. There are no exceptions except in the ego’s judgment.” (A Course in Miracles, T-4.V.1:1-2)

All things. Even our suffering. Even our childhood wounds. Even the arrows still lodged in our backs.

The mind wants to heal, to resolve, to wrap up our stories with neat, happy endings. But what if our purpose is not to heal our wounds, but to live with them in such a way that they become light for others?

David Hoffmeister once said that if you could fully embody just one lesson from A Course in Miracles, you wouldn’t need the other 364.

Maybe this is the one. Maybe this is enough:

Nothing has gone wrong.

Not your suffering. Not your grief. Not the unhealed stories that wake you in the night.

They are not mistakes.

They are not proof of failure.

They are proof of being human.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A HEALER?

The world has no shortage of spiritual teachers. We have voices offering enlightenment, transcendence, escape. And that has its place.

But what the world desperately needs right now is healers.

And what does a healer look like?

A healer is not someone who has erased their wounds.

A healer is someone who has been in the fire long enough that they are no longer afraid of it.

A healer is not someone who preaches from the mountaintop, untouched by suffering, but someone who kneels in the valley and says, I know this place. I have been here before. You are not alone.

A healer is not someone who has conquered pain, but someone who has made peace with it.

The healer is the one with arrows in their back, reaching out to another and saying, Are you okay?

THE FINAL QUESTION: CAN YOU STAND IN YOUR OWN FIRE?

The world is unraveling. People are drowning in suffering they cannot name. And here is the invitation:

Can you stand in your own fire?

Not to escape it. Not to transcend it.

But to be in it.

Can you have the faith to trust that even your worst wounds have purpose?

Can you have the bravery to sit with another in their suffering, not to fix them, but simply to bear witness?

Because that—more than anything else—is the call of the Wounded Healer.

And that is the kind of faith and bravery the world needs now.

⸻

“The wound is the place where the light enters you.” — Rumi

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Hi, my name is Reverend Kenneth Price. If you enjoyed this essay, I invite you to visit my website and explore the different offerings I have. I’ve walked many paths, and my work is dedicated to guiding others toward awakening in whatever way resonates with them.

If you feel moved to support my ministry, your contribution would be deeply appreciated. Or, if this message speaks to you, feel free to share it with others.

https://reverendkennethprice.com/home

Much love,
Kenneth

02/20/2025

BENZODIAZEPINE WITHDRAWAL AND THE PHOENIX RISING

The house was nearly finished. The dream—his dream—was realized. He had taken something broken, something forgotten, and breathed life back into it. The floors were sanded and polished, the walls restored to their former charm, the kitchen warmed with the scent of fresh wood and the golden light of rural Oregon’s wine country. It was everything he had envisioned.

And yet, something was off.

At first, the prescription seemed like a solution. Four milligrams of K—a little something to take the edge off, just until the work was done. Maybe he had always been anxious. Maybe this was just how his brain worked. No harm in taking something that helped, right? The doctor certainly didn’t think so. He scribbled the prescription, checked the refill box, and handed it over like it was nothing.

And for a while, it was nothing. A tiny pill. A quiet fix. It worked.

It more than worked—it solved the problem. He was able to focus, to finish the job, to step back and admire the dream he had built with his own hands. Sure, a small voice inside told him this might not be the best long-term decision, but he ignored it. He’d deal with it later.

Later came faster than he expected.

Fast forward a year. The house stood complete, and the prescription bottle was empty. The nine-month taper had ended. The last dose had been taken. The problem had been solved.

Hadn’t it?

Then why was he still sitting there, staring at the coffee table, unable to move? The windows were shut. The curtains drawn. The air in the house—once so full of possibility—was stagnant. His body trembled, his thoughts raced. A mess of clothes lay on the floor, dishes stacked in the sink, an overflowing ashtray in front of him. Outside, he could hear the distant sound of children playing, their laughter so sharp it cut through him. It was too much.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

The taper was supposed to fix it. He had done everything right—slow, careful, by the book. He had followed the plan, but here he was, trapped in his own home, paralyzed by something he didn’t understand.

Had he been damaged? Would he ever feel normal again?

Fifteen years have passed since that breaking point. And looking back, it all feels like another lifetime, like someone else’s story, someone else’s suffering. He barely recognizes the man who sat in that room, lost in the wreckage of what he thought was withdrawal.

And yet, even now, if he quiets his mind, he can still hear the echo of what he believed he was losing.

The truth? He was losing something.

But what he was losing wasn’t real.

And yes, something was dying.

But it wasn’t him.

The life he had been so desperate to reclaim was engineered to collapse. It had been built on illusion, on expectations, on borrowed dreams that never truly belonged to him. He had been mourning the loss of a life that was never going to be, clinging to a version of himself that had never really existed.

The darkness he had been resisting? It hadn’t come to destroy him. It had come to transform him.

At the time, he didn’t understand. How could he? He only knew that he was desperate—desperate to escape, desperate for an answer. And desperation, though brutal, can be a gift. Because when there is nothing left to lose, something remarkable happens.

A door opens.

Not a loud one. Not a dramatic one. But a quiet one, barely noticeable in the storm.

Maybe it was grace. Maybe it was something deeper than grace. Maybe it was something that had been there all along, waiting for him to stop thrashing long enough to notice it.

It wasn’t something he found. It was something he remembered.

It was a voice—not an actual voice, but a knowing, a presence, a whisper beneath the chaos. It wasn’t telling him to fight or to fix or to figure anything out.

It was saying, You are complete with the Benzo Withdrawal narrative, Kenneth. Now take my hand and follow me.

Through all the stories we tell ourselves—broken, lost, damaged—there is something deeper, something untouched. A version of us that has been watching, waiting, patient. A version of us that is whole.

At that point, with nothing left to lose, he did the craziest thing of all.

He followed it.

And that is when the transformation began.

Because here’s the truth—you are not broken. You are not damaged. You have a choice.

Is this going to be a withdrawal? Or is this going to be a transformation?

There is no right or wrong answer. One path isn’t bad, and the other isn’t good. These are simply choices.

But if you are ready to shift the narrative, if you are ready to let go of the story that has run its course, then I am extending my hand to you now. Because on the other side of this, there is a version of you waiting.

A version of you who will not look back on this moment with regret, but with gratitude.

A version of you who will not carry resentment, but appreciation.

A version of you who will stand taller, freer, and more whole than you ever imagined possible. Not in spite of what you’ve been through—but because of it.

A version of you who is grateful for the honor and privilege of having been entrusted with such a choice to make.

So are you ready to accept that gift?

To step into an emergence parable and let go of the one that has run its course?

Because if you are, I am here.

And this is my invitation.

With love and respect,
Reverend Kenneth Price
https://reverendkennethprice.com/psychiatricsobriety

02/20/2025

The Path of the Q'enti (Hummingbird)

What is the path of the hummingbird?
It is the 4th pathway of Andean Shamanism. This Path comes after the way of the Kuntur (Condor), the way of the Amaru (Serpent), and the way of the Otorongo (Puma)

Just like its 3 other siblings, Q'enti heals as well. And we find that grandfather Condor heals our minds through light and observation. The Amaru heals our Psyche with Sacred Plant Medicine, and the Puma heals the body with strength and with Mother Earth's vitality.

Initiating through the Qhapaq Ñan (the Andean Shamanic path), we learn that the Q'inti has 1 simple task: To heal our hearts. We observe that the hummingbird goes straight to the heart. It heals emotional wounds such as sadness, nostalgia, blame, and a broken heart. Q'enti arrives lovingly to heal specifically our heart’s pain, but it also comes to hug and cure our hurt feelings, and calm our overwhelming emotions.

The Spirit of the Q'enti is always smiling, joyous, always flying, always dancing, never overstays 1 specific spot, because it lives fully in the here and now, therefore it goes from flower to flower. It teaches us to live in the NOW moment (Kai Pacha). Q'inti also teaches us to avoid obsessiveness and to let go of the attachments to time and circumstances. It teaches us to be stress-less.

The spirit of the Hummingbird teaches us a new way to observe life: It opens the door to the garden of Eden by teaching us inner love; by teaching us divine love which rests unblemished in our essence yet which lays asleep since we are consistently busy and preoccupied with the external world

Q'enti is not outside of you but within you. It is your spiritual heart itself! Your right hemisphere, which through intuition is looking for a way to speak to you, looking for a way to hug and love you. It whispers: Awaken, I am here! I am you! You are me! Everything you need, everything you aspire and look for is already within you and has always been within you.

Q'enti opens us up to a new perspective; a perspective so profound that it feels like being born again. I've personally experienced it fully in Ceremony and it has been guiding me ever since. Nurturing this path provides an understanding of how lifesaving Hummingbird Medicine is. It brings back joy and happiness.

Since time immemorial, Q'enti medicine was named Wayta Yarawi, which means "Flower and Song" because through singing, poetry, beauty, and contemplation is that we learn to see ourselves. It is through this medicine that we learn to see our own inner love: self-love... and therefore we then can appreciate it all throughout existence.
Through the flower and singing a new way of understanding flows to us, and it is this that heals everything which could be broken within us
Q'enti represents love, happiness, compassion, goodness, passion, and faith in tomorrow. Its medicine restores all hearts and refreshes all spirits. The "Flower and Song" provides us with an impulse to sing, dance, dream and Live.

This 4th path is the most occult of all shamanic traditions. It is the Sacred Song that heals anyone who listens; the Q'enti which makes the heart bloom.

May you be blessed by Grandfather Q'enti
Noccan Kani
Andres Ya’El

02/20/2025

THE PSYCHIATRIC SHAMAN
A Journey Beyond the Mind

I never intended to walk this path. If someone had told me years ago that I would leave behind the world of prescribed diagnoses and step into something beyond definition, I would have laughed—maybe even argued. But life, as it turns out, has a way of unraveling the stories we tell ourselves, pulling apart the seams of our carefully constructed identities until only the truth remains.

I wasn’t born a shaman. I wasn’t trained by elders in some distant, mystical land. My initiation came in the form of suffering—raw, relentless, and unyielding. It came through nights of feeling trapped in my own mind, labeled and medicated by a system that saw symptoms instead of souls. It came through questioning everything I had been told was real, only to find that reality was far more fluid than I had ever imagined.

For years, I sought healing in the places I was told I would find it. Therapists’ offices. Prescription bottles. Support groups that reassured me I was broken but could learn to live with it. But deep down, a whisper persisted—a knowing that refused to be silenced. This isn’t it. There’s more.

And then, something shifted.

The mind I had been told was sick became my greatest doorway to awakening. The visions, the voices, the sensations I had been taught to fear were not symptoms but signposts—guiding me out of the illusion of separation and into a place beyond form, beyond thought, beyond self.

I had stumbled upon the space between realities, the place where the psychiatric meets the mystical. I had become, without ever meaning to, a Psychiatric Shaman.

Unraveling the Illusion

To understand my journey, we must first acknowledge a truth most are unwilling to face: we are not who we think we are.

The world has told us a story about ourselves. It has handed us names, identities, roles to play, and a script to follow. It tells us what is normal, what is acceptable, what is sane. And yet, beneath it all, there is something else—something vast, infinite, and free.

But waking up to this truth is not a gentle process. It is not the soft glow of enlightenment we so often imagine. It is violent. It is disorienting. It is the destruction of everything you thought you were.

For me, this awakening began with a breakdown—or at least, that’s what they called it.

In truth, I was breaking through.

What the system labeled as psychosis was, in reality, an opening. What they called delusions were, in fact, revelations. And what they sought to medicate out of me was, in the end, the very thing that saved me.

The Journey Through Madness

I spent years navigating the space between what is seen and what is unseen. At times, it felt like madness—visions I couldn’t explain, sensations I couldn’t control, a world that no longer played by the rules I had been given. But in the midst of it, something miraculous happened.

I began to see.

Not with my eyes, but with something deeper. A knowing that bypassed intellect. A wisdom that rose not from knowledge, but from surrender. The more I let go of the story I had been told about myself, the more something else emerged—something ancient, something sacred.

And in that space, I encountered others. People labeled, dismissed, written off by a world that had no language for their experience. They came to me not for therapy, but for understanding. Not to be fixed, but to be seen.

And I saw them.

Beneath the diagnoses. Beneath the fear. Beneath the shame.

I saw them as they truly were—whole, radiant, untouched by the illusions of this world.

And in seeing them, I began to see myself.

Beyond the Labels, Beyond the Self

The Psychiatric Shaman is not a role I chose. It is a path that chose me. It is the realization that healing is not found in the mind, but in the space beyond it. It is the knowing that madness and mysticism are two sides of the same coin, and that what we fear most is often the very thing that will set us free.

This book is not a manual. It is not a diagnosis. It is not a step-by-step guide to enlightenment.

It is an invitation.

To question. To unlearn. To step beyond the walls of your own mind and into the vast, limitless space of who you really are.

Because you are not broken.

You are not sick.

You are not lost.

You are waking up.

And that is the greatest journey of all.

STAY TUNED FOR MORE……………….
https://reverendkennethprice.com/psychiatricsobriety

12/28/2024

https://youtu.be/fQrHsBZuIC4?si=4t3CCjdedfdKIjWL

Join Reverend Kenneth Price as he interviews world-renowned A Course in Miracles teacher, David Hoffmeister, on the topic of mental illness. In this 4 minute...

08/23/2024

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