SEA Literature

God, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

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The Following Purpose, Common Problems, and Sample Script are copyright Spiritual Emergence Anonymous

Purpose of SEA

Spiritual Emergence Anonymous is a fellowship of people who share our experience, strength, and hope to solve common challenges. The Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions of Spiritual Emergence Anonymous (SEA) provide a safe environment to encourage authentic sharing and support among people who are integrating or have formerly integrated spiritual emergence, and who are seeking increased stability and greater clarity in their lives.

Spiritual emergence differs from following a spiritual path or devoting oneself to spiritual practice, in that in spiritual emergence, the emerger has experienced powerful and possibly overwhelming spiritual awareness that can be very disorienting (as in near-death experiences, mystical experiences, etc.). The goal then is to ground this new spiritual awareness with stabilizing companionship and to discover a deepened sense of unity between both spiritual and earthly realities. This process results in new behaviors and greater clarity, including service to others undergoing similar experiences. Spiritual emergency is a crisis that occurs when emerging spirituality happens faster or more powerfully than is possible to gracefully integrate. This can create imbalance or cause disturbing psychotic effects until the person is able to adjust to grounding this new awareness. There are occasions when a person with a medical condition of psychosis concurrently goes through a spiritual emergence. It is not up to SEA to distinguish between the two. SEA is not a substitute for medical treatment for these individuals. The only requirement for SEA membership is a desire to integrate spiritual experience.

Spiritual Emergence Anonymous (SEA) Common Problems

(short version) Problems for emergers usually revolve around (1) longing, returning to the blissful state we experienced during a spiritually transforming experience with accompanying discomfort fitting into our former life identity, and (2) egotistical delusions of self-grandeur thinking that we are more advanced conscious beings than most other humans.

(academic version) Common problems for people undergoing spiritual emergence and in various states of spiritual emergency fall into the following two different categories, which are not mutually exclusive.

1. The challenges emergers are most aware of involve changes that are difficult to manage and can wear away at self-confidence. These include possible hypersensitivity to other people’s feelings, to environmental situations (noise, light, etc.), to electromagnetic fields, to toxic chemicals, and sometimes newly acquired senses of telepathy, clairvoyance, and awareness of non-corporeal beings. This may be accompanied by extreme sleep deprivation, manic episodes, debilitating fatigue, mental confusion, or paranoia. Another common challenge is a relatively sudden increase in ethical and moral awareness in which compassion, sensitivity to suffering, tenderness, and vulnerability become more magnified, often motivating a person to change work situations, living situations, relationships, etc. Divorce and quitting jobs are common during and following a spiritual emergency. A strong desire to “return” to mystical states of consciousness drive some people to withdraw from society, jump into dangerous spiritual cults, take drugs, or even to commit suicide to “return to the other realm.” One survey showed that 30% of emergers contemplated suicide for this reason, and 7.5% attempted it (ACISTE, 2011). It is not uncommon for emergers to have symptoms such as energetic or mood swings; seeing, hearing, or sensing non-corporeal beings; and extreme inner psychic confusion. These symptoms may be diagnosed as pathological (bi-polar, psychosis and schizophrenia, for example) and treated with psychiatric medications that often exacerbate the problems.
   
2. A challenge an emerger is less likely to be aware of is a phenomenon or phase known as “spiritual bypass.” This occurs sometimes when spiritual emergence seems to catapult an emerger so quickly into advanced intellectual spiritual understandings or mood euphoria that the emerger bypasses their own emotional issues and blames their problems on other people or the culture’s misunderstanding of their seemingly advanced state of consciousness. Spiritual bypass can sometimes cause inflated self-confidence associated with charismatic power to sway others. Spiritual bypass may lead to increased strength of psychological denial and ego defensiveness. Rather than the gradual decrease of ego defenses that occur with true spiritual growth, emergers may “bypass” the difficult inner growth that comes from self-examination and humility, thus closing themselves off from inner growth as their egotism expands and their pride feeds off of other people’s admiration.

S.E.A. Meeting Script (revised 09/01/24)
(See Secretary Meeting Guidelines below if you are new to leading a meeting)

1. Good Afternoon/Evening. This is the regular meeting of S.E.A., Spiritual Emergence Anonymous. My name is___________and I am a Spiritual Emerger and your Secretary. We are glad you are all here. In keeping with our singleness of purpose we remind you of our Third Tradition which states that “The only requirement for S.E.A. membership is a desire to integrate spiritual emergence.” In our SEA meeting we endeavor to maintain a tradition of full unrestrained expression, where all feel free to express and share their own personal form of spiritual experience and emergence. We ask that you keep your sharing to 3 minutes, so we will ask for a volunteer to be our time keeper. (Get a volunteer & announce how the wrap up signal is to be conveyed). If you feel you need more time to share, we encourage you to stay after the meeting, when you also can ask questions, continue the discussion informally, and to get contact information from our members.

2. Let us open the meeting with a moment of silence to do with as you wish, followed by the WE version of the Serenity Prayer:

God, Grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, Courage to change the things we can, and Wisdom to know the difference.

3. I’d like to extend a warm welcome to any newcomers and anyone who’s just coming back. Is this anyone’s first meeting, or is anyone returning after an absence that would like to introduce themselves?

4. S.E.A. is a fellowship of people who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may meet their common challenges and help others to rebalance from the effects of Spiritual Emergence. The only requirement for membership is a desire to seek stability and clarity. There are no dues or fees for S.E.A. membership; we are self supporting through our own contributions. You can donate money by using the “donate” button on our website. S.E.A is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution; does not wish to engage in any controversy; neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay well and help other Spiritual Emergers to achieve stability & clarity.

5. We will now read the 12 Steps of Spiritual Emergence Anonymous. Who has the list of Steps in front of them? (secretary assigns order of readers, then reads the first step).

6. It is the custom of the group to start the Meeting with a “Check-in”. Please state your first name, where you are from if you wish (state, country), what time of day it is for you, and if you are new to the S.E.A. meeting. Then you can share how you are feeling and/or what you are struggling with today. Keep all shares to under 3 minutes. If you wish to pass, please just state “Pass.” We practice simply speaking from our own experience and do not do cross-talk nor give advice. We practice anonymity by not sharing last names or occupations, and practice confidentiality. What is said in this meeting today stays here. OK, I will start. “I am ________________ from _______________, and today . . .”

7. Secretary announces today’s meeting format:
[Speaker (see guidelines below), Discussion Topic, S.E.A Literature- Step, Tradition, Concept, Promises, open discussion or attendee suggested topic].

(After speaker or topic is complete)
If anyone has something they would like to share inspired by our (topic or speaker), you may share that now. Please keep sharing to ____ minutes (depending on time remaining until the top of the hour).

8. (A few minutes before the top of the hour):

We dedicate our last few minutes of each meeting as our “Check Out” time. Please feel free to share any final thoughts, inspirations, or SEA announcements, or just state “Pass” if you don’t want to share. Please keep your sharing to ____ minutes (depending on number of meeting attendees) so that everyone who wishes to do a wrap up will have time to do so.

9. (Right before the top of the hour:) Time for sharing has come to an end. We have no dues or fees in S.E.A. We are entirely self-supporting, declining outside contributions. Our costs include: Zoom, Website, PayPal, and sometimes support for people traveling to speak about SEA. Contributions are optional and not mandatory, no one is turned away due to lack of funds. You can use the Donate Button on the SEA website for contributions.

10. We will close the meeting with the WE version of the Serenity Prayer:

God, Grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, Courage to change the things we can, and Wisdom to know the difference.

11. Thank you all for being here! The regular meeting is over. You are free to stay and chat as long as you like.

Secretary Meeting Guidelines

●  Secretary should arrive several minutes before the meeting starts. Please make every effort to open and close the meeting on time.

●  For new participants: Inform participants to make their last names anonymous if they have not already done so [on computer screen: click rename in dropdown list (1) in upper right-hand corner of their personal small pic screen, or (2) on participants icon at lower center of the main screen. Both can be found by scrolling the cursor over the areas.

●  Time Keeper: The Time Keeper is a volunteer selected by the Secretary. They should set an alarm on their phone for the amount of sharing time determined and announced by the Secretary. This will usually be 3 minutes, but can vary based on the number of people attending the meeting and what part of the meeting is taking place. The Time Keeper should stay unmuted if using an audible alarm, or wave their hands, hold up their phone or point to their watch until the speaker acknowledges the alarm and knows to wrap up their sharing- the Time Keeper need not say anything. If the person sharing continues to talk beyond a reasonable wrap up time, the Secretary should gently interrupt at their discretion, and ask the person to wrap up so that everyone will have time to share. Secretary could also remind them they will have more time to share during the “check-out” at the end of the meeting, and after the meeting as well.

●  Two ways we share: (1) narrative for 5-10 minutes called sharing our stories, and (2) 3 minute (+/-) segments, that we call “check-in” early in the meeting, general sharing later in the meeting, and “check- out” at the end of the meeting.

●  For newcomers: We ask that there be no crosstalk, that is we don’t give feedback or advice, we don’t comment on a person’s share or interrupt. This means we speak only about ourselves and our own personal experience—we do not speak directly to others. If we are inspired to say something in response to what someone says, we can say something like, “Jeff, what you said reminds me of what happens for me when I . . .” or “What Sally just shared brought me to a memory of . . . No giving advice during the meeting, neither personal advice nor professional advice. It is usually best to not share information about one’s occupation, even after the meeting. Please be particularly careful, if you are in a helping profession, to not give professional advice, and especially not to offer professional services. If someone seeks professional services, it is important to refer them to people outside of SEA, so as not to promote ourselves, and not to risk a client relationship within meetings.− Mention other Meetings and Times.

●  Speaker outline: Five to ten-minute narrative with these elements: 1. Personal experience of spiritual emergency or some aspect of the challenge of spiritual emergence. 2. How aspects of God’s intervention, 12-Step practices, or 12-Step themes helped us to move forward through the challenge we faced. Twelve-Step themes include things found in our literature or learned from fellow SEA members such as the Serenity Prayer, “Let go, let God”, “Take One Day at at Time”, “Turning over our will”, “conscious contact with God”, “not placing labels”, “God as we understand God”, “serving others, etc. 3. The positive outcome for us in the situation we chose to share. The purpose is to inspire others to persist through difficulty to reach the rewards promised to us by continuing to pursue our course of spiritual transformation.

● After the meeting: This is the time to talk more directly with each other. After the meeting is also a good time to get to know each other, respond to things people said during the meeting, exchange contact info, etc.

The following Twelve Steps, Twelve Traditions, Twelve Helpful Concepts, Twelve Promises, Just for Today’s are adapted from AA and/or EA

Twelve Steps of SPIRITUAL EMERGENCE ANONYMOUS

1. We found ourselves overwhelmed by the challenge of integrating our spiritual emergence and sought help to bring our lives into balance. 

2. Came to believe that a Power of Goodness greater than ourselves could bring us to stability and clarity. 

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of our Higher Power. 

4. Made an honest inventory of our personal gifts and our weaknesses. 

5. Admitted to our Higher Power, to ourselves, and to another human being the nature of our weaknesses. We humbly asked our Higher Power to remove those shortcomings. 

6. Showed compassion to those we had hurt by acknowledging any suffering caused, including to ourselves, by making a list of whom we had harmed.

7. When it could be done in a loving, safe, and constructive way, we asked those who had been hurt, including ourselves, for forgiveness, and offered to make amends. 

8. Made a list of what we were grateful for, including our own personal gifts and talents.

9. Expressed gratitudeto those to whom we were grateful, and asked our Higher Power for ways to utilize our gifts and talents.

10. Continued to take personal reflection regarding honesty, humility, compassion, forgiveness, and gratitude. 

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with our Higher Power, praying for knowledge of divine will for us and the power to carry that out. 

12. Having had a spiritual transformation as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Twelve Traditions of SPIRITUAL EMERGENCE ANONYMOUS

1. Our personal welfare and our common welfare in SEA enhance each other. Personal spiritual emergence is facilitated by SEA participation, and SEA is supported by each of us individually emerging into our spiritual lives.
2. For our group purpose, there is but one ultimate authority—a loving God as God may express Itself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
3. The only requirement for S.E.A. membership is a desire to integrate spiritual emergence.
4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or S.E.A. as a whole.
5. Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the emergers who still suffer.
6. An S.E.A. group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the S.E.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
7. Every S.E.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
8. Spiritual Emergence Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
9. S.E.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
10. Spiritual Emergence Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the S.E.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.
12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

Twelve Helpful Concepts of SPIRITUAL EMERGENCE ANONYMOUS

1. We come to SEA to learn how to live a new way of life through the twelve-step program of Spiritual Emergence Anonymous which consists of Twelve Steps, Twelve Traditions, concepts, the Serenity Prayer, slogans, Just for Todays, SEA literature, weekly meetings, sponsorship, telephone and personal contacts, and living the program one day at a time. We do not come for another person — we come to help ourselves and to share our experiences, strength, and hope with others.
2. We are experts only on our own stories, how we try to live the program, how the program works for us, and what SEA has done for us. No one speaks for Spiritual Emergence Anonymous as a whole.
3. We respect anonymity – no questions are asked. We aim for an atmosphere of love and acceptance. We do not care who you are or what you have done. You are welcome.
4. We do not judge; we do not criticize; we do not argue. We do not give advice regarding personal or family affairs.
5. SEA is not a sounding board for continually reviewing our miseries, but a way to learn to detach ourselves from them. Part of our serenity comes from being able to live at peace with unsolved problems.
6. We never discuss religion, politics, national or international issues, or other belief systems or policies. SEA has no opinion on outside issues.
7. Spiritual Emergence Anonymous is a spiritual program, not a religious program. We do not advocate any particular belief system.
8. The Steps suggest a belief in a Power greater than ourselves – “God as we understand God”, This can be human love, a force for good, the group, nature, the universe, God, or any entity a member chooses as a personal Higher Power.
9. We utilize the program we do not analyze it. Understanding comes with experience. Each day we apply some part of the program to our personal lives.
10. We have not found it helpful to place labels on any degree of illness or health. We may have different symptoms, but the underlying emotions are the same or similar. We discover we are not unique in our difficulties and/or illnesses.
11. Each person is entitled to his or her own opinions and may express them at a meeting within the guidelines of SEA. We are all equal no one is more important than another.
12. Part of the beauty and wonder of the SEA program is that at meetings we can say anything and know it stays there. Anything we hear at a meeting, on the telephone, or from another member is confidential and is not to be repeated to anyone SEA members, mates, families, relatives or friends.

Twelve Promises of SPIRITUAL EMERGENCE ANONYMOUS

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development:

1. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
2. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
3. We will comprehend the word serenity, and we will know peace of mind.
4. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
5. The feelings of uselessness and self-pity lessen.
6. As our compassion for ourselves and others increases, we will find a balance of self-care and healthy boundaries.
7. Self-seeking will slip away.
8. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
9. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
10. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
11. We will acquire a feeling of security within ourselves
12. We will realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

These may seem like extravagant promises, but they are not. They are being fulfilled among us, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.

Just for Todays

1. Just for Today I will try to live through this day only, not tackling all my problems at once.
2. Just for Today I will try to be happy, remembering the glimpses I have had of bliss and/or greater harmony. Happiness is a result of being at peace with myself and aligned with Divine Will.
3. Just for Today I will try to adjust myself to what is. I will accept my family, my friends, my business, and my circumstances as they come. I will accept my feelings and turn things over to my Higher Self as I go through my day.
4. Just for Today I will take care of my physical health; I will exercise my mind; I will read something spiritual.
5. Just for Today I will practice self-compassion. I will do at least one thing that brings me closer to my goals, and I will perform some small act of love.
6. Just for Today I will be kind to myself.
7. Just for Today I will have a program. I may not follow it exactly, but I will have it. I will save myself from two pests – hurry and indecision.
8. Just for Today I will stop saying “If I had time.” If I want more time, I will ask God to guide me to find that time.
9. Just for Today I will have a quiet time of meditation wherein I shall think of my Higher Power, of myself, and of my neighbor. I shall relax and seek truth.
10. Just for Today I will trust that my prayers to align with Divine Will will bring both learning and joy. I will pay attention to what is good, what is beautiful, and what is lovely in life.
11. Just for Today I will not compare myself with others. I will accept myself and know that I am loved.
12. Just for Today I choose to believe that I can live this one day finding love throughout my day and peaceful rest at the end of the day.

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References

A new category in the American Psychiatric Association’s fourth edition of the Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-IV) entitled “Religious and Spiritual Problems” was introduced by Dr. David Lukoff in 1994, inspired by his concern of mis-diagnosis of people in spiritual emergency within psychiatric medicine (Lukoff, 2011).

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