How a Clinical Psychologist Becomes a Spiritual Healer: My Spiritual Awakening
By Renee Brush, Ph.D.
Note: I originally wrote this back in September, 2022, and a lot has changed since writing this. Please consider it part 1 of my story, as this is only the beginning of my spiritual journey. I now know that some of what I was learning and doing as part of this leg of my journey was not acceptable to God and, so, I have edited this page from the original version to remove names. However, I did keep much of what I was doing as part of my own accountability.
Religion was not really a thing in my childhood home. We didn’t go to church, although we did celebrate Easter and Christmas, but not with church services. As an adult, I have kept that tradition up. It isn’t that I don’t believe in religion, or God, but usually children learn about Him through their parents. I did not get that. My mother believed that she did not want to press us toward any one religion. She said to us that she wanted us to have the opportunity to choose our own religion as adults. But, how can you choose something when you have had no experience of it?
As I have been involved with the Spiritual community, I frequently hear stories from people about how they “always have been intuitive” or “always received messages” from the Other Side. That was not my experience either. In fact, I figured there was something wrong with me. After my Grandma Iva passed when I was 10, my cousins would talk about how they received signs from her. Why did I not receive any signs? I figured she must not have loved me. Then, after I started meditating (in my 40s), a meditation teacher talked about connecting with your “Higher Self.” I seriously wondered if I even had one.
Then, as a young adult, I went to college to study psychology, which is a science-based profession, where they talked about Humanism instead. There, you learn how to find proof for theories with evidence. There was no real education on faith, only a brief discussion in the multicultural class. You learned to believe things only with evidence. The idea of faith was foreign to me.
But, this is not to say that I was not interested. Several times during my childhood, I went to church with friends or family, though you can’t really learn much when you go one time here and another time there. Looking back now, I can see that some of my most profound, most peaceful experiences occurred in churches and I did not even know what was happening. In my school, the eighth grade class went to Washington, D.C. on a school trip. I don’t remember much about that trip but I do remember our visit to the Washington National Cathedral. We sat in the pews and I remember the deepest level of peace wash over me and it took quite some time to snap out of it. If I remember correctly, I was so in much awe at that moment that I could not find any words to respond to my classmates. I remember thinking that something inside me had changed, but I couldn’t name what had happened, what I was feeling, or what thoughts were running through my head that night. I have had similar experiences in other churches over the years, like Notre Dame in Paris or St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. I would be so profoundly affected, but then forget about it days later.
Living in the south during my time in my clinical psychology program, I figured that religion and faith would likely come up with my clients. I do live in the Bible Belt, after all. So, I chose a practicum and internship where I would have access to Christian counselors. I figured I would learn more there. It was difficult to work among a group of generally good Christian people without personally having the background in the Church. I was labeled as a “Seeker” or a traveler or some such term to indicate that I was looking for my own answers. And, truthfully, I was.
Did I believe in God? I couldn’t really answer that (although if a coworker asked, of course the answer was always “Yes!”), but as I listened to my supervisor work with his clients, I learned that much of what I believed from Humanism really had its roots in religion. For example, I remember during one difficult time earlier in my life, I remember thinking, “everything happens for a reason,” and it brought me great peace, because then I only had to figure out what my lesson was. As I was learning in my practicum, I began to believe that, a very long time ago, some academics stated that they would not publicly tout God or faith (because, no evidence!), but then they came up with these values that were very much grown out of their own faith and church upbringing. You know, like “Treat everyone the way you would want to be treated” or “Things happen for a reason.”
As a licensed psychologist who has many clients with faith, I was ill-prepared to help them handle problems from a faith-based belief system. If I needed to help them in this arena, I would literally Google what I needed and then share with them. Or I would get them to tell me what they had learned about a certain belief. I did not feel well prepared, but I made it through. In some ways, I feel like this worked for me because I was not approaching the client’s issue from a religious dogma. I would find the information and apply it from a trauma-based lens, which often ended up being very healing for the client. And for me.
More recently, in my own mental health journey, I have been getting to the core of many of the hurts in my past. I found that I was experiencing hopelessness a lot more than usual. By nature, I am very optimistic, but the pain I had been dealing with was, at times, unbearable and I was not sure when it would end. And I did not deal well with the hopelessness. I also noticed how my inability to feel my own hopelessness made it difficult for me to help my clients when they were in the middle of their own hopelessness. I would be triggered and then I would try to rescue them like I wanted to be rescued. Certainly, that was not very healing. But, realizing how I was reacting to the hopelessness was what I needed to move forward in my own healing.
I recently read that God will use whatever He can to lead you back to Him – and to yourself. Spiritual awakening, then, can be considered journeying back to yourself. Actually, this journey started some time ago, even though I really was not aware of it. But reading that this journey is a trip back to myself helped me to feel a peace that I have not often felt in my life. But it was a peace that I had been experiencing more and more since this awakening had begun.
Sunset in Gatlinburg, TN
The Start of My Spiritual Awakening
My actual spiritual awakening really started in June 2021 when I went to see my first psychic medium. I went in with no expectations and an open mind. I didn’t even have any questions because I didn’t know what to ask. I told her I was open to whatever messages I needed to hear. She spoke about so much that she could not have known. The one that stands out the most is that she said I was thinking of creating an online business - and I had already started the process of building the blog and was planning what the rest of the business would look like. I took my daughter to see her and my daughter had a similar experience. If God or the Other Side does not exist, how did she know all of those things? She told my daughter that she had the gift of being psychic and I figured if she did, then I must too, after all she had my genes. And since then, I have learned that everyone has their own spiritual gifts; they just have to develop them.
Then in October of that year, I was stuck in therapy (the hopelessness, of course!) and my therapist asked if I would be open to see a spiritual energy healer who used reiki and quantum healing. I said, “sure.” He said he noticed all of these “blockages” and worked to remove them. In my gut, in particular, he said he removed a large section of blockages and said he had to replace it with something. He asked if I wanted to replace the negative stuff with unconditional love and I said, “Sure!” After all, who doesn't need more of that.
I’m using quotes around some of those words, because I was still sitting on the fence related to Spirit. Certainly, I had already had my training in Somatic Experiencing, where we talked a lot about energy psychology. And I already knew there was valid, sound research supporting the idea of energy. But, part of me was still questioning. However, after that session with this healer and his placement of this unconditional love, I felt so much better about myself and about my daily life. There was no way to explain the change except for his healing session.
Then I went to the Holiday Spirit Fair at Edgar Cayce’s Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.) where I met my second medium. I got there late and was left with two choices for people to see. This woman’s profile said she connected with angels and spirit guides. And, since my daughter’s reading, I had been working on connecting with my own spirit guides. So, I chose her.
I will never forget. The very first thing she said to me was, “You had a difficult childhood.” Then she said that I still deal with the repercussions of it, including gut issues. A complete stranger, in a matter of minutes, validated my life. I did not get that validation from people in my life, except from my therapist. But I speak to my therapist about it. This person did not know me from the next person and she already could see the deepest truth. She also said I was an empath and a healer and I chose to come to Earth to experience these things. There were many other things she said that day that also validated my experiences. I was blown away.
At the end, she asked if I had any other questions. She had already suggested meditating in the morning and some other things I can’t quite remember as I’m typing this. So, I said, “What am I doing right now that maybe I need to stop doing?” She looked to the right (which she explained is her sign that she is connecting to the Other Side), and replied, “They said you get in these like depressive episodes and stay too long there.” My life described in one sentence. A few years prior I had realized that I spent my life dissociated. By this time, I was trying to be more present, but what she said was true. I was still getting dysregulated by work and people and I would go home and “veg out.” I said I was watching Hallmark movies so I could have some hope and cheer. She said, “But sometimes it makes you realize what you are missing.” I felt seen and heard by her in a way that few had been able to see and hear me before.
This woman had a couple of events planned that I ended up attending. The next day, she did a talk on “Everyday Angels,” where she taught us how to connect with angels. Then she did a seven day challenge to “Find your joy.” I definitely needed that, so I signed up. She taught us how to protect ourselves energetically and clear negative energy away when we are feeling overwhelmed. I used these tools and slowly began to feel better. I would get to the end of my day and still feel like I had energy. The key for me is that the ONLY thing that had changed in my life is that I was using these spiritual tools that I had learned. At that point, I had enough “evidence” and I decided to embrace my spirituality fully. I decided I am all in.
Since then, I embraced my own gifts and am learning to develop and strengthen them. I have learned how to connect to my own Spirit Team to make decisions about how I want to move forward in my life. I have joined a community with other like-minded people and am learning I am not alone. As I have worked with my Spirit team, I have learned how it is that I am meant to help heal others. I have mentioned somewhere on these posts so far that this blog has been in the works for over a year. But, at the end of June this year, I saw the blog infused with healing energy and I knew it meant that I needed to learn energy healing. I signed up the next day. And within two months, the blog was ready to launch.
In this community, I have learned of psychologists, medical doctors, nurses, and such, all who have followed a similar path to mine and are using their education with the spiritual side to help heal others. Many of these people are also doing research in this area and providing that scientific evidence that energy healing, prayers, and the like actually do exist and do work. This post is not the time to go into that, but later posts will summarize this research, because I do think it is important.
