In this deeply revealing episode of Spiritual Infinity, Zenzi Sewaah is joined by Sean Blackwell, a Canadian-born facilitator living in Brazil, whose life’s work sits at the powerful intersection of spirituality, trauma healing, and altered states of consciousness.
Sean shares his extraordinary personal journey, beginning with a near-death scuba diving accident in the 1990s that later catalyzed an intense spiritual awakening during a self-development seminar. What initially appeared as a profound mystical breakthrough was swiftly reinterpreted by the psychiatric system as psychosis, leading to hospitalization and a brush with diagnoses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Yet Sean never experienced this event as an illness.
Instead, his story unfolds as a spiritual emergency — a term coined by Czech psychiatrist Stanislav Grof — describing a crisis of consciousness that can resemble mental illness but is actually a transformational process seeking integration, not suppression.
Through lived experience, extensive research, and years of hands-on work with individuals in non-ordinary states of consciousness, Sean came to a radical insight:many bipolar and psychotic episodes are not chemical defects, but unresolved trauma and spiritual awakening processes misunderstood by modern psychiatry.
The conversation explores:
* The critical difference between spiritual emergency and psychiatric pathology
* Why presence, safety, and relationship are often more healing than medication
* Historical alternatives to institutional psychiatry, such as Soteria-style care
* How trauma lodges in the energetic and bio-somatic body
* Why controlling or silencing someone in crisis often deepens fragmentation
* How breath, music, and embodied expression allow trauma to resolve itself
Sean details the evolution of his work into holotropic and trauma-informed breathwork, including extended private retreats designed for people with repeated bipolar or psychotic episodes — individuals traditionally excluded from such modalities.
A particularly striking aspect of the conversation is Sean’s discussion of surrogate breathwork, where the facilitator breathes on behalf of the client, engaging a shared healing field. This work, rooted in deep presence rather than technique, challenges conventional ideas of therapy and highlights the role of consciousness, energy, and relational safety in healing.
Throughout the dialogue, Zenzi and Sean return to a shared truth:healing is not about fixing what is broken, but remembering what we are.
This episode is an invitation to re-examine mental health, spirituality, and human potential — and to consider that what society calls “madness” may sometimes be the soul’s call to awaken.
Work: Holotropic Breathwork Facilitator | Spiritual Emergency & Bipolar HealingWebsite:https://www.bipolarawakenings.com
Free Offering: 30-minute consultation + free training programBook: Bipolar Awakenings: The Quest to Heal Bipolar DisorderLocation: Brazil (working internationally & remotely)
Sean works with individuals experiencing bipolar disorder, psychosis, and spiritual emergencies through private retreats and distance-based surrogate breathwork. His approach centers on safety, presence, trauma resolution, and consciousness integration.
Closing Reflection — A Moment to Integrate
If you are walking through confusion, intensity, or inner upheaval, pause for a moment.
Place one hand on your heart.Breathe gently — not to change anything, but to listen.
Ask yourself softly:What part of me is asking to be seen, not silenced?
Trust that even your most difficult experiences may be guiding you back to wholeness.
