Several weeks ago my dear friend Kara-Leah, of Be Conscious Now, sent me an email asking, “Why do we manifest mental illness, and how do we heal it?”

Knowing that Kara-Leah herself has had a rough personal experience with this issue in the past, I wanted to think long and hard about the answer before sitting down to type this. I commiserated with my guides and did some reading. Now I feel confident in the answer, but to a slightly different question. “Do we manifest mental illness and if so, why?”

The reason for the change is that the answer about the healing is in the reasons for manifesting it in the first place.

Well it’s obvious that, Yes, we do manifest mental illness. This is obvious because we manifest everything that comes into our lives. Whether the manifestation is a decision that we made before re-entering this plane of existence, or whether it was made during this lifetime by our actions, is unknowable.

Mental illness is not actually an “illness” but an opportunity revealing itself. The opportunities offered to us by mental illness can manifest in several ways. The manifestation of it is dependent upon the stage of learning that it is attempting to invoke and where we ourselves are on our own path of spiritual development and self-discovery.

A brief consultation with the guides has told me that there are several mind/body/spirit reasons for our manifestation of mental illness.

There are as many different reasons for the manifestation of mental illness as there are different types of mental illness itself.

Depression is usually manifest as consequence and symptom of a long-term blockage of energy flow usually precipitated by an emotional blockage to a person, situation or thought. This leads to the thought or situation rooting inside and causing a blockage of energy flow which slowly saps the energy to the body systems and eats away at mental balance and will to live.

What we term “Nervous Breakdown” can also be precipitated by a blockage that we have yet to overcome but this is generally a response of the strong-willed. Thus if the person is not known for being particularly strong-willed or if neither they nor any of their close loved-ones recognizes any specific blockage of the type that can cause “Nervous Breakdown” it is probably something else. Some other causes for nervous breakdown are explained below.

A nervous breakdown is not necessarily a negative thing. Though persons outside of yourself will nearly always interpret this as a negative action or weakness on your behalf, it is quite often not a negative for the person experiencing it. At least not in the long run.

Mental illness of the kind marked by a heightened emotional state, produces a rush of adrenaline. It also serves to give a slightly different point-of-view than one may experience in day-to-day normalcy. The nervous breakdown causes a “refusal to conform” so to speak in the mind’s perception and in the behavior of the person experiencing it.

This is why it is viewed as negative by observers, because it produces in the “sufferer” a tendency to act in ways not acceptable to general civilized society. It is marked by outbursts of profanity, disbelief and supposedly irrational behavior. But it is this very aspect of a breakdown that makes it important territory for the spiritual seeker.

There is, in the way of the spiritual warrior, a point at which one can go no further. This is reached when was has developed and assimilated as many new concepts as the personality of that ego can allow for without giving up its long-held way of being. In other words, we cannot reach the next level of knowing, a higher level of energy vibration, without suspending our belief in reality as it has always been.

In these instances, as the old saying goes, Something’s Gotta Give. When the strength, abilities and awareness of the spirit have been deliberately cultivated it is the ego, the waking mind, that must give. This is the case in most occurrences of “Nervous Breakdown” amongst the spiritual set. When the spirit gives, usually marked by sinking into despair and grief, what manifests is depression. Each is a necessary step in spiritual and psychological self-development.

The guides have spoken of two distinct and common causes of nervous breakdown while walking a spiritual path. Both were said to pertain to the person who asked the question, though also to other spiritual seekers as well.

One is as an acknowledgment to the ego of a break between the old and the new. It is an affirmation and an acceptance of who you have become and a mourning and release of who you no longer are.

The other reason is for the purpose of manifesting a definite representation of a temporary disconnect between the body and the soul. This is sometimes an accidental disconnect and sometimes a deliberate disconnect, affected by you or your guides, to teach you the importance and dominance of the spirit over the physical state.

The manifestation of the nervous breakdown, or the manic behavior or the bipolar episode, can be a blessing. For instead of carrying around the energy blockage or emotional baggage we can now recognize it. Having looked at it in its manifest form we can now begin the process of working through it and integrating the lessons that it wishes to teach us.

From the point-of-view of the spiritual seeker there are personal and energetic milestones that each of us would like to reach. Sometimes what happens is that we are ready to embrace an energy shift, one which our spirit could handle but which we cannot achieve because our physical vibration is too low. The emotional and mental break gives us the freedom to now move on.

Of course, nervous breakdown is not the only form of mental illness but along with depression it is unfortunately the most prevalent in modern society. They are often brought on by a denial of our true spiritual nature and by the artificial stresses of a mechanized world.

With other types of mental illness there are other causes.

Severe and sudden mental illness, such as that caused by an accident, drug reaction or other type of trauma are chosen by you before birth or by your actions in this life as a way of setting a challenge for yourself that must be circumvented or overcome. It’s purpose may be to resolve your own karmic responsibilities or to set an example or teach others a spiritual lesson…often in patience and compassion.

There is also the possibility of Sudden Karmic Resolution, where the energies of the planet and other cosmic alignments are just right for you to be the vehicle of resolution for dangerous or negative karma. This can be your own karma from your actions in this life, gathered karma from actions stored across several lifetimes or may indeed be planetary or community karma that your soul has agreed to manifest in order to benefit the whole. You may have chosen to work for the greater good in this lifetime, and this is how you are able to do so.

In the cases of mental retardation manifested at birth the guides tell me that this is unpredictable. It may be a case of chaos appearing in the manifest realm. It is not the spirit that is retarded or in some way uncommunicative, but it is instead the physical instrument of expression that is retarded or malstructured.

It can be that the spirit within the child is a companion spirit to the parents or caregivers who will end up raising that person. That companion spirit may have chosen to sacrifice full physical functionality in order to act as a catalyst for the spiritual and psychological growth of the caregiver.

All-in-all, being faced with a metal illness or emotional overload of any kind can be frightening while we are in it. My own experiences with depression and loss of faith as well as the angry and borderline episodes of several loved-ones, has made me familiar with both sides of the coin. But very frequently there is a moment of awareness, a second of rationality even amongst the most psychotic episode.

We know that we are going through something that is teaching us. We know in our rational mind that it will end and that we will be stronger on the other side of it.

We hope that our loved ones will still be there but, for just a moment, have the personal strength to realize that if some of them are not, then we no longer need them on the next leg of our journey.

We know that there is reason to this madness and that someone or something is guiding us during this mapless trek through the dark night.

Somewhere we find a gateway to rebirth, for this is all an exercise in self-exploration. Beyond is where the dawn of our new self lies.

We cannot wake in the freshened morning dew unless we first have faith that we will make it through the night.

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