Therapists can enhance sessions by their own depth of realization, addressing an often-overlooked area of client well-being. Here’s how:
Why It Matters: Until the true self is realized beyond the personal egoic identity, the client can improve on levels of ego-strengthening like building self-acceptance, confidence, courage and behavior change, but not reach the true end of suffering.
Key Practices:
Being a True Friend: With an open heart and a silent mind the therapist can meet the client from a space of open acceptance and deep listening.
Self-Inquiry: Questions like “What if you did not take it personally,” help clients find insight and self-reflection in struggles.
Altered States: Hypnosis can bypass the normal egoic defense mechanisms to reach the level where true insight and change is possible.
Ethical Boundaries: Respect client autonomy, avoid acting as a spiritual leader, and maintain cultural sensitivity.
Practical Steps:
Ask open-ended questions that distinguish between thoughts and emotions. Make a distinction between experience and thoughts about experience. Find out what is wanted on the deepest levels beyond the immediate situation.
Meet each client’s needs and goals with openness and questions that drill down to deeper levels of motivation.
Track progress using feedback and self-report tools.
Personal insight can deepen the therapy’s impact. The client can not go deeper than the therapists own realization.
If you are new to meditation the following beginner video can be useful, but it is still limited to the belief in the egoic identity of the practitioner. Deeper insight into the true nature of oneself beyond the one “who practices” will open the door to real depth in the client.
Mindulness Therapy: Using Mindful Meditation in Therapy
Evaluating Client Spiritual Needs
Questions to Ask About Spirituality
Research indicates that 58% of patients are interested in discussing spirituality during therapy sessions [5]. However, many feel hesitant to bring it up. Asking gentle, open-ended questions can help build trust and encourage clients to share. These questions not only strengthen rapport but also help explore a client’s spiritual framework more deeply.
“Ask questions that focus on the person, not your perceptions. It’s not about you.” – MaryKate Morse, Portland Seminary professor [4]
Making Space for Deeper self-inquiry
Creating a safe environment for direct insight that is deeper than usual requires the silent depth and open heart of the therapist. While 82% of Americans identify as religious or spiritual [6], many are reluctant to discuss these beliefs in therapy. However, no need to discuss anything, but instead point directly to what is unseen with open ended questions and the depth will reveal itself.
Here are some strategies to encourage open dialogue:
Build Trust Gradually: Begin by asking, “what do you want?” Most people know what they don’t want. They know what they would like to get rid of, or move past, but are often not yet aware of what they really want. Enter rapport with all answers without judgement and let the questions come from silence.
Practice Active Listening: Show genuine interest by using attentive body language and reflective responses. Rapport is the ability to let the clients know that they are heard and understood and not judged.
Maintain Professional Boundaries: . Avoid stepping into the role of a religious advisor or guide. Don’t give advice but access the client’s natural intelligence by asking the right questions.
Working with Different Beliefs
Supporting clients with diverse spiritual traditions requires self-awareness and cultural sensitivity. Dr. Sandra Dixon points out: “Even though you might share the same faith as your client, your client might have a different understanding of that faith, belief system, and worldview” [3].If you know yourself deeper than any belief you can accept all beliefs as a veil covering a shining reality beyond belief.
Key Approaches:
Reflect regularly on your own beliefs and biases. Approach unfamiliar practices with curiosity and respect.
Focus on the true potential of the client’s life rather than judging or evaluating their beliefs.
“With a quiet mind and an open heart, without taking anything personally, the therapist has the potential to meet whatever may appear with loving compassion, deep understanding and skillful means.” Eli Jaxon-Bear The Awakened Guide. New Morning Press
To better support clients, stay committed to ongoing education and consult with colleagues who have expertise in their own direct insight and realization. This approach ensures you respect each client’s unique spiritual journey while providing meaningful therapeutic support. These principles lay the groundwork for incorporating spiritual practices into therapy sessions effectively.
Basic Spiritual Methods for Therapy
There are three levels of work with any client. The first is behavior change and symptom removal. The next stage in working with someone beyond symptoms is egoic strengthening. Building self-esteem and confidence are examples of this level. Finally is the possibility is ego transcendence. While The Leela School of Awakening addresses all three, most therapies stay at the first two levels.
Ego Transcendence
“By mapping the client’s reality and then altering it, Jaxon-Bear shows us how to then take away the map and reveal reality. This is a revolutionary use of therapeutic techniques. We can at last transcend the ego, the holy grail of therapy since Jung.” -Dr. Murray Korngold Founder of Los Angeles Society of Clinical Psychologists
Here is an example of using techniques for behavior change and ego strengthening:
Using Mindfulness and Meditation
Mindfulness and meditation can play a key role in the early stages of therapy, offering support for conditions like depression, anxiety, and substance abuse[8]. These techniques can reshape neural pathways connected to worry, rumination, and emotional reactivity. This can create a healthy ego from a damaged one. Once healthy and still unfulfilled, the stage is set for ego transcendence and true lasting causeless joy and happiness.
Jon Kabat-Zinn describes mindfulness as “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgementally”[8]. This idea forms the backbone of incorporating mindfulness into therapeutic sessions.
| Practice Duration | Recommended Activity | Client Experience Level |
| 3–5 minutes | Mindful breathing | Beginner |
| 3–5 minutes | Body scan meditation | Intermediate |
| 5–10 minutes | Gentle yoga movements | Advanced |
Start with short exercises, like 3–5 minutes of mindful breathing, and ask clients, “What are you noticing?” to help them build self-awareness. As mindfulness improves, self-inquiry can further deepen their understanding. Just do not expect any exercise to take you beyond the one who is practicing.
Self-Inquiry Methods
Self-inquiry encourages clients to look beyond surface-level identity and explore deeper truths about themselves[9]. That is one way to view it, but the possibility is much deeper than that. Many make an exercise of self-inquiry and miss the possible falling in deeper than the personal identity to discover the true depth of being. Beyond the mind’s exploration is the plunge into the unknown to find the final truth, leaving ego and it’s world behind. Then the return is the embodiment of loving intelligence in a human form.
Key steps include:
First determining what is wanted on the deepest level.
Next is discovering willingness. Nothing is possible without willingness .Help them discover where they are sold out to something besides what they really want and how this is effecting their willingness.
Find the places of self-betrayal and the insights into onself will deepen.
“Man is not destroyed by suffering; he is destroyed by suffering without meaning”[2]. Self-inquiry allows clients to find meaning in their struggles and strengthen their resilience. The great Indian enlightened sage, Ramana Maharishi who woke up as a sixteen year old boy through finding out who dies, says, “Your nature is happiness and bliss.”
Breathing and Grounding Exercises for Beginners not ready for deeper investigation but need alleviation of symptoms
Pair mindfulness with grounding techniques to help clients manage emotional responses. Breathing and grounding exercises are especially effective for addressing anxiety, trauma symptoms, and dissociation[12].
Pursed Lip Breathing
Inhale through the nose and exhale slowly through pursed lips, making the exhale twice as long as the inhale. This method helps clear stale air and boosts oxygen levels[11].
Diaphragmatic Breathing
Focus on deep belly breathing while keeping the shoulders relaxed. This engages the diaphragm and promotes a calming effect[11].
5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Method
Use all five senses to anchor yourself:
- Identify 5 things you see.
- Notice 4 things you can feel.
- Listen for 3 distinct sounds.
- Find 2 things you can smell.
- Name 1 positive thing about yourself[12].
“Grounding exercises help control these symptoms by turning attention away from thoughts, memories, or worries, and refocusing on the present moment.” – Woody Schuldt, LMHC[13]
Research backs these strategies. For instance, a 2017 study by Streeter CC et al. showed that combining resonant breathing with Iyengar yoga significantly reduced depression symptoms[10]. Practicing these techniques daily for 5–10 minutes can make a noticeable difference.
Steps to Add Spiritual Elements to Sessions
Building Your Practice Tools
“We’re not only biological, social, and psychological beings, but spiritual beings as well. We have a yearning to connect with something larger than ourselves, something sacred” [3].
The next step is to align these tools to suit each client’s unique needs.
Matching Practices to Client Needs
Tailor spiritual practices to fit the client’s background and goals. During the intake process, consider asking questions like:
Current Spiritual Connection: “When or where do you feel most connected to the larger whole?”
Comfort Practices: “What rituals bring you comfort (prayer, meditation, nature walks)?”
Problem-Solving Integration: “Have you considered using these practices to help resolve problems?”
This approach respects the client’s spiritual framework while supporting both emotional healing and personal growth.
Tracking Progress and Results
Once practices are matched to client needs, it’s important to evaluate their effectiveness. Research suggests that providing feedback on progress can outperform standard psychotherapy, with an effect size of 0.14 [15].
Quantitative Assessment: Use standardized self-report scales regularly to measure improvement. This is particularly helpful for clients who seem to be “off track”, showing a stronger effect size of 0.33 [15].
Qualitative Feedback: Encourage clients to keep therapy journals focused on their spiritual experiences and insights.
Evaluate Integration: Assess how well spiritual practices work alongside other therapeutic techniques.
“By not making more of an effort to incorporate spirituality in treatment, we are doing a disservice to patients” [14].
Conclusion: Main Points for Therapists
Further Training Options
To bridge the current gap in training, therapists can explore several professional development opportunities. Working with altered states is one gateway into the deeper realms of consciousness to uncover unconscious patterns and to realize what is already whole and alive as love.
Be aware that all practices, as useful as they can be at the beginning stages of unwinding the roots of suffering never address the belief in the reality of the practitioner. All practices reinforce this egoic identity. You can not practice to be yourself.
It is possible to end personal suffering by realizing the true Heart of Love and Wisdom alive in every heart. Eli Jaxon-Bear