Therapist, Author and Lecturer Rev. Dr. Karen Herrick, PhD, LCSW, CADC will identify how trauma is repressed in the body through the “fight, flee and frozen” amygdala reaction of the vagus nerve. The frozen state of the amygdala immobilizes clients in fear and danger long after the original trauma has been experienced. Vagus breathing makes a passage for the internal soul-mind breath used by yogis and Tibetans centuries ago. It is through this vagus nerve and the law of vibration that spiritual experiences occur. Differences between spiritual experiences and psychotic hallucinations will be examined.

Rev. Karen E. Herrick, PhD, LCSW, LMSW, CADC, ACMHP has shared her clinical expertise for thirty years in her private practice by lecturing throughout the United States on dysfunctional and addictive homes, disassociation, grief, and loss from a Jungian psychological perspective. Her Interfaith ministry work since 1995 is to be actively involved in Spiritual Psychology, specifically in naming spiritual experiences and working with chronic grief. Chronic grief has led her to the bi-directional system of the vagus nerve/silver cord in and out of the body. While physically important, it is also through this nerve that we receive intuitive and spiritual messages. Her books, You’re Not Finished Yet, “Grandma, What is a Soul?” and “There’s No Health Without Mental Health: Breathing and Learning Through the Vagal Nerve” are available through Amazon.com, Kindle and her office. Her websites are karenherrick.com, spiritualexperiences.info and grandmawhatisasoul.com