EP 24 Spiritual Bypassing and Toxic Positivity with Chantal Vanderhaeghen

Chantal Vanderhaeghen is a Mind Body Spirit Therapist, who has been writing a memoir called Deep Dive for the past year, and who I wanted to interview on the show because she has much wisdom to share with the world when it comes to embodied spirituality. Chantal and I have known each other for years and I admire her courage at sharing her story, which is something that took a long time for her to do, as sadly it was cloaked in shame. Now in her sixties, she is a beacon of wisdom and joy for all to listen to and she specialises in supporting people who have been Hurt, Not Heard. Unlike a lot of people operating in the spiritual space, Chantal has solid training in counselling and goes through supervision, which means that she is a safer person to work with than most people, as she is trained in identifying what is hers and what is not. This is a critical aptitude for space holders. In this episode, I ask Chantal if she considers herself spiritual and her answer is both delightful and informative. She did not consider herself spiritual for a long time, but aspired to be. However, by understanding what it truly means to be spiritual, she then changed her own understanding of what it meant for her. Yet, for years, she was seduced by the voices of spiritual teachers who claimed to operate from a higher level and almost promised to be freed from the heaviness of the body. She has come back from that journey with profound wisdom on how spirituality without embodiment is just a trap for the ego. A pivotal moment on her journey was her car accident which followed her father's death by only a few years. She suffered from Complex PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and only truly understood then the impact that her abusive childhood had on her. She wanted to badly to be out of her body, for multiple reasons, that she was seduced into the spiritual sirens of superiority, bypassing and toxic positivity. Now that she is back from the brink of that world, she enjoys debunking myths around what it means to be spiritual and supporting people on their journey of healing from trauma. Chantal is running a three day challenge called Own Your Story in her Facebook community on the 18th of March (2024) followed by a Masterclass on the 25th of March called Release the Shame to Shine. To sign up for these events, click here.