About the Speakers
Katie has over 25 years of experience working in the mental health field, and her recent research, Is There Meaning in Madness?, aimed to promote the need to integrate transpersonal frameworks into mainstream mental health care. Katie was a founding director of the International Spiritual Emergence Network (ISEN) and advocates for viewing mental health crises as potential transformative opportunities if correctly supported. In 2017, following her personal brush with suicidality, Katie founded Emerging Proud, an international peer campaign highlighting stories of personal transformation through crisis. She joined the Board of the Soteria Network (UK) in 2024 who support the provision of alternative approaches to doula-ing people experiencing extreme states. Katie is an Associate Consultant and Trainer for a lived experience UK charity Imroc, and recently co-founded The ELEPHANT Collective project with Sameer Patel and co-produced the mini docu-series A Call to Awakening in 2021.
Sameer Patel
Sameer is a filmmaker and the co-founder of the Kundalini Collective, an organisation established in 2018 to support individuals navigating spiritual awakenings. His own transformative ‘Kundalini awakening’ in 2006 profoundly reshaped his life, inspiring a deep exploration of spiritual and shamanic traditions across the globe. An Economics graduate from the London School of Economics, Sameer began his career in the City before transitioning into film finance. However, his spiritual journey catalysed a shift toward a creative path. As a filmmaker, his works have been acquired by Sony and Sky Arts and showcased at prestigious festivals such as Palm Springs. Recently, Sameer produced a British-Iranian feature adaptation of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, reimagined as The Bitter Tears of Zahra Zand. He is now developing The Elephant, a documentary exploring ‘Non-Ordinary Transformative Experiences’ and their profound implications.
Links
Our ELEPHANT community platform: https://our-elephant.mn.co/
A Call to Awakening: https://www.a-call-to-awakening.com/
The Kundalini Collective: www.kundalinicollective.org
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About the Host: Jules De Vitto is a transpersonal coach, trainer and experienced educator. She helps those who identify with the traits of high sensitivity to navigate emotional overwhelm, step into their authentic power and align with their true purpose in life. She is a published author and wrote one of a series of books on Resilience, Navigating Loss in a time of Crisis. Her research has also been published in the Transpersonal Coaching Psychology Journal and Journal of Consciousness, Spirituality, and Transpersonal Psychology. Jules has spent years engaging in deep transformative healing work - she is a Reiki Master and Teacher and has completed Michael Harner’s Shamanic Practitioner Training through the Foundation of Shamanic Studies and a Grief Ritual Leadership Training with Francis Weller.
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