carmen spagnola

Carmen Spagnola is a true multi-hyphenate. A few titles that barely begin to scratch the surface of her service to life include Somatic Practitioner, Clinical Hypnotherapist, Attachment Coach, chef, author, spell-caster, host, mother, partner, horse lover, and gardener. She gives language to my experience, for example, talking about how the overculture maintains our nervous system in a constant state of hypervigilance. It was from her that I first heard the term collapse awareness.

Spagnola has spoken and written extensively about collapse. In her programs, delivered through the hosted online space The Numinous Network, she teaches the skills and practices we need to enjoy “a small and delicious life” during collapse, such as contact nutrition and embodied attachment.

Her body of work effectively connects individual states of dysregulated nervous systems to the collective, stating that capitalism, imperialism (and other 'isms we are living with today) are not problems to be solved, they are “converging emergencies from large scale cooperation dilemmas for which there are no solutions. These are not problems we can solve, they are predicaments. Predicaments only have responses. A predicament is a collapse that needs to happen. That collapse has been stalled by terror and desperation because we are unskilled and feel ill-equipped to respond.”

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Hearing that allowed me to let go, experience personal collapse, and discover that there is indeed life post-collapse. Hanging on only delays the inevitable. Learning to support myself through collapse, and ask for help where needed, has opened up a whole new world.