Madness, Mystery, and the Making of Saints: What St. Francis Taught Me About Recovery

I used to think I had to be fixed.

There was a time in my life when I was cartwheeling between symptoms—PTSD flashbacks that felt like the walls were caving in, moments of high-speed brilliance followed by days I couldn’t get out of bed, anxiety so sharp it felt like my ribcage would crack. One diagnosis said I had complex trauma. Another said ADHD. Then bipolar symptoms showed up. Eventually, I stopped collecting labels and started listening instead.

Much more recently in my recovery I have become more familiar with Saint Francis and in particular I was curious about how he had been "through the emotional wringer" I am often curious and drawn to these folk who have been in the arena and have something to say about it.

The Breakdown Before the Breakthrough

We think of Francis now as the gentle saint—the one who preached to birds and walked barefoot in the woods singing praise songs to the sun. But before the peace came the storm.

Born into privilege in Assisi, he was a child of wealth and war. He sought glory, dreamed of knighthood, and ended up imprisoned and ill after battle. When he came back home, everything started to fall apart. He wept. He wandered. He stopped caring about his appearance. He talked to God. He gave away his clothes, literally. People thought he was mad.

And maybe he was. But maybe it was a holy madness. A sacred rupture. The kind of breakdown that doesn’t just destroy you—it remakes you.

The Mystery Space: What the Johari Window Reveals

There’s a model I often come back to in my own work: the Johari Window. One of its quadrants is “Unknown to Self, Unknown to Others.” That’s the mystery space.

That’s where the soul lives. It’s also where symptoms live—at least at first.

When you’re in it, it can feel like drowning in fog. Nothing makes sense. Old coping strategies don’t work. But what if this isn’t failure? What if this is the intelligence of your body and psyche trying to get your attention?

My Own Unravelling

I had one of those moments on a train many years ago now.

I had just left a job that I had built my entire identity around. The kind of role that people nod approvingly at when you say it out loud. But it was killing me from the inside. I didn’t know that, not fully—not until I walked away.

And then I sat on that train. And everything broke open.

Tears I didn’t know I’d been holding collapsed out of me. Not polite ones—grief-rage-howling ones (and in a very British way no one blinked). For the first time, I realised I couldn’t manage my way out of my trauma. Couldn’t outsmart it, outperform it, or outrun it.

I didn't see it at the time but this wasn’t a detour. This was the path. A big part of the safe way I have continued to unreval and undo and unlearn much of what has blocked me has been through practicing and now teaching yoga and I'm so grateful for the container it has become for me and others.

Mental Illness or Initiation?

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: many of the symptoms that get pathologised in mental health—mood swings, sensory overwhelm, hyper-focus, dissociation—also show up in spiritual awakenings and rites of passage.

In Yogic, Indigenous, and Sufi traditions, these symptoms are not always treated as defects. They’re sometimes seen as invitations.

Stanislav Grof, one of the founders of transpersonal psychology, coined the term spiritual emergency. His research found that many people diagnosed with acute psychiatric conditions were actually undergoing a spiritual process that had been misunderstood or mishandled (Grof & Grof, 2010).

Similarly, trauma researcher Bessel van der Kolk writes in The Body Keeps the Score that symptoms are “the body’s way of sounding an alarm.” They’re not signs of weakness. They’re signs of adaptation to overwhelming experience.

Why Society Struggles to Let Us Fall Apart (And What It Offers Instead)

It’s important to say upfront: I’m not a qualified medic, and this reflection isn’t medical advice. If you’re navigating a mental health crisis or considering changes to your treatment, please speak with a qualified professional you trust (I am fortunate to have worked with some

Private and NHS professionals on these topics in my life) The ideas here aren’t a substitute—they’re an invitation to think differently, to sit with the bigger questions, maybe together with your professionals if you have one.

Because here’s the truth: many societies, particularly those shaped by capitalist values, aren’t well-equipped to support people through deep psychological or spiritual processes.

The pace and structure of our western world are designed for individuality, productivity, clarity, and forward motion. Breakdowns, uncertainty, and inner upheaval don’t slot neatly into calendars or economic models. They’re hard to quantify. Harder to monetise.

So—often with good intentions and in the context of the degrading of community in the system —we’ve built systems to respond to suffering in ways that prioritise stability and functionality. Medical diagnoses, treatment protocols, workplace absence policies, self-improvement tools. Some of these are genuinely life-saving. Some can unintentionally suppress something deeper: the soul’s need for integration.

The spiritual dimensions of distress—grief, existential questioning, disillusionment, longing—are harder to categorise. Harder still to hold space for in a world that rewards resilience over rest and certainty over transformation.

And because of this, many of us learn to mask our symptoms. To push through. To spiritualise our suffering (it's all in the plan) or sanitise it for others’ comfort.

But when someone is falling apart—not because they’re weak, but because something wise is surfacing—what they often need isn’t just to be “managed.” They need time. Care. Containment, unconditional Love. A way to move through the mystery without being rushed back to normal.

We created psychiatric diagnoses. Some of which can be life-saving. Others which let’s be honest, become shorthand for “you're not normal or average”

We developed medications. Again, sometimes essential. But often used to suppress symptoms that are screaming for something deeper—rest, ritual, rupture, reconnection.

We normalised numbing. Drink this. Buy that. Scroll endlessly. Sign up for a 7-day bootcamp to become your best self in the least amount of time.

We pathologised slowness. Called stillness laziness. Called grief a disorder. Called people in spiritual crisis unstable rather than sacred.

And in all of this, we lost our capacity to sit with someone who is in the mystery.

Because it takes time. It’s not profitable. It’s unpredictable. And it asks something from us, too—our presence, our discomfort, our willingness to not know.

But here’s the thing: people do heal. Not when forced into a shape that fits the economy. But when allowed to fall apart in safe, sacred, supported spaces.

And sometimes that falling apart is the very thing that makes them whole.

This isn’t to say people shouldn’t use medication, diagnosis, or structure. For some, those things provide the very safety and scaffolding needed to do deeper healing work - as we don't live in structures that support this and some of us have been through things that leave us with very painful views of the world and ourselves. But it’s also worth naming: the deeper work is rarely fast, linear, or easy.

And let’s recognise the tension between the reality of living in the world as it is today; systems created by us, and also start conversations about moving toward different systems. I wonder if the prevalence of what we now call mental health issues was as high before we defined it and records were kept? Could this epidemic be a suppressed potential tsunami of awakening against a system that isn't working for anyone who isn't a statistical average or raised with their needs met?

The Body’s Intelligence: What Science Tells Us

Neuroscience is beginning to echo what mystics have always known: the body is trying to heal.

• Polyvagal Theory, pioneered by Stephen Porges, shows that our nervous systems aren’t broken—they’re responding to cues of safety or danger. Anxiety? That’s your body mobilising. Shut-down? That’s your body protecting. Every state has a logic (Porges, 2011).

• Trauma Adaptations like hypervigilance, impulsivity, or emotional swings often mirror symptoms of ADHD or bipolar disorder—but they may originate in early or repeated stress. In this view, they’re not disorders so much as creative adaptations to stay alive (Maté, 2021).

• Ayurvedic and Yogic perspectives see imbalance not as moral failing but as misalignment with one’s nature. Kapha becomes depression. Pitta becomes rage. Vata becomes panic. But the doshas are not enemies—they’re messages. They want us back in rhythm.

So How Do We Help Without Playing God?

It’s tempting to want to fix. Especially when someone is spinning out or drowning. But not all crises are to be interrupted. Some are to be witnessed.

When Francis stripped naked in the town square and gave up his inheritance, it wasn’t tidy or inspiring. It was shocking. Awkward. Raw. But it was real. And he needed to do it on his terms.

If we want to walk alongside someone in that kind of process—whether we’re friends, therapists, facilitators, or just humans—we need to remember:

• Presence is more powerful than fixing.

• Safety is more transformative than advice.

• Mystery must be respected, not solved.

If You’re In It Right Now: A Few Gentle Suggestions

If you’re reading this and nodding along because you’re in the thick of it—because your life feels like it’s unravelling, or your mind won’t settle, or your heart is breaking in ways no one else can see—this is for you.

You’re not broken. You’re becoming.

Still, that becoming can feel unbearable. So here are a few things that might help—not to fix you, but to hold you.

1. Go Slow. Really Slow.

This process isn’t a productivity sprint or a linear journey. If all you can do today is drink water, eat something soft, and notice the light shift through the window—that’s enough.

2. Find Safe Others

Not everyone will understand, and that can hurt. But some will. Find the people who don’t rush you to be okay. Therapists, recovery groups, spiritual companions, bodyworkers—people who meet you where you are, not where they wish you were.

3. Stay Grounded in the Body

Your body is a compass. It may feel like the place of panic or shutdown right now, but it’s also a doorway to steadiness. Gentle breath. Warmth. A hand on your chest. Feet on the ground. This isn’t fluff—it’s survival and there’s the science and millennia of wisdom to prove it.

4. Let Meaning Come in Its Own Time

When coaching leaders and executives I talk about the value of “Staring into the Darkness” You don’t have to make sense of it right now. You don’t need the tidy “lesson.” That may come later. For now, it’s okay to just name: “This is hard.” “Something is shifting.” “I don’t know what’s happening.”

5. Keep a Small Ritual

One tiny daily act—lighting a candle, stepping outside at the same time each morning, writing one line in a journal—can help anchor you when everything else feels like it’s drifting.

6. Ask for Help Before You’re Ready

Often we wait until we’re desperate to reach out. (Or in my case a pattern has been until the perceived drama has passed and then tell everyone I’m well!) If you’re hesitating, that might be the very moment to call someone. You don’t have to explain it perfectly. You don’t have to have a plan.

This isn’t about romanticising suffering. It’s about honouring the intelligence that might be underneath it. The body, the psyche, the spirit—they’re not out to get you. They might be trying to bring you back.

And if today feels impossible, let this be your reminder: you are not alone. And this isn’t the end. This too shall pass.

Final Words: Let the Prayer Emerge

The Peace Prayer often attributed to Saint Francis was probably written long after he died. But it captures something he lived:

“Where there is hatred, let me sow love…

For it is in giving that we receive…”

That’s not the prayer of someone who was always serene. That’s the voice of someone who earned their stillness through surrender.

I’m still learning that. Still fumbling my way toward wholeness. But if there’s one thing I’ve come to believe—it’s that breakdowns, when honoured, can become breakthroughs. And sometimes the most “insane” among us are simply those brave enough to be transformed.

What in this article resonates with you? What feels sticky? Let's get some respectful dialogue going around this

Mental Health Crisis ....

• Intelligence in the body trying to find the best way it know
• Bad wiring that needs active rewiring
• A bit of both