Jen Beaman – Dark Night of The Soul

Introducing Jen Beaman and the Lucia °3 Light. Originally from Portland, Oregon, Jen Beaman has relocated to Ashland Oregon to pursue her career in healing and service to Southern Oregon. Offering a wide range of training and skills including hypnosis, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT/Tapping), Intimacy Education, and Compassionate Inquiry (CI). Jen works to guide her clients in developing powerful new insights and skills, transforming their lives through a structured path of presence, reciprocity, and congruence.

In today’s interview, I speak with Jen about her eclectic path of healing into the dark night of the soul. 2020 has not been a year for the faint of heart and with no clear end in sight, continued support, presence, and guidance is always most welcomed.

Hi Jen, thanks so much for taking the time to speak with me today and welcome to Ashland.

Thank you! I’m really glad to be here.

To begin with, will you please tell us more about your background and path into the healing world?

My background for most of my life has always been in the medical field. I worked as a nursing assistant in long-term care and hospice, hospital med/surg, and family birth center. I have also worked as a dialysis tech, a birth and postpartum doula, as well as apprenticing with a homebirth midwife.

Although I had many wonderful experiences working in healthcare, eventually I began to feel burnt out and that I was being called to study more psychological, metaphysical, and energetic modalities. The big shift for me happened on my 33rd birthday – 12/12/12.  It was on that birthday that I made the decision to travel to South America.

I have always been drawn to the outer edges of the life spectrum – holding space for birth, death, and transformation. I call these the “liminal spaces.” It was from this fascination that I found myself becoming increasingly curious about shamanism and had been reading a lot about ayahuasca for spiritual exploration and emotional healing. Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic tea or “plant medicine” derived from the Banisteriopsis caapi vine and chacruna leaves. It is given ceremonially in places like Brazil and Peru to help people release blockages, heal trauma, and discover their life’s purpose.

So, in July of 2013 I found myself in the Peruvian jungle, diving into the depths of my own psyche.

That life-altering month-long adventure led me into a whole new world of psycho-emotional healing, and when I returned I found myself exploring and networking with the psychedelic research community and attending various conferences – such as the 2017 MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies: Maps.org) conference in Oakland, CA where I first encountered the Lucia Light.

Wow, that’s very eclectic. How did you find your own path and pick up the skillsets you have learned?

The influence of plant medicines have really increased my deep curiosity for how our minds work, how we experience emotions, and how we form and reprogram beliefs. In particular, my own personal challenges during this accelerated growth & healing phase led me focusing on somatic trauma processing, the presence and purpose of addictive behaviors, and “integration coaching” — assisting people in their own processes of letting go, falling apart, releasing what no longer serves, and then integrating new wisdom into daily life.

Jen, you must be quite an adventurer. Will you tell us more about your personality?

I think the more I have come to let go of who I thought (growing up) I was “supposed to” be, the more adventurous I have become. To me, being adventurous is really just about courageous and insatiable curiosity. I love new people, new experiences, and new perspectives. I love to be challenged. I love to grow.

My own healing process has helped me cultivate and develop self-compassion, and I really try to live consciously from that place. I care deeply for others and I’m curious about their beliefs and motivations; at a core level I genuinely believe we are all just moving through and experiencing life the best way we know how.

I consider myself very grounded, compassionate, reliable, gentle, straightforward, and honest.

“I knew the minute I met Jennifer that I had been led to the perfect practitioner.  Jennifer has a beautiful spirit and has a way of putting you at ease in any situation. She creates a safe, nurturing environment that is warm and inviting.”

-Jeanne Sator, Client

Now that you have relocated to Ashland, please tell us about your business and the service you will be offering?

I am incredibly excited and blessed to have an office at Morningstar Healing Center [534 Washington Street, Ashland, OR] where I am providing in-person, 1:1 light therapy sessions with the Lucia °3 hypnagogic meditation light combined with my unique style of trauma-informed, somatically-centered life coaching.

The best way to describe the light experience is that it is a mesmerizing, kaleidoscopic portal to your own inner world that entrains your brain for easier, deeper, more effective meditation. So many people find meditation challenging because it can be difficult to not grasp or get “hooked” into our thoughts and stories, but the Lucia technology is so immersive people are amazed to be instantly transported from that surface inner dialog deep into the center of their own hearts.

Basically, you recline in a zero gravity chair with beautiful music playing through headphones, and receive the light through closed eyelids. The entire world disappears. Brilliantly colored patterns and dream-like images entice you into a deep, trance-like state. You may feel as if you’re floating, unable to tell where you end and the light begins. It’s incredibly immersive, peaceful, centering, and heart-opening. In that space we can notice what is present for us in that moment, what we are feeling, what we are holding, what is ours and what does not belong to us. Deep insights and cathartic tears are common.

“The experience was far more profound than I had anticipated. It allowed me to go into a very deep non-ordinary state of consciousness that was not only visually stunning and wildly altering, but left me feeling completely relaxed for days with a real sense of psycho-somatic peace within my being. I highly recommend this for folks looking for a truly unique healing experience.”

– Merrill Ward,

How do you combine your sessions with coaching and intention setting?

My light sessions are combined with my unique blend of coaching, emotional and spiritual guidance. I am certified in Transformational Recovery & Psycho-Spiritual Integration Coaching and utilize EFT (somatic awareness & meridian tapping), hypnosis, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), Non-Violent Communication (NVC), meditation, and breathwork. I am also thrilled to be currently learning and incorporating philosophies and techniques from Gabor Mate’s Compassionate Inquiry (CI) professional training program.

When combined with Lucia Light sessions, this gentle coaching and inquiry helps clients tap into what is real, true, and arising for them on the day of their session. Clients may then use this awareness to “create an invitation” to connect to their own inner light, clarity, creativity, and if they wish – to allow it to illuminate, awaken, intensify, dissolve, or transform whatever they are currently curious about or struggling with. I really love the concept of creating invitations rather than setting intentions, because it is more curiosity-oriented and less centered on a specific agenda or results.

It is amazing what happens for people within the light!

What are the benefits of the treatments and the Lucia light?

Some amazing and commonly reported benefits are rapid & sustained meditative relaxation, improved mood, better sleep, enhanced creativity, pineal gland (third eye) activation, and visionary/out of body spiritual experiences.

Lucia °3 gives us permission to:

• Instantly rest in peace and beauty.

• Recharge from outside energy demands.

• Release the weight of outdated programs, beliefs, and stories.

• Rediscover our purpose and passion.

• Restore confidence, enhance creativity, and stimulate new ways of thinking

• Experience an exhilarating connection to a space of infinite potential and limitless resources.

• Entrain our brains for easier, deeper meditation.

• Anchor our access to this powerful part of ourselves, 24/7.

“The light has shown me a love that is so deep, so powerful and so all encompassing. It is the deep and complete sense of being loved which I have never experienced before. The Light provides an uncovering of a deeper consciousness that I hadn’t been able to touch. The insights I receive, have come out of my deeper consciousness and provide information, truth and healing that I apply and integrate into my life.”

-Ann Cornley, Client

Regular sessions with the Lucia °3 light can help cultivate a total shift in perspective – shedding light on unconscious habits, inviting you to break out of destructive patterns, replacing ineffective coping mechanisms, and helping you fully integrate your connection to your own brilliant inner peace, wisdom, energy, grace, and flow.

Who is this treatment best for?

I believe that anyone who is over the age of 18, not pregnant, and who does not have any light sensitive epileptic conditions can benefit greatly from Light Meditation Sessions.

My clients are:

• Curious and open-minded people of all ages*, from all walks of life

• Anyone looking to reduce & relieve stress and increase emotional resilience

• People actively engaged in their own inner healing & personal growth

• Anyone going through big changes or major life transitions

• People interested in alternative healing modalities

• Self-care aficionados

• Healing professionals

• Spiritual explorers

• Yogis & meditators

• Young psychonauts & old hippies

People who enjoy or are intrigued by expansive states of consciousness, but would like a substance-free alternative.

“Don’t just do this once. The more you experience and begin to trust the light, the more your brain opens up to it’s benefits. I feel like my brain has begun to trust and interact with the light. With Each New Session I see increasingly varied and vivid colors and images. I also receive more information and insights each time.  It’s as though my brain and the light are learning one another. For me it is a safe, exciting, and hugely interactive experience.”

-Kim Dewey,

Client, Healer, Massage Therapist

Wow… that seems like everyone in 2020 could use a bit of this.

This year has been a wild ride, hasn’t it? I think now – more than ever – people are really exploring and working on themselves. 2020 has taken away a lot of our normal distractions and coping mechanisms. People are feeling disconnected and isolated, and many are discovering in this Holy Pause maybe we weren’t entirely “okay” before all this started, were we? Were we happy? Were we content? Or were we restless, distracted, frustrated? What was going well? What were we ignoring, settling for, or compensating with?

Many of us are rediscovering who we are and what really matters – and that is a beautiful thing!

“My Lucia°3 session was a beautiful altered experience that brought me into direct connection with my center and all the colors of creation.”

-Graell Corsini,

Ashland Goddess Temple

Jen, you also offer coaching. Please tell us more about this.

Yes, thank you for asking! I offer both in person and virtual coaching – independent from the light therapy sessions.

In particular, my niche focuses are psychedelic integration and supporting people through spiritual awakening experiences, which can sometimes be experienced as “Spiritual Emergency” or “Dark Night of the Soul.” It is this process of all of the old constructs and adaptations coming apart and falling away, which can be pretty frightening and destabilizing.

Adyashanti says, “Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth.  It’s seeing through the facade of pretence. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.”

If you find yourself awash in this mysterious and often tumultuous process, I want you to know that YOU ARE NOT ALONE and other people have been there too.  There is a path through the storm, there is light on the other side of the tunnel.  Like the Hero’s Journey, these processes are often not pathological in nature.

In my experience, resistance only led to more suffering.

It is my heartfelt intention to hold space for people going through similar experiences, and to be the “Disintegration Coach” I wish I’d had. Sometimes we just need someone to lovingly hold the container so all of us can spill out, make a mess, just BE HELD. I offer gentle guidance, but I also have profound trust and respect for each and every person’s innate inner healing wisdom. We already hold the answers we seek, we just need the space to remember.

How are you supportive to these types of situations and can you explain them in a bit more detail?

The approach that is becoming the primary structure for my sessions is called Compassionate Inquiry. It is a somatic-oriented approach to exploring situations, emotions, and patterns in our lives -and- the origins of the beliefs that make up our perception of the world and the way we experience our lives. Each session begins with consent and getting grounded, acclimating and attuning to one another, and leaning into the flow of the process. I ask questions that help you tap into what you’re feeling in your body, the emotions that are present, the thoughts that are arising, and then we organically follow them and see where they lead.

We notice assumptions, beliefs, behaviors and how they have served us and allowed us to adapt and survive. We learn to see ourselves compassionately, as through the eyes of a loving parent or friend. We explore hidden and unmet needs, and how they relate to what we’re feeling and what we need in this present moment. Over time, clients may gain a deeper understanding of themselves, their behaviors, their gifts, and their divine purpose/mission in the world. These inquiry skills can be used throughout life, remembering to pause and see ourselves and others through the lens of compassion.

Why is this one of your specialties?

I found this work because I went through my own profound “Dark Night of the Soul” experience, which lasted for a full year. I thought that what I was going through was unique. I didn’t have anyone to talk to. I couldn’t imagine anyone could possibly understand.

While I was feeling lost, anxious, and depressed I didn’t really want to interrupt the process and I wasn’t interested in suppressing the symptoms – so I silently rode the rocky waters, mostly alone. Basically I fell apart and came completely undone. I had to really give up and let go in order to discover that somehow, miraculously, I was still divinely held.

Cynthia Occeli provides a beautiful analogy for this process:

“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell  cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.”

How has 2020 been the dark night of the soul for many?

In so many ways, this year is waking people up by bringing a lot of suppressed emotional content to the surface. The pandemic plunged us into an abrupt disengagement from our normal routines which we lean into for a sense of familiarity and certainty. Suddenly, many of our illusions of control are evaporating. We may feel the anxiety of cancelled plans and confinement. There is grief & loss and facing our own and loved ones’ mortality. We are largely alone with ourselves with reduced or limited distractions and coping mechanisms.

This year basically triggered a collective, existential crisis. We feel the intensity of our own personal predicaments and we also recognize our interconnectedness and the big, global picture. We are having to cooperate and adapt to survive. It basically stimulates ALL of our big, hidden triggers and base, primal fears. We are reexamining everything, releasing the fluff and remembering what really matters. 2020 didn’t really give us a choice, did it?

How do people have support for spiritual challenges?

Mainstream, western medicine generally doesn’t seem to acknowledge spiritual crisis, kundalini awakening/syndrome, or other awakening processes.

If you go to a traditional therapist they may be keen to pathologize or medically treat the symptoms. I personally believe there are times when traditional interventions focused on relieving emotional discomfort can short-circuit or derail the bigger, deeper healing process at work. The intention of my work is to hold compassionate space for people to find their own answers and to trust the process as much as possible.

I’m also cognizant of my role as a coach and maintain a list of medical professionals and therapists that are more somatically oriented, spiritually aware, and psychedelic-friendly so I can refer clients who need more specialized professional support.

Tell us about the Lucia 3 light background.

The Lucia Light was developed by 2 Austrian doctors.

Psychotherapist Engelbert Winkler is a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, and legal consultant for children and youth with his own practice in Wörgl, Tirol, Austria. He studied philosophy, pediatrics and psychology in Innsbruck, and completed further studies in existential analysis, hypnotherapy and other disciplines. He was inspired by a near death experience he had when he was 7 years old and has continued to be fascinated by the cathartic nature of these events that are associated with out of body experiences and “seeing the light.”

The other inventor, neurologist Dirk Proeckl, focuses on the interaction between the psyche and the nervous system and has studied psychosomatic rehabilitation of migraines, the distribution of neurotransmitters within the central nervous system, and the epileptic potentials in the electroencephalogram.

Both doctors currently use the Lucia °3 with their clients in their practices. In recent years they have been collaborating on the topic of optimizing their methods within the Hypnagogic Light Experience with the Lucia N3 and expanding their knowledge of resulting neurophysiological and psychological processes (including the implications for understanding synesthesia). The doctors discovered that Lucia creates wave patterns in the EEG that would usually only appear after several years of meditation practice.

Lucia Light is now experienced around the world through thousands of people in the US, Canada, UK, Europe, Asia & Australia.

What happens when people start to work with you?

Most people work with me over the course of many weeks or months…

People frequently come to me because they’ve heard about The Light. I’m finding many of my clients are seeking me out after hearing podcasts that talk about Lucia °3, such as Luke Storey (https://www.lukestorey.com/lifestylistpodcast/the-supremely-psychedelic-power-of-the-lucia-light-w/-allison-pelissier-261) or Mysterious Universe w/ Anthony Peake (https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2020/01/23-03-mu-podcast-anthony-peake/).

They are also finding me through my website (psychedelicsunlight.com), social media, and through word of mouth from my growing list of amazing clients throughout the Northwest.

“I’ve never felt more supported, witnessed, and authentically guided in all my life. Her ability to direct an individual inward to their own inner healer and facilitate real, deep inner transformation is unparalleled. I am honored to have had the opportunity to be in her presence and to drink from the cup of wisdom she carries.“

-Joshua Gooodrum, Doctor of Osteopathy & Addiction Specialist

Jen, thanks so much for speaking with us today.

Thank you for this wonderful opportunity to introduce myself to the Ashland community. I am really looking forward to sharing and shining The Light with you all! Please don’t hesitate to reach out if anything you have read here intrigues you, you would like to book an appointment, or you’d like to make a new friend on a stroll around Lithia Park.

Cheers to an Illuminating 2021!

Learn More:
Jennifer Beaman
(360) 771-1540 [text] psychedelicsunlight.com
psychedelicsunlight@gmail.com