Getting Out of a Faith Crisis: An RN Reiki Master Explains the Three Phases of Recovery

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Quick Answer

As an RN with over twenty years of nursing experience and Reiki Master expertise, getting out of a faith crisis does not necessarily mean restoring the faith that existed before. It can involve a period of stabilization, honest engagement, and gradual exploration of what a more personally authentic spiritual life might look like. The warning signs of faith crisis guide provides the essential foundation for understanding the full scope of what the passage involves and what getting out requires.

Key Takeaways

The three-phase sequence described in this article is an educational framework used by Mystic Medicine Boutique, not a standardized clinical, psychological, or theological model. People may move through these experiences differently, revisit earlier phases, experience phases simultaneously, or not identify with this sequence at all.

• Getting out of faith crisis moves through three recognizable phases — stabilization, honest engagement, and building what comes next — and the order matters: attempting deeper engagement before the physical and energetic foundation is stable tends to overwhelm rather than progress the passage.
• The first phase of getting out is stabilization, not resolution — before any deeper work is possible, the physical body and the energetic system need enough stability to withstand the passage rather than being completely overwhelmed by it.
• What does not help is just as important as what does — applying more effort to approaches that have already stopped working, forcing a return to community before readiness, or performing faith that is not genuinely felt may deepen distress when they pressure someone to override their actual experience, though what is helpful varies by person and circumstance.
• For those who work within Reiki and energy healing traditions, the energetic dimension of faith crisis may benefit from specific energetic support — crown chakra work may address dimensions of the disconnection that spiritual effort and psychological processing alone may not reach.
• Intense or recurring distress during faith crisis can sometimes occur alongside mental health conditions rather than instead of them — professional evaluation is important when distress is severe, functioning is significantly impaired, or safety concerns are present.
• Honest engagement with what the crisis is asking is unavoidable — faith crisis does not resolve through avoidance; it requires genuine engagement with the questions, the sorrow, and the identity disruption it has surfaced.
• Getting out takes the time it takes — there is no shortcut through faith crisis, but there are ways of navigating it that significantly affect how destabilizing, how isolating, and how prolonged the passage becomes.

The takeaways above reflect patterns that may help distinguish effective navigation of faith crisis from approaches that tend to deepen it. Some familiar responses — such as increased prayer, returning to community, or greater spiritual discipline — may be helpful during ordinary spiritual struggle. They may feel insufficient or even difficult for someone experiencing a deeper crisis of belief, meaning, or spiritual identity. What follows examines what getting out means, the three phases of the passage, what does not help, and why specific tools matter.

What Getting Out of Faith Crisis Means

Here, "faith crisis" is used as a spiritual and meaning-making framework for describing experiences that some people find meaningful — not as a standardized medical or psychological diagnosis. These experiences can also reflect depression, anxiety, burnout, trauma-related conditions, or other medical or mental health concerns that may warrant independent evaluation. A spiritual framework should complement — not replace — appropriate professional support.

The Dark Night of the Soul is a theological and mystical concept rather than a medical diagnosis. In this article, "faith crisis" is used as a descriptive framework for spiritual and meaning-making distress. Neither term should be used to diagnose depression, trauma, anxiety, or another mental health condition, and both may occur alongside conditions that warrant professional evaluation.

Before addressing how to get out of faith crisis, it is worth being honest about what getting out means. One expectation people may carry into faith crisis is that recovery means restoring the faith that existed before. For some people, however, the process instead involves revisiting inherited beliefs, changing spiritual practices, or developing a different relationship with faith and meaning.

For some people, the beliefs and practices that once provided stability no longer feel sufficient after a period of profound questioning. The crisis may lead them to examine inherited beliefs, reconsider previous assumptions, or develop a spiritual life that feels more personally examined and authentic. Others may ultimately return to earlier beliefs in a changed or renewed way. People who find themselves in the middle of this experience often benefit from support that does not presuppose which direction it will ultimately go.

For many people who navigate faith crisis with appropriate support, what emerges tends to be a spiritual life that is more honest and more genuinely their own. Some people describe emerging from a period of faith crisis with a spiritual life that feels more personally examined, honest, or sustainable. Others may remain uncertain, change traditions, return to earlier beliefs, or choose a different relationship with spirituality altogether. The outcome is individual rather than predetermined.

The Three Phases of Getting Out

The following three phases are a practical educational framework for organizing the experience, not a validated sequence that every person follows.

Phase One: Stabilization

The first phase of this framework focuses on stabilization rather than resolution. When sleep, nutrition, physical health, emotional regulation, or daily functioning are significantly disrupted, restoring basic stability may make later reflection and spiritual exploration easier to tolerate.

Faith crisis can coincide with physical responses — exhaustion that does not improve with sleep, physical tension, and the strain of ongoing uncertainty on the body. Taking these responses seriously rather than pushing through them is not weakness. Adequate sleep, consistent nutrition, gentle movement, and regular time in natural settings can all support the body during this period. From a nursing-informed perspective, physical depletion can make emotional and cognitive distress harder to manage, regardless of its cause. Physical symptoms should not automatically be attributed to faith crisis; new, severe, persistent, or concerning symptoms warrant appropriate medical evaluation.

Within Reiki tradition — described here as how Reiki practitioners interpret these experiences, not as established clinical fact — practitioners may interpret spiritual disconnection through the concept of the seventh energy center. Within this tradition, the seventh energy center is understood as having a symbolic relationship to spiritual connection, and crown chakra support is seen as one way of attending to this dimension. That interpretation belongs to the Reiki and energy-healing tradition and is not established clinical fact.

Finding at least one source of support that can tolerate uncertainty without immediately treating the experience as spiritual failure or a problem to be fixed creates the external witness this experience needs. Navigating faith crisis in complete isolation can increase suffering and reduce access to perspective, practical help, and emotional support. That person does not need to have all the answers. They need to be capable of sitting with the uncertainty without becoming frightened by it, trying to fix it with easy reassurances, or pressuring performance of a faith not currently felt.

Phase Two: Honest Engagement

Once enough stabilization is in place, the second phase involves honestly engaging with what the crisis is asking. This includes the questions it has surfaced, the sorrow it has produced, and the identity disruption it has created.

Faith crisis produces genuine sorrow — for the certainty that has been lost, for the practices that no longer work, and for the version of self that believed without this level of struggle. This sorrow deserves to be genuinely felt and processed rather than spiritually bypassed with reassurances that everything happens for a reason. It is part of the passage, and allowing it fully is part of what the passage requires. Worden's framework on loss and mourning provides broader context for considering how significant losses can affect identity, meaning, relationships, and coping — though that framework is not specific to faith crisis. What is lost can be not just a belief but an entire framework for understanding reality, meaning, and the self.

Faith crisis also surfaces questions about the nature of God, about the reliability of previous spiritual experiences, and about the truth of inherited beliefs. Suppressing these questions does not make them go away — it drives them underground where they continue to erode the foundation while preventing the honest engagement that addresses them. Engaging the questions honestly does not mean reaching immediate resolution. It means treating them as the legitimate and important inquiries they are rather than as spiritually dangerous threats.

Shadow work — the honest examination of the patterns, wounds, and dynamics that faith crisis has surfaced — is one of the most important and most commonly skipped phases of getting out. It reveals why this particular crisis landed with the force it did, what deeper healing is being asked for, and what patterns need to change for the spiritual life that emerges to be genuinely sustainable. Pargament's work on religious coping and meaning-making provides useful context for understanding how threats to foundational beliefs can create significant distress and challenge established meaning systems. Shadow journaling can offer one structured way of examining personal patterns, but it is an educational reflective practice rather than a research-established requirement of faith-crisis recovery.

Phase Three: Building What Comes Next

The third phase of getting out of faith crisis arrives gradually and often imperceptibly rather than as a clear turning point. It involves beginning to build the spiritual life that will exist on the other side of the passage. This phase cannot be rushed and cannot be forced, but it can be supported.

One of the most important capacities for this phase is the ability to distinguish genuine inner knowing from anxiety, wishful thinking, or the residue of religious conditioning. Faith crisis often produces profound confusion about what to trust spiritually. Every certainty has been shaken, every previous authority has become unreliable, and the inner guidance that once felt clear now feels impossible to distinguish from fear. Developing intuitive discernment — learning to distinguish a personally meaningful sense of inner guidance from anxiety, wishful thinking, fear, or prior religious conditioning — can support navigation of spiritual life from the inside out. Intuitive discernment here refers to a subjective spiritual or reflective experience, not a substitute for medical evidence, psychological assessment, or practical reality-testing when those forms of information are relevant.

As the most acute phase begins to lift, exploring access points to divine connection that differ from the forms that have stopped working can create openings the familiar practices cannot provide. Contemplative and centering approaches, connection through nature, creative spiritual expression, body-based practices, and energy healing tools like Reiki all offer alternative pathways. These may be more accessible during and after the acute phase than the familiar forms the crisis has disrupted. This exploration is not about abandoning a tradition permanently. It is about finding what can sustain through the passage and discovering what a spiritual life looks like when it is genuinely one's own rather than primarily inherited or performed.

Perhaps the most important guidance for the third phase is to resist the pressure — internal and external — to reach conclusions or establish a new spiritual framework before it is genuinely ready. The writings associated with Saint John of the Cross describe the gradual return of spiritual capacity as something that cannot be manufactured through effort. For those who understand their experience through a Dark Night framework, those writings can provide meaningful historical context for why attempting to force this phase may delay rather than support genuine emergence.

Signs of Beginning to Exit Faith Crisis

Some people notice gradual changes as distress becomes more manageable. These experiences can be encouraging signs of increased stability or flexibility, but they do not establish that a faith crisis is ending or that a particular recovery path is working.

• Less panic around the questions — the questions that once produced terror are still present but begin to feel more like genuine inquiry and less like existential emergency.
• Moments of unexpected peace — brief windows of stillness or calm that were not manufactured through effort and that arrive with a quality different from the numbness that characterized the acute phase.
• Curiosity returning — interest in spiritual ideas, in questions about meaning, or in the experiences of others who have navigated similar passages begins to feel like genuine interest rather than compulsive research driven by anxiety.
• Increasing ability to tolerate uncertainty — the need for immediate resolution of theological questions begins to ease, and the unresolved questions become more livable rather than feeling like open wounds that must be closed immediately.
• Renewed connection to meaning — moments of genuine meaning begin to appear again, often in unexpected places and in forms that differ from the pre-crisis sources of meaning.
• Reduced need for certainty — a gradual loosening of the grip of certainty as a requirement for spiritual life, and the beginning of the capacity to hold questions alongside genuine spiritual experience.

These signs do not mean the crisis is over or that the deeper work of Phase Three is complete. They may be useful experiences to notice as a person assesses whether greater stability, flexibility, curiosity, or meaning is beginning to return.

What Does Not Help

Understanding what does not help in faith crisis is just as important as understanding what does. Some familiar approaches may become unhelpful when they pressure a person to suppress questions, perform beliefs they no longer feel, or reach resolution before they are ready.

Returning to religious community before genuine readiness can create the experience of performing a faith that is not felt, surrounded by people whose faith appears intact. For some people, returning before they feel ready can intensify disconnection or make them feel pressured to perform beliefs they are currently questioning. Spiritual bypass — using spiritual frameworks to avoid the sorrow, the anger, and the genuine questions that faith crisis surfaces — prevents the honest engagement the passage requires. It tends to result in an apparent resolution that does not hold because the underlying material was never addressed. Continuing to measure spiritual health by the standard of pre-crisis spiritual life keeps everything in a constant posture of comparison to something that may never return. This makes genuine engagement with where things are nearly impossible.

What Nursing and Reiki Experience Reveal About Getting Out of Faith Crisis

From a nursing-informed perspective, an important consideration is the effect of pressure to appear spiritually well when a person is experiencing significant internal uncertainty. Pressure to perform intact faith — from community, family, and internalized expectations — can actively interfere with the honest engagement that may help someone move through the experience. Maintaining an outward appearance of spiritual certainty can consume emotional attention that might otherwise be available for reflection, support-seeking, and the gradual adjustment the experience requires. The performance keeps the crisis from being addressed. From a nursing standpoint, the most important early step is not any specific spiritual practice — it is the removal of that performance pressure, which frees the energy and the honesty that the work requires.

A second nursing observation involves the relationship between physical stabilization and the capacity for deeper engagement. The temptation during faith crisis is to immediately address the spiritual and theological dimensions — the questions, the doubts, the disconnection — while treating the physical dimension as secondary. From a nursing-informed perspective, addressing physical stability first can create a better foundation for deeper work. When significant physical depletion is present, deeper emotional or spiritual exploration may feel harder to tolerate and may be less productive for some people. The system does not have the resources to hold both the ongoing physical depletion and the emotional demands of genuine engagement simultaneously. Physical stabilization first is not avoiding the spiritual work — it is creating the conditions under which the spiritual work becomes possible.

Within Reiki practice — described here as how Reiki practitioners interpret these experiences, not as established clinical fact — faith crisis is understood within this tradition as producing a specific quality of energetic disruption. Practitioners may describe it as distinct from the energetic patterns associated with other forms of spiritual distress. Within this tradition, practitioners may describe a specific quality of diffusion and disconnection in the upper energy centers that they interpret as distinct from the energetic patterns associated with other forms of spiritual distress. Practitioners within this tradition may describe this as particularly responsive to crown chakra healing, and as less responsive to general energetic clearing than some other patterns they work with. This distinction within the tradition — between crown chakra healing and general clearing — reflects how practitioners within Reiki and energy healing frameworks understand faith crisis energetically. It informs why the crown chakra component of the Faith Crisis Complete Restoration Bundle is structured the way it is within that framework.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it normal to feel like faith crisis will never end?

It can happen, particularly during an acute period of profound uncertainty, but the feeling itself does not predict how long the experience will last. The acute phase can have a quality of permanence that is genuinely disorienting because the framework through which meaning, hope, and spiritual perception were organized has been disrupted. What tends to change as stabilization develops is a gradual return of the capacity to perceive the experience as transitional rather than permanent.

What should I do if the people around me are pushing me to return to faith practices that are not working?

People who encourage a return to familiar faith practices may be trying to help, but they may not understand why those practices currently feel inaccessible or painful. Their advice may come from a framework centered on ordinary spiritual dryness rather than a deeper crisis of belief, meaning, or identity. That recognition does not make the pressure less painful, but it can help clarify what is happening. Finding at least one source of support that does understand faith crisis gives accurate understanding somewhere to come from alongside the pressure from those who may not yet have it.

How do I know if what I am experiencing requires professional mental health support rather than spiritual support alone?

Professional mental health support deserves consideration when distress is significantly impairing daily functioning, persistent changes in mood or pleasure are present, sleep disruption is substantially affecting functioning, or thoughts of self-harm occur. Faith crisis and depression can coexist — the presence of spiritual emergency does not protect against mental health conditions that require professional care. When any doubt exists about whether professional support is needed, that evaluation is appropriate as a first step.

What should I do if I have been in faith crisis for a long time without appropriate support?

Begin now rather than waiting for a better moment or more energy. Accessing appropriate support can provide additional perspective, practical assistance, and care at any stage of the experience. What may shift in a prolonged crisis is the amount of stabilization work needed before deeper engagement becomes accessible. When prolonged distress has affected sleep, nutrition, health, or daily functioning, stabilization may need particular attention before more demanding exploration feels manageable. Starting with stabilization, regardless of how long the crisis has been going, is the right entry point.

Is it normal to mourn the faith that existed before even when it feels clear that the previous form of faith may not return?

Yes — and this mourning deserves to be taken seriously rather than spiritually bypassed with reassurances about what might emerge on the other side. The faith that existed before was real, it provided real sustenance, and its loss is a real loss regardless of what ultimately emerges from the passage. Allowing the mourning fully is not dwelling in what was lost. It is honest acknowledgment that what was lost genuinely mattered — and that acknowledgment can be part of the foundation on which whatever comes next is built.

Moving Forward

Getting out of faith crisis is not about finding the fastest route back to spiritual comfort. It is about navigating this passage with the honesty, the support, and the specific tools it requires — and allowing what emerges to be whatever it genuinely is rather than a forced restoration.

For some people, moving through faith crisis can become a deeply transformative period of reflection and reorientation. What emerges may be a changed relationship with faith, meaning, community, or spiritual practice — but the outcome is individual rather than predetermined.

Important: This article provides spiritual support for the spiritual distress that may accompany faith crisis. It is not a substitute for professional mental health evaluation or treatment. New, severe, or persistent physical symptoms should receive appropriate medical evaluation rather than being assumed to result from spiritual distress. If experiencing thoughts of self-harm, severe depression, or inability to function in daily activities, please call or text 988 immediately or contact emergency services.

Professional Boundaries & When to Seek Additional Support

I provide: Spiritual support for the spiritual distress that may accompany faith crisis — helping people understand what getting out of faith crisis requires, find stable footing through each phase, and navigate the passage with honest, grounded support.

I do not provide: Therapy, medical treatment, religious counseling, or professional mental health services of any kind.

If experiencing crisis, contact:

• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — Call or text 988 (24/7)
• Emergency Services — 911 or your nearest emergency room
• Your healthcare provider — for persistent distress or health-related concerns

About the Author

Dorian Lynn, RN is a Registered Nurse with over twenty years of nursing experience, Reiki Master expertise, and the intuitive pattern recognition of an Intuitive Mystic Healer. She provides spiritual education and support for people navigating faith crisis — helping them explore what the passage involves, find stable footing through each phase, and examine changing spiritual beliefs and practices.

Mystic Medicine Boutique publishes educational content about getting out of faith crisis and navigating the Dark Night passage, grounded in over twenty years of nursing experience and Reiki Master expertise. Our goal is to bridge evidence-informed understanding and energy healing perspectives so readers can make informed decisions about their personal healing journey.

Sources & Further Reading

John of the Cross, Saint — Dark Night of the Soul — a sixteenth-century Christian mystical work describing the gradual return of spiritual capacity as something that cannot be manufactured through effort and the experience of losing familiar forms of consolation; used here as historical and theological context for the Dark Night framework as some readers may understand their own experience, not as a clinical description of faith crisis or as documentation of the three-phase framework described in this article.

Pargament, Kenneth I. — The Psychology of Religion and Coping: Theory, Research, Practice — research on religious coping and meaning-making, providing broader context for understanding why threats to foundational beliefs produce significant distress and why the shadow dimension of faith crisis resists being resolved through intellectual engagement alone; it does not establish a specific faith-crisis navigation model but offers a research framework for the role of meaning systems in coping and well-being.

Fowler, James W. — Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning — foundational research on faith development across the lifespan, providing context for understanding how foundational beliefs and spiritual frameworks can change significantly through periods of questioning and reexamination; it does not establish a clinical faith-crisis recovery model but offers a developmental research framework for the role of faith and meaning in human experience across stages of life.

Worden, J. William — Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy: A Handbook for the Mental Health Practitioner — foundational framework on loss and mourning, providing broader context for understanding how significant losses can affect identity, behavior, relationships, and coping; it is not specific to spiritual loss and does not establish faith crisis as a grief disorder or a specific recovery process.