Transforming Trauma: Episode 063

In this episode of Transforming Trauma, Brad Kammer, NARM Senior Faculty, is joined by our guest, Igal Hamelin. Igal is a spiritual director, meditation teacher, and a NARM Master Practitioner. In addition to working one on one with people, he also offers meditative attunement workshops for therapists. Throughout their conversation, we hear from Igal about his spiritual journey, his interest in psychology, and how he integrates the two today. “You need both to progress,” Igal shares.

Igal and Brad discuss collective and generational trauma, and how suffering can often lead people to explore spirituality. Igal is a second-generation Holocaust survivor, and from an early age was aware of how unsafe life can be. “We don’t normally talk about it [this] way, but I do think that suffering can be an amazing gift in that it forces you to seek the deep questions about the meaning of life,” Igal says. 

Igal shares his personal process of studying with gifted spiritual teachers for many decades but finding that psychological understanding was often lacking. He came to the realization that it is easy for “spiritual bypass” to occur and that trauma healing is essential to integrate into one’s spiritual path. 

Igal tells Brad that he learned about NARM in his study with Thomas Hübl (who has also been a guest on Transforming Trauma – to listen to that episode, click here). When Igal first learned about NARM, he knew he wanted to become trained in the model. He shares that once he began his training, he felt very much at home in the NARM community. “NARM was such an amazing surprise for me.” Going into the training, he thought he would only be developing trauma-informed skills – but he’s discovered that learning NARM has brought him so much; another opportunity for deep spiritual healing and growth.

Igal expresses his curiosity and excitement to see how his work and integration of NARM continues to unfold.  We invite you to listen to this episode to hear more about Igal’s work.

About Igal: Igal Harmelin is a spiritual director and meditation teacher. He is a rabbinical student at the Aleph Ordination Program. He is also a NARM Master Practitioner in private practice in New York City. His website is igalharmelin.com.