Why does someone – who once worked as a civil servant and then in international companies for several years, building up an internal academy for more than 6,000 employees, and runs since 2010 her own management consultancy firm – develop an interest in the topic of “spirituality & capitalism”?

People who know me from my professional context would never assume that I am exploring transpersonal or spiritual issues. When I then “come out” to my customers, they are fascinated as, in their view, I am a very clear and down-to-earth person. I advise companies on how to position themselves strategically in the “jungle” of capitalism. This does not seem to cater to the typical stereotypes people associate with “spirituality”.

Over the past 30 years my psychological, spiritual development and my business experiences have greatly changed my view of capitalist economic models. I started out as an uncritical business actor, and have over the last years become a strong sceptic of any capitalist system. But I am also aware that capitalist systems are merely the result of how humans think and act. Therefore, individual and collective consciousness must be strengthened in order to achieve a sustainable transformation of the social and economic system. That includes, building on the Swiss psychologist C.G. Jung to have a deeper understanding on individual and collective shadows and how to do integrative shadow work.

Looking back, I realise that my personal experiences have in a way “prepared” me – since I was a child – for this kind of transformational research. Born in Germany, I grew up in a working class family, surrounded by animals from the age of four, and influenced by a father who was a passionate trade unionist and political activist – the very reason why I began to take an interest in current events from a very early age. I was deeply upset by the divide between the rich and the poor, environmental destruction, animal testing around the globe, and the arms race during the Cold War era. When I learned about my country’s national-socialist past and the Holocaust at the age of 14, I was utterly shocked. That feeling of shock led me to the central question of how it is possible for God, or a Creator, to allow such atrocity and so much suffering on this planet. And that is how my (spiritual) search for answers began.

Today, with my academic, professional, spiritual knowledge and my experience in the area of psychotherapy, I can watch and observe global events with much more clarity. Working with Trans4m and the Da Vinci Institute as a participant of their PhD program on Integral Development with a focus on “Spirituality, Capitalism, and the Art of Leadership” feels like a great privilege to me. It gives me an opportunity to integrate my personal, professional and spiritual insights that I gained over three decades into my PhD dissertation.

One outcome of my PhD process is SAINARI® – an Integral Institute for the Art of Being with focus on training and research – that I founded with my husband Roland Drescher in 2014. The institute is part of the integral Trans4m movement and a “building block” for achieving a transformational way of life and accompanying this wonderful planet and its inhabitants on the path towards greater consciousness and connectedness.