Dear friend,
One of the things I’ve discovered over the last few decades - in my own life and through my clinical practice - is how essential it is to include psychological work, trauma and shadow integration, and sensitivity to the body and nervous system as vital aspects our spiritual paths.
This is a unique time in human history when for the first time we have access not only to the world’s great meditative and spiritual traditions, but to contemporary psychotherapeutic teachings as well as profound discoveries in the fields of relational and contemplative neuroscience, as well as developmental psychology and trauma studies.Despite this vast knowledge, many contemporary approaches to transformation and healing leave out one of the essential ways of knowing, being, inquiry, and practice.
How do spirituality and psychological inquiry fit together and what do each offer one another?
What happens if we weave these ways of knowing together into an alchemy of our time, and engage a contemporary path of wholeness, which honors the psychological wounding many of us have experienced and how tending to this is in fact a radical form of spirituality in and of itself?
The path is everywhere and our wounding can serve as a profound form of initiation, though this wisdom is often lost, left out, or misunderstood in our modern world.
What is the connection between trauma and the sacred? And how does uncovering, illuminating, and transforming our psychological and emotional wounding open us to a new kind of spirituality, one that is earthy, human, whole, and oriented in a deeper level of wisdom and compassion?
The purpose of my new 2023 spirituality and healing group is to help support you, in an ongoing way, to develop (or deepen) a spirituality of your own, open your heart, heal the wounds of the past, and cultivate a new relationship with the Divine, the soul, and the mystery of this human experience.
My intention for this yearlong course is, along with you, to create a dynamic and alive holding environment, a real temple, in which we can explore and be in contact with the realities of true Being, in relationship with the creative unknown and the mysteries of the heart. To step out of the matrix, if you will, even if only for a few moments and allow our perception to be cleansed and our heart to be polished.
I will bring everything I have to the course and the group, the 30+ years I’ve spent on this path, my own spiritual experiences through many years of meditation and inner work, tending to my own pain and trauma, and what I’ve discovered through my clinical and teaching work with thousands around the world. In addition to my many years of study and practice, I also bring many hundreds of hours of my own in-depth therapy, analysis, and supervision, which remains ongoing.
There are allies and guides all around and inside us, and it is my hope and aspiration that this new group help to connect us with the intelligence, mercy, and grace of the human heart as it deepens our connection with something vast. Recognizing how tenuous and fragile it is here, we might come to see how every minute here is precious, a radical view and embodied experience that has the potential to reorient our world.
In this exploration, we come to see that even our deepest wounds, sensitivities, and eccentricities are not pathology, but path. They are portals. They are the ways that the light gets in, reaches and transforms us.
I look forward to making this journey with you and supporting you in discovering a path that is truly your own, that opens your heart and brings forward the deep transformation, peace, joy, and healing that is a natural part of your own soul’s journey.
