The Healing Journey

For those who'd like the company of a therapist/coach/mentor as they walk the path of their own healing journey, what follows describes how I hold that sacred work.)

In each of us, often deeply buried and inaccessible, lives a vibrant, inviolable creature self – the pure essence of who we truly are. This deep self, our wise and knowing simple animal being – when not interfered with – unerringly, instinctively moves us toward that which grows and nurtures us. Just as unfailingly, it moves us away from all that endangers us on any level.

The whole process of socialization in our modern western culture is a relentless curriculum that surrounds and embeds us in values, prescriptions and social forms that undermine, contradict and deny the credibility of these inner urgings.

So much of what ails us and causes us much intense grief and struggle in our lives comes primarily from our being cut off/alienated from the knowings of this essential self. The pain of this alienation is further compounded by the endless liminal and subliminal messages that threaten us with the loss of the love, care and connection with all who matter to us should we choose to turn inward to make connection with our deep self a priority. We are warned that self-ishness is always unacceptable and reprehensible.

We have come to be frightened of authenticity, of strong emotions of any sort: joy, sorrow, anger, grief, fullness-of-self. We have learned to fear and override the need for slowness, the need for rest: for empty time, space to be still and quiet, inward, reflective.

THE COMING HOME PROCESS

The healing, coming home process is one of unlayering: of shedding and separating ourselves from the misguided conventions, beliefs and requirements by which society has disconnected us from the place of wholeness within us. It is the slow, careful process of uncovering and exploring the depths of who we truly are.

Gently and lovingly we create a safe oasis in which first to observe and then to begin suspending the self-undermining ways we have been taught to live. In this oasis, away from the clamor of things as they are, we allow the truth within us to surface, to be heard. Over time and with great care and patience, we begin the practice of living from the center of ourselves, our truths.

My commitment is to help create this oasis as a base camp for journeying to the center of one's being. I bring to the work well over 60 years of devotion to my own conscious healing journey. I also bring nearly 60 years of experience working (as a licensed clinical psychologist) with countless others who've chosen to work on healing, wholing and deepening themselves.

THE BACKDROP FOR MY WORK

My work is informed by a feminist consciousness – a commitment to seeing the issues in our inner lives against the backdrop of our being raised in a culture that devalues not only women but all those qualities that have to do with the feminine in both males and females. My work is shaped, as well, by a spiritual consciousness – a commitment to seeing all of what happens in our lives as part of the soul's journey of unfolding – opportunities, as it were, for us to learn and grow from. It is this framing that allows us to mine for the gold in even the bleakest, most challenging times while keeping us from getting snared in feeling victimized and powerless.

The ways I work are richly nourished by the unfolding of my own ever-deepening journey: by the risks I take and have taken, the edges I walk and have walked, the questions I ask and have asked, the conventional wisdom my living gives lie to and, perhaps most of all, by what is born from the intense relentlessness of my commitment to re-membering, reclaiming and celebrating the Sacred Feminine as She lives within each of us, in all Her guises.

Working sessions are open-ended: we work until you reach some sense of closure each time. (Most people work for between thirty-five minutes and four hours; fees are prorated for the time actually used.) How frequently you work  – weekly, every other week, monthly, totally ad-lib, only one time – is, but for the limits of my availability, primarily up to you. With these loosenings of the conventional structuring of the therapeutic form, the work unfolds in a way that more directly reflects your own inner rhythm while at the same time encouraging your listening inward for this personal rhythm.

I am available to serve as therapist/coach/mentor/traveling guide both in person in Ojai, California and by phone for those who live at a distance. For those who work by phone, occasional extended in-person sessions (over one or more days) are available.

AMONG THE ASPECTS OF THE JOURNEYING I MENTOR AND COACH

Transforming the inner-critic into an empowering ally. Kindling an unconditionally loving, fiercely protective mother-within presence to re-parent the wounded self. Loosening the hold of the more, bigger, faster, done-yesterday cultural trance to allow for reclaiming rest as a sacred act. Learning to be more gentle and tender with the slower, more frightened parts of the self so that one can honorably choose to go only as fast as the slowest part feels safe to go. Coming out from under the tyrannical cultural trance of youth-as-beauty to make room for grieving what is ending while celebrating the possibility of aging into one's wildest, most authentic self. Exploring the juicy possibilities of living and thriving in a primary relationship with oneself. Expanding the healing, transformative potential of intimate partnership while reinventing the shape of such partnerships. Reclaiming entitlement to all one's intense feelings: grief, bereavement, despair, joy, rage, fullness-of-self in a culture that always asks us to get-over-it before we've had a chance to plumb the depth of any of these feelings. Living fully, consciously in the midst life-threatening illness.

I am also available to other mental health and coaching professionals as consultant and support through the process of sorting out complex, triggering client-professional interactions.

Travel well and safely, be really gentle with yourself!