My Approach

We each have our own struggles, challenges & painful places within. We usually keep those places well hidden and proceed through life as if they didn’t much matter. As if we didn’t much matter. But we do. Each one of us a beautiful part of the whole.

My approach is to gently help you connect with, understand and integrate those places within so that you feel more complete, whole and engaged in your life. Sometimes that’s tackling a pressing challenge in your present life. Sometimes that’s feeling the deeper pain we carry with us. Sometimes it’s a shift in perspective so we can proceed with a more empowered and liberated understanding of our life. Each session, each person, is different.

This is the process of becoming familiar with our inner landscape in such a way that greater awareness leads to pathways of natural resolution of our struggles. Our inner landscape is like the totality of our experience, including the places that seem dim, murky and off-limits, where we feel out of balance. Exploring within is about visiting those places that we have hidden away and seeing clearly what is there. Like exploring a forest or mountain and coming to know it well, there isn’t something specific gained, only that a part of the terrain is no longer in the dark and seen as separate. Inner work is not about becoming a better, more evolved or more spiritual person. Instead, in the process of visiting those places, the opportunity arises to accept them as they are and adjust our perspective based on what we find there. Misperception can be corrected and burdens can be dropped. What seemed bad, unacceptable or other can thus be processed and integrated until nothing is excluded, nothing is apart or wrong.

These murky places within have origins in our early wounds and the ways that the neglect and violation of our needs created such pain that we needed to split off from it. In effect, we walled off those places because their existence was too painful and devastating to the fragile, developing system we were as young children. When we put our attention on these areas, the walls slowly come down and the door is opened to healing shifts that free us from continuously overlaying these patterns on our current experience. Along the way the original pains that were locked away will surface, including the ways we had to contort ourselves to survive. Experiencing this pain and discomfort we carry is a natural part of the healing movement as it brings those places into full view so we can integrate them. Inner exploration is not an accomplishment or goal to achieve; it is simply the awareness that arises as a by-product of allowing experience to be fully as it is, painful or pleasurable.

My approach is not based on a specific practice or modality; it is simply about tapping in to the universal process of healing and awakening. When approached from this unified perspective, inner work is simply you being you, with nothing in particular to accomplish or no one to be.  In responding to your natural inclinations and movements, the healing process will unfold as it needs to, piece by piece. In this sense, there is nothing special to understand or know; our body-mind system, including the painful feelings and troubling thought patterns, knows what to do and contains all we need to heal and move through difficult places.

Many of us experience a wide variety of uncomfortable states, feelings and thought patterns. We may feel depressed or lost, easily angered or in constant fear. Life may seem confusing and antagonistic, not as it should be or not meeting our needs. We may seem dependent on the attention and approval of others and often perceive ourselves as not good enough, always striving to do or be more. We may have noticed a range of unhealthy patterns in our lives like addictions, relationship struggles, restlessness, existential confusion or simply an inability to sit still and enjoy life as it is right now.

These states are common and widespread, yet not often acknowledged or spoken about. Many unconsciously think of these inner states as normal and as something to hide, in fear of judgment or rejection. Yet it is precisely these places within that offer the possibility of healing. Often we need to address the wall that is in front of us, not what we think is on the other side. Inner exploration is about connecting with whatever it is that seems out of balance, in the way or challenging. It is a way of putting focus on those areas of life that need attention so that natural resolution can occur. These burdens we each carry can be dropped, slowly and gradually over time, so that we no longer need to struggle under their weight.

In the widest possible sense, my work is based on the understanding that the universe or truth is an undividable whole that is all-encompassing. Everything fits in and nothing can be separate or apart, even the perspective that something is separate or apart. This is beyond the capacity of the mind to capture or describe fully because words create boundaries where none ultimately exist, including ones such as self, time and space. There can be no absolute authority on truth, no person or words that are more right or wrong. There is nowhere to go, nobody to become, and nothing to attain because these things are all based on ideas that are limited. The paradox of the inner journey is that walking it requires letting go of the idea that there is any journey at all. Knowing this allows us to drop more fully into our own experience and discover truth for ourselves, instead of looking to something external.