My Story
Hey, my name is Moses
My practice is the result of many years of intensive personal exploration that has resulted in being ready to support others in this work. This exploration has included body-based psychotherapy, awareness practices (such as meditation), nature connection, and expressive arts (such as dance). I have been influenced by many mentors and teachings and have ultimately found my own way through personal experience and by continuously being available to what is happening in my inner landscape, even when painful or contrary.
In my early twenties, something shifted for me, something that was the product of much build-up. I quickly did an about-turn on my path towards a career in business and started seeking out anything that could help me understand life more fully than I had been taught. I started experimenting with alternative ways of living and when I stumbled upon a vague inner discomfort that something was wrong or missing, I started seeing a therapist. I had read Jean Liedloff’s Continuum Concept and compared myself to the native people in the story who lived with an innate sense of rightness; a sense that seemed absent for me and out of reach. Having grown up with the labels of sensitive, soft, and kind, my emotional pain was harder to hide, which compelled me to continually look more deeply.
My therapy work and therapist created foundational blocks which became a constant reference point for the rest of my explorations in the inner realms. It allowed me to expand and deepen my forays in this field while navigating some of the common pitfalls that one encounters along the way. Deep-seated wounds, core beliefs about life, and habitual reactions started to bubble to my conscious awareness so that they could be processed, integrated and ultimately dropped when they were no longer needed. My reactions, emotions, story’s and beliefs were laid on the table, each as they were ready, to be investigated and seen fully. This work was all-hands-on-deck and encompassed the mind, body, and heart.
I developed an interest in spirituality and alternative healing modalities that ranged from meditation, ecstatic dance, chanting, the vision quest, men’s group work, plant medicines, and nature connection among others. I also found much clarity and inspiration in the stories of in-tact hunter-gatherer cultures, as a template for human cultures that meet human needs. I was always drawn to the effect that these tools and understandings had on the underlying causes of the blocks that I personally experienced.
As my attention was focused in this way, these patterns eventually started to ease up and I found more space around them. Core pains and beliefs started to resolve themselves with the result being that I experienced a larger range of movement, expression, and feeling. My old beliefs that the world needs to be fixed, that there is something wrong with me, or that I’m at the mercy of a malevolent world are gradually fading, along with their attendant behaviors. I am more able to share intimacy, take responsibility for myself, be moved by my inner motivations, and have healthy boundaries.
From one perspective, the journey is over and from another, it will always continue. The underlying sense that I am on a journey somewhere, seeking something, is mostly gone, yet old feelings and patterns still come up. Because I don’t judge these unconscious patterns, they don’t bother me as they used to and they don’t shake my world as much. They are simply part of the flow of my life, the way I am shaped; much like a tree might have grown bent over because of the wind. I imagine that these patterns will continue to arise, to lesser and lesser degrees. This paradox is a funny thing: done but not done. Unconscious patterns arise and are resolved, yet nothing is accomplished.
What I would have used to have called my spiritual path has faded away, like a band-aid when the cut has healed. It is a reference point and belief system that is no longer needed because its purpose has been served. I am more focused on what is in front of me, what life presents, and how my system wants to respond. Basic daily needs are more engaging and I find more satisfaction in them.
In terms of my experience and training in working with people, I have in a way created my own path by following what is of interest. My primary focus throughout has been to work with my own stuff which has the result of then being more available to genuinely support others. This has never been solely an intellectual exercise for me. I have studied with teachers from different disciplines, working both in group and individual settings. This includes training under people doing group therapy work, guiding people on vision quest retreats, leading workshops, and working with people one-on-one. This is being tied together through being mentored by my original therapist in this field. Ultimately doing this work has come from a sense of an inner readiness and capability that makes it clear that guiding this work is a natural fit for me.
In the fall of 2012, the first of my four children was born and I have had the opportunity to apply much of what I learned in my inner explorations to parenting them. Years before they were born I knew many of the ways I wanted to parent, ways that made sense to me, and fit with my experience in healing wounds from my own childhood. Based on an evolving template of basic human needs, parenting has become more easeful and natural. Principles such as natural parenting, attachment parenting, and continuum-concept parenting make sense; not so much as an ideological approach, but simply as explanations for our basic needs and a parenting attitude that allows me to meet those needs from a confident and clear place. Choices such as extended breastfeeding, co-sleeping, and constant physical contact in the early years are thus less about which theory is currently in vogue but arise out of the direct needs my kids are communicating. I find it compelling to share this journey with others and support them in finding ways of parenting that allow for more confidence and family harmony.
