“All theory, dear friends is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.”
-Goethe
The Tree of Life
The process of striving for your potential or individuation is a natural and organic process. You can see it manifesting in the first sprouts of spring as they break through from the darkness beneath the ground and strive to reach the sun.
I believe that individuation is fundamentally about the process of conscious embodiment which is the way humans are intended to experience life and is how we come alive. In days gone by, when people recovered from mental illness or trauma, it was often referred to as someone having “come to their senses,” and that is what this process is really all about.
We learn about this world we live in somatically, through our bodily senses, and over millions of years, our minds have evolved or emerged out of that knowledge so that we may reach our potential and attain self-realization. Learning to see that innate wisdom so you can understand it and successfully manage psychological and physical disease in aid of reaching your potential is a big part of the work I do.
You will discover in time that much of this work is about being able to develop the capacity to trust and let go. When you are able to look at your life from a holistic perspective (embracing the good and the bad to date) so as to see it as a higher self guiding and informing your decisions, you will find yourself naturally ‘fall’ into a higher intelligence that already exists within and around you. To a large extent, the hard work has already been done, and my purpose is simply to help you come to see and understand the reality of that truth.
The Method
The Spiral Staircase
The first step is to help you find the method that works best for you.
I believe that your body, mind, and your life in general are in fact already working for you, urging you along your path towards self-realization, and I will show you how to see this. I use symptoms (physical and psychological), or the lack there of, as well as the quality and tone of your relationships to gauge where you are on your path. I work with this material (information) to educate you about yourself and where you are heading in life, and how to initiate change if it is called for. My approach is both psycho-educational and experiential.
I incorporate and accommodate both Eastern and Western philosophies (myths and theories) and techniques (practices) when working with clients. I am often asked to comment on my views regarding medication and my response to this is that medication, along with everything else in this world, comes from the Psyche (life force); it therefore serves a valuable purpose in time, has meaning, and exists to support us in our growth. Our responsibility is to always use all that life provides us with, whatever that may be, thoughtfully (consciously) and wisely.
“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
“The goal of psychic development is the self. There is no linear evolutions; there is only a circumambulation of the self.”
-Carl Jung
The Goal
An Authentic Self
Simply put, the goal of my work is for my clients to become happier and healthier people both as individuals and members of a group, whether that be a family or professional organization. This naturally occurs as you learn about who you are and how you function well in life. Coming to know yourself this way helps you develop the trust you need to strive toward reaching your potential and fulfillment; in other words: your authentic sense of self.
The primary goal is to work toward strengthening your confidence (developing healthy ego strength), which will give you the courage to participate meaningfully in life whether that be in a personal or professional capacity, or in relationships with others. My understanding of healthy ego strength is not about ‘what’ we know, but rather about being able to tolerate the unknown. It is only when we allow ourselves to drop into the unknown that we allow for substantial change to occur in our lives.
My purpose in working with you, and others like you, is to help you achieve a sense of balance within yourself and feel in accord with your life in general. This state of being has often been referred to as ‘flow.’ That experience when you feel a sense of connection with the world and carry within you a certain ‘knowing’ that everything is going according to plan.