You Have Earned This Opportunity . . .

There are times in all our lives when we face significant challenges. Those experiences sometimes come with persistent (even troubling) thoughts, strong feelings, and a profound questioning about our place in the world.

In moments such as these, perhaps some of the questions you find yourself asking are, "What's wrong with me? Why me? Why can't I fix this?"

A New Paradigm

I'd like to offer a new paradigm: You are on the leading edge of your own growth. You are in the process of pushing the envelope of what is possible for your life. And I'd like to offer a different question: "You have earned this rich opportunity to learn and grow; how might you make the most of it?"

I trust and believe that you have the answers to this question and more. It may be that you are still seeking the place inside you where the answers reside. That will be part of your therapeutic journey if we work together. Your journey will focus on your chosen goals and on getting your life back on track, thinking more clearly, and feeling better—those are essential and you deserve to experience all of them.

Ultimately, this is the process of the evolution of consciousness. For no challenge can be overcome at the same level of consciousness that created it. With support, encouragement, and perhaps some new tools and approaches along the way, you can prevail. You can move into greater and greater levels of creativity, Authentic Self-expression, loving, and success in all areas of your life.

Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy (or Therapy or Counseling) is a multidimensional discipline that explores and seeks to resolve issues or unfinished business from the past that may be affecting an individual's current well-being.

As I practice it, therapy is an intentional, interpersonal relationship between the therapist (me) and the client (you). My theoretical approach is based in the work of Dr. Carl Rogers, Dr. Fritz Perls, Dr. Albert Ellis, and Drs. Ron and Mary Hulnick.

By multi-dimensional, I mean that therapy includes working on any or all of the following five levels:

• PHYSICAL: How we experience the physical world, our bodies, exercise, eating, resting, play, etc.
• MENTAL: What—and how—we think about our world. Our personal current beliefs, ideas of right/wrong, morals, and values.
• EMOTIONAL: How we feel about our world. There are four foundational emotions: happiness, sadness, fear, and anger.
• UNCONSCIOUS: What may be hidden motives for some behavior. Patterns of self-sabotage, self-destruction.
• SPIRITUAL: Where we connect with our Authentic Self and experiences such as loving, compassion, forgiveness, and joy.

While therapy may sometimes involve aspects of coaching, it is not possible, or ethical, for established therapy clients to become coaching clients or vice versa. If you have more questions about this, do not hesitate to contact me.

Coaching

Given my own former corporate experience, I specialize in the areas of sales, marketing, advertising, career development, achievement, and advancement, as well as educational enrollment, admissions, and retention.

As I practice it, coaching focuses primarily on physical world reality. This means I focus mainly with business clients, who are seeking practical support in planning, tracking, and executing new behaviors focused on setting and attaining goals. Coaching is results-oriented, supporting clients in achieving pre-determined milestones, acting more effectively in their given context or business, and accomplishing more than was previously possible. At the same time, a focus is also placed on maintaining a sustainable balance between the personal and the professional.

To learn more about coaching, please visit my coaching site.

Coaching is not therapy and never involves diagnosis or treatment. It is forward-focused and does not explore the past. It is not focused on alleviating or relieving mental or emotional distress. Coaching does not seek to resolve the deeper underlying issues that cause mental or emotional problems. Therapy may involve aspects of coaching, but coaching is not and should not be therapeutic. It is not possible, or ethical, for coaching clients to become therapy clients or vice versa. If you have more questions about this, do not hesitate to contact me.

In the recent course of human history, we seem to have excelled in advancing our capacity for pain. Both as a species and as individuals, from the global to the personal, we have over-developed our abilities for creating pain, carrying it, enduring it, and even inflicting it upon others.

To engage in the journey of therapy is to commit to developing a new capacity—the capacity for experiencing deeper and deeper levels of joy. If we are to experience any pain, let it be devoid of unnecessary suffering. Let it be the feeling that comes with stretching into new territory. Let it be the soft ache of the heart, long clenched, beginning to open. Let it be the yearning to know ourselves better, to be at peace in mind and heart, to love ourselves and each other more, and to be at ease in our world.

Let us learn how to find what brings us joy, how to sustain it, and how to increase our ability to live in its expansive energy. This is no small undertaking. It requires that we let go of what we have become so successful at—enduring suffering—and move into a new world. At this time in our history, this is the intersection of the global and the personal. This is a truly spiritual psychology.

I earned my Master's degree in Counseling Psychology with an Emphasis in Spiritual Psychology at the University of Santa Monica. I have yet to find anywhere that reclaims so succinctly the heart and soul of psychology. The University states:

If you look up the word “psyche” in the dictionary, you will find “breath, principle of life, soul.”
However, if you look up “psychology,” you will find “the science of mind and behavior.” Somehow,
in the transition from essence to practice, the most important aspect of “psyche” has been lost.
We recognize that reclaiming and integrating the spiritual dimension is essential to an authentic
psychological inquiry and the process of lasting healing.” (My addition underlined.)