Facing the Darkness: A Powerful Healing Experience February 20, 2010
Posted by bodhidude in : Healing, Spirituality, Warrior/Divine Masculine, blog , 5comments
Have you ever had a period in your life where you felt stuck and overcome by your habitual patterns unable to break free? That has been my life over the last few months and it seemed like no matter what I tried to do it would not work out. Either I was too confused to know where to direct my energy or when I did have a direction no matter how much effort I put forth it would still be unsuccessful. I felt a deepening frustration and an increasing darkness overtaking me and nothing was working to break free of it despite much effort. I have a pretty strong spiritual practice but it did not seem to be able to penetrate whatever it was I was struggling with. So as I do when I’m feeling confused or lost I asked for guidance from the universe, from my guides. Usually that involves putting out a request for help and then opening to receiving the guidance in whatever form it might take. In this instance I received a response immediately as if it had been right there waiting all along. The response was Daime, a form of Ayahausca from the Santo Daime tradition originating of Brazil.
(more…)
The Healing Power of Trees January 13, 2010
Posted by bodhidude in : Divine Feminine/Goddess, Healing, Spirituality, articles , 1 comment so far
I love trees, I always have. I love the natural world but for some reason trees have always had a special meaning and a special power for me. The reverence and appreciation I feel for them can be intense and lately I’ve made it a daily practice to connect and work with them. They are a great teacher for me and they demonstrate and symbolize how to live in the world with grace, groundedness, openness and connectedness. They help me move energy by connecting me with the Earth and acting as a channel for its energy. They comfort me when I’m feeling lost and help me get to my feelings. They provide a natural temple to connect with Spirit, the Goddess and the power of the Earth. Its really too bad they aren’t appreciated more for what they have to offer people as well as what we can do for them because I think we are meant to work together.
(more…)
Spiritual Practice and the Death of a Loved One December 28, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Healing, Psychology, Spirituality, articles , 1 comment so far
A friend of mine recently lost a loved one to suicide and asked me to advise her on how she might benefit her friend now that he has died. This got me thinking about death again which is not so unusual for someone on the spiritual path but it takes on new significance when it strikes close to home. Most spiritual traditions have some kind of practice to benefit loved ones after death but rather than regurgitate those here I’m going to present my view on working with the death of a loved one. I present this from the perspective of a spiritual practitioner as well as a counselor.
(more…)
Feeding your Demons November 16, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Healing, Psychology, Spirituality, Transformation, articles , 4comments
Have you had the experience of having intentions, goals and aspirations that you are passionate about but never seem to fully come to fruition? Do you find yourself struggling with habits, addictions or feeling stuck in familiar patterns in your life that no longer serve you but resist your efforts at change? Do you ever feel like there is a part of you that is working against your wishes? Well for me the answer to these questions has been most definitely YES, and for a long time my response was to increase my effort and fight against the tendencies in me that I found to be obstacles or to throw up my hands in frustration and sink into depression. However I began to realize the more I struggled to rid myself of the qualities I didn’t like about myself, the more I tried to force change by sheer effort and willpower and the more I judged myself for not succeeding the way I felt I should I only made these seemingly opposing forces or qualities stronger. Recently I discovered a powerful practice that directly addresses this issue which is known as “Feeding Your Demons”. Having put it into practice I find my life transforming in amazing and powerful ways and I don’t find myself so much in conflict. Feeding your demons is an old Tibetan practice known as Chud which originated in the 12th century with a female Yogini named Machig Labdron. It is presented in a very simple and accessible Western context by Buddhist teacher Tsultrim Allione in her book “Feeding your Demons” (see resources section).
(more…)
Mindfulness and the practice of RAIN September 24, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Healing, Psychology, Spirituality, articles , add a comment
Most people have heard of mindfulness, like meditation it has become a fairly common term in general use. It has also become more accepted in western psychology as having therapeutic benefit. Many books have been written on the topic and yet there remains much confusion in terms of just what mindfulness is and how to apply it on a daily basis to heal and find greater freedom, this is especially true with regard to difficult or emotional situations, its easier to be mindful of a sunset compared to the intense anger in a fight with a partner. While the definition of mindfulness varies I would describe it as a gentle, focused, compassionate attention. A quality of spaciously noticing what is happening whether it be within or without. In the west today there has developed a tradition of Buddhist training and practice that is mixed with western psychology. From this tradition, represented by Psychologist/Buddhist Teachers such as Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach, a very practical application of mindfulness practice has emerged that can be readily applied in daily life especially with difficult issues or situations.
(more…)
Dropping our story September 16, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Healing, Psychology, Spirituality, articles , 2comments
Meditation has been one of the most powerful healing techniques that I’ve ever encountered and I’ve used it extensively on my own path as well as regularly offering it to those I work with. The power behind it lies in its ability to help one touch the core of their being, their inner most nature which from my perspective is limitless in every way, this includes limitless joy, abundance, power, love, healing and compassion. Meditation and mindfulness practice also help to break through the mental stories that we overlay on so many of our experiences and bring us back in contact with raw feeling and experience.
(more…)
Meditation: Finding freedom in the present June 14, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Healing, Psychology, Spirituality, Transformation, articles , 2comments
There are two things about life that never cease to amaze me, one is how painful it can be and the other is how simple and beautiful it can be. When things are going well it is very easy to grab onto that experience and expect life to remain good and comfortable but inevitably it changes and we experience pain and difficultly which we tend to want to avoid or push away. You could say that this process of attachment and aversion is one of the main causes of suffering and dissatisfaction in life because we can’t hold onto the good stuff and we can’t avoid the painful, the one constant in this is change. Often we are not aware of the way we hold onto or push away parts of our life. We can pretty much count on almost everything being temporary and this is just a reality of life which doesn’t need to be a problem, but when attachment and aversion arise it quickly becomes problematic.
(more…)
The incredible power of Yoga February 9, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Healing, Spirituality, blog , add a comment
After considering it for many years about 2 months ago I began taking Vinyasa Yoga classes. It seems the time was finally right and my experience has been nothing short of transformative. I’ve been a spiritual practitioner for a long time but somehow my body never quite made it into my practice. Yoga has given me a new way to practice and engage the present moment. It has given me a way to get back in touch with my body, to fully inhabit and embrace my body and to more fully appreciate it. In doing Yoga practice I’m finding that as I work with the poses, flow and breath I’m finding stuck energy, tension and blockages in my body that correlate to inner processes involving things like fear, guilt, separation, vulnerability, and other emotional wounds. Working with these physical blockages is helping me access healing on a new dimension that is impacting my spiritual practice and path to awakening as a whole. The physical benefits of increased energy, flexibility and strength are pretty awesome as well. Its interesting that in the physical difficulty of many of the asanas I’m find an opportunity to surrender to the discomfort of this human form and thereby finding peace within pain. Quite a reflection for the rest of life and a lesson in how so much of the pain we feel is because we are fighting or resisting what is instead of accepting and relaxing into it.
Beyond that however is the deep power of Yoga to help me connect with the divine, with the universe. I’ve been introduced to Bhakti Yoga and the devotional practices it involves while not what I really got into Yoga for are really serving as a balance in my spiritual practice. A bright light of love, openness and connection amid the often painful process of illuminating and healing old wounds. This practice of Yoga really helps me remember the joy in being fully alive so I can appreciate this beautiful magical world we live in, in all its wonder and ordinariness. When I see the people here who have been doing this practice for some time it is evident by the love, peace and joy in their eyes and in their energy that they’ve really opened themselves to universal love. As one of my teachers points out, if we are breathing and present then all actions can be Yoga. I’m grateful for this incredible gift on my journey. May all beings benefit.
Nurturing Ourselves November 16, 2008
Posted by bodhidude in : Healing, Psychology, Spirituality, blog , 2commentsI was spending time with a friend this evening and we were talking about nurturing ourselves and it occurred to me that nurturing myself has become a core practice. It seems that so often discontent and suffering comes from seeking to be nurtured from an external source rather than an internal one. Not that other people, things and situations cannot be nurturing but they really aren’t that satisfying if we aren’t first nurturing ourselves. So what do I mean by nurturing? I guess I mean taking responsibility for my own happiness, peace and well being and doing things to cultivate that in my life. Seeing that ultimately these things comes from within, others can share them and reflect them but cannot give them to us if we are not in touch with them in ourselves. In fact if we are not nurturing ourselves then we may seek it from others which makes our relationships problematic because we’re seeking things from people that they cannot give us and seeing them through the filter of our needs. That results in not being able to be in relationship with them fully as individuals and is quite unfulfilling.
I find that nurturing is a good way to look at each moment because in each moment I can ask myself the question, am I nurturing myself in this moment? Is what I’m doing right now serving my highest good. If I’m not I then have the opportunity to look at what I’m doing and refocus my attention in a new direction. It brings up the question of if anything in our lives does not nurture us why do we make it a part of our life. If my job does not bring me happiness, peace and well-being why am I there? Do I really need to be in a job that doesn’t. If a relationship doesn’t nurture me why am I in it? What am I getting out of such a relationship and what am I offering to the other person? I think if we nurture ourselves then we will draw in jobs, relationships, living situations and other things that nurture us because those external things will reflect what we are already doing for ourselves internally. This goes along with the idea that if you want to create something externally you must first make it a reality inside. The external world reflects the internal.
I was talking to my client today about keeping things really simple in working with our minds and I realized that nurturing ourselves is ultimately very simple because to do so all we really have to do is stop and become present, enter the now and touch the fullness, beauty and power of LIFE and we will realize that we’ve never been anything but nurtured. So maybe you could say its more like remembering our true nurtured self. I’m loving the simplicity.