On the Healing Power of Remorse

It is my experience that remorse is a straight and narrow pathway to an open heart. Referred to in Buddhism as contrition, it is understood as a gateway to the awakening. Yet it is an emotion most of us ignore or avoid–tending to get distracted by guilt or shame instead. Guilt and shame are more […]

Abandoning Perfection and Reclaiming Ourselves

In my eight years of working with clients, I have witnessed how profound changes can occur in a single healing session. I have also witnessed how the journey home to ourselves from repeated stress and trauma takes patience, time, and a whole lot of compassion. Opening to healing often takes a willingness to set down […]

Shan Ren Dao: a True Inroad to Inner Dialogue

Political theorist Hannah Arendt in writing about totalitarianism in her book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil said that the banality of evil is the absence of dialogue–either an inner dialogue with the self or an outer dialogue with someone other. The banality of evil is the capacity of a person to perform an action […]

What does it really mean to trust our bodies?

As healers we often encourage our patients to listen to the wisdom of their bodies. Yet even if we accept the idea that the body is wise and that we should listen to it, many of us have grown up learning that our bodies must be controlled, ignored, or even rejected–not listened to. The pressure […]