More about me, and other musings...

Each human life is an amazingly complex, multi-layered, multi-dimensional unfolding, so it's a funny thing to endeavor to write something under the header "my story."  That said, I believe that stories are important, so I'll do my best to share what feels most relevant and alive in me. 

For most of my youth, teens and young-adulthood, I lived a largely disembodied life, though I wouldn't have described my experience in that way at the time.  Things seemed relatively okay... a pervasive, nearly ever-present sense of anxiety and self-consciousness was all that I knew, like water to a fish.  I assumed it was normal to feel this way, and didn't have enough perspective on my experience to see it for what it was and speak to it.  I was just in it, without conscious awareness of it.  I suppose, like almost all of us, I wasn't able to see and take in the extent of my fragmentation. 

I have always been very sensitive, and can now see how as a child and teenager I was often overwhelmed by both my inner and outer experience.  I was uncomfortable in my body and without the inner-resource to feel a lot of what wanted to be felt.  I learned young and well how to get by in a social/cultural world that in almost no way knew how to honor and appreciate sensitivity.  I was also really good at using my intellect (and much less adept at feeling sensations and emotions in my body).  I studied philosophy in college and found myself at home in the world of abstract thought.  From a young age, I have been in touch with a sort of innate curiosity, inclined to ask and ponder big questions about life and the universe.  Eventually, in my early 20s, I found myself wanting to explore them experientially.  This led to my spending time on farms, at an ashram, in the Washington wilderness, with Buddhist sanghas, in Jewish community, on retreats, in satsang, participating in men's work, and exploring an array of contemplative practices.  At age 27, I experienced a kundalini awakening while on retreat for which my mind-body system was totally unprepared.  After a brief, beautiful and terrifying period of heightened openness and aliveness (I had no language for or understanding of what I was experiencing), I "settled down" enough to become aware of a whole lot going on in my body and psyche that I had previously been defending against.  I mention this here because it really was a turning point for me, and an experience I've learned many are ashamed to speak about.  I felt overwhelmed for a long time, and lacked the tools and inner-resource to support the integration process.  For the first time in my life, I was able to feel subtle energy moving through my body.  Tensions of which I was previously unaware were coming to consciousness left and right.  Lots of energy was wanting to move through my body but encountering blocks.  A well of anxiety that, again, I had done a very good job managing, would no longer be contained.  I was being forced to see and feel so much of what I previously did not want to see and feel.  I felt like a stranger in my body and was eventually faced with (perhaps gifted) a life altering back injury.  With time, curiosity, feedback, and lots of support, I began to learn that most of my struggles stemmed from my lack of embodiment.  It was very difficult for me to be in my body...to feel settled and at ease actually inhabiting this instrument of my experience.  I eventually encountered the Realization Process and was captivated.  I dove deeply into the practices. They were (are) gentle yet powerful.  They provided me with the guidance and clarity that I needed in order to develop a more compassionate, nuanced and intimate relationship with my body, breath and mind.  For quite a while, I had to discipline myself to commit to the practices.  They challenged me in a way that I knew I needed.  With regular practice, and plenty of other support, I have been able to gradually find a greater sense of home in my body, and a richer, more fulfilling connection to myself and others.  The journey is, of course, endless.  I am humbled and glad to be here sharing with others what has been such a gift to me. 

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As I sit and write a bit more, I find myself in awe of this human experience, this gift of life. The uniqueness, complexity and simple beauty that we each embody are realities that I admire and try to hold close. I am also very aware of the challenges that we face as human beings in a world that seems to make both the human and the being part more and more difficult to embrace. So much in our modern world makes living an embodied, intimate life very challenging. To live in an intimate relationship with our breath, body, emotions, and the very core of our being is a radical gesture, and requires us to again and again find the courage to honor our heart’s desire to live openly and authentically. The temptation to live small, abstracted lives can be powerful. To live an embodied life – to reclaim our wholeness – is, again, to walk against the grain of much of modern life. And yet, we are at times gifted profound support, and opportunities to connect with others who share our deepest longings. The more we become aware of our suffering (the background unease we each experience as a result of having lost contact with our innermost core) -- and simultaneously more aware of our potential for joy and inner-freedom -- the greater the desire for wholeness and the need for support seems to become. I know from experience that it can be overwhelming to become very aware of the nuances of our suffering, to see with terrible clarity the incessant struggle that it can be to stay sane, grounded, and centered in this world and in our body. I also know what it is like to be highly sensitive and overwhelmed by internal and external stimuli, to struggle to maintain internal contact in relationship, to feel open and raw in a world that quite unapologetically asks us to harden. At times this awareness and sensitivity can seem like a burden and just feel like too much. We are often asked to feel and digest a lot of pain, grief and fear if we are to face the reality of our disconnection from ourselves… our history of self-abandonment. And yet, in this awakening and in our sensitivity lie the most profound gift – the opportunity to face ourselves (patiently and compassionately), and to gradually experience a deepening connection to who we are most essentially...at our core. So much of this journey seems to unfold in mysterious and unpredictable ways. Great hardships can at times appear to be gifts, and apparently inconsequential experiences can be our greatest teachers. As this mystery unfolds, we are asked to participate in it. We are in some sense at its mercy while also entrusted with the capacity and responsibility to make conscious choices. We are beings infused in paradox, granted the challenge of holding paradox again and again. I have sought out, asked for and been blessed with incredible support in my life, and Realization Process exercises have been one source of particularly profound support and meaning. I am deeply grateful for the wisdom and transformative potential contained within these exercises, and grateful to have the opportunity to share them with you.

As may be clear, I am not one to shy away from naming difficult truths, nor from acknowledging the beauty and connectedness that is always here. I deeply appreciate language, honor its power, and at times view much of life’s challenges and opportunities as, at their root, about the task of holding complexity and paradox (though I usually try to stay away from neat and tidy explanations of enormous matters of life). Questions are another part of life that I can’t seem to get enough of. I strive to ask them and live them, viewing so-called answers as often overrated. I enjoy spending quality time with people I love, dancing (many forms... free-form, contact improv, partner dancing, folk dancing....), communing with trees, practicing tai chi, submerging myself in cold, natural bodies of water, reading novels, watching slow, emotionally-touching movies, going for agendaless, barefoot walks, and nerding-out on all things related to subtlety, embodiment, Realization Process and the relational field with friends and colleagues in my various communities.