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Who I am
It has always seemed strange to me that people define who they are by what they do. Never the less it is expected. So with slight diversion I will do so here in conversational style. Many years ago I gave up a very good job to live from a storage shed. In spite of apparent worldly success I felt ill deep inside. I had not found the source and meaning of my life. I took all I had learned and focused inward. In short order a great joy began to well up inside me that only increased over a period of a few months. Awake or asleep this joy was my companion. Even through sickness it sustained me in the background. One day I suddenly understood that this joy was who I am and that which I truly am can not die. Only then did I return to the world to check my realization. And though this joy is not my constant experience now, it is still more real than anything else I can name. My wish is that all should experience it and judge for themselves.
My mother said that I was a very sad child. A natural introvert and adopted only child, I sometimes referred to myself as "socially slow." So what business does a socially inept and unhappy person have coaching people about relationships? Sometimes those with great obstacles to overcome make the best teachers. My father taught me that as he withered away from cancer with a joke always on his lips. The only thing I did not lack was the motivation to learn.
My youthful inspiration was Abraham Maslow and Chogyam Trungpa. Both focused on a psychology of being and the nature of the individual as basicaly good. Trungpa was a Tibetan teacher who fleing the Chinese occupation, came to the United States and tried to expound the Eastern Tantric-Buddhist teachings in psychological terms the West could understand. And also adapt them for therapeutic intervention. His methods are still being used today and his message is embodied in the Naropa Universuty. Maslow took psychology beyond therapeutic intervention and gave us a vision of psychogogy - the realization of our human potential ... and mystagogy - as the path toward the farther reaches of our spiritual and evolutionary future. He was also the first person to attempt to outline the characteristics of the of the superior manger and employee in a business environment from the viewpoint of mental health (Eupsychia). His "hierarchy of needs" is classic. These two men have remained a lifelong influence as I sought the common ground between them. And then to expand that circle with evolving techniques that would aid in fulfilment of the challenge left to us at the entrance to the Temple of Delphi - to "Know Thyself" - and do so with both speed and depth.
I do have dual degrees in mental health and management, Yet even before college I was trained by a counseling center to faciltate Sensitivity Training groups. And while in school took advantage of learning to facilitate groups in the arena of psychodrama and substance abuse. I also obtained a diploma as a respiratory therapist to compliment my understanding of yoga which I studied under a teacher of the Natha tradition at age 14. I have spent thousands of hours researching "psychogogic" (growth inducing) methods including hypnosis, energy psychology, neuro-linguististics and kinesthestics, biofeedback techniques and several forms of meditation and energetic healing work.
A proponent of the Socratic method I have by invitation, team-taught philosophy as a life transforming journey in the Jr. Colledge evironment. I have co-faciltated relationship seminars with a marriage and family therapist and been mentored through the Forum leadership program. Trained as a paralegal and in mediation, I have served as a court mediator and was trained in spiritual guidance under the tutelage of a Catholic Priest as tertiary monk in the Order over a period of two years, functioning as a commisioned minister. I have served as volunteer on crisis hotlines and lived in monasteries and covenant community. My conventional work experience has usually been service oriented, gravitating towards management or training. I am a writer by avocation and conceive of my coaching role today as an interfaith ministry of service and teaching.
"Arjay"
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