MY WORK ... MY PASSION

• Certified Transpersonal Hypnotherapist ; Past experiences: Dream Analysis /10 Years Experience •Psychotherapist / Use of Gestalt, Jungian, Zen, Reality and Energy Therapies /10 Years Experience •EMDR • Men and Their Journey: the neuroscience of the male brain, and the implications in sexuality, education and relationship • Women: Their Transformation and Empowerment ATOD (Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs) / 21 years experience •Ordained Interfaith Minister & Official Celebrant • Social Justice Advocate • Child and Human Rights Advocate • Spiritual Guide and Intuitive • Certified Reiki Practitioner • Mediation / Conflict Resolution • “Intentional Love” Parenting Strategy Groups • Parenting Workshops • Coaching for parents of Indigo, Crystal, and Rainbow Children • International Training: Israel & England • Critical Incident Stress Debriefing • Post-911 and Post-Katrina volunteer

MSW - UNC Chapel Hill

BSW - UNC Greensboro


With immense love I wish Happy Birthday to my three grandchildren!

May 22: Brannock

May 30: Brinkley

June 12: Brogan

All three have birthdays in the same 22 days of the year ....what a busy time for the family!

"An Unending Love"

This blog and video is devoted and dedicated to my precious daughter Jennifer, my grand daughters Brogan and Brinkley, and my grand son Brannock. They are hearts of my heart. Our connection through many lives..... is utterly infinite.




The Definition of Genius

"THRIVE"

https://youtu.be/Lr-RoQ24lLg

"ONLY LOVE PREVAILS" ...."I've loved you for a thousand years; I'll love you for a thousand more....."


As we are in the winter of our lives, I dedicate this to Andrew, Dr. John J.C. Jr. and Gary W., MD, (who has gone on before us). My love and admiration is unfathomable for each of you..........and what you have brought into this world.....so profoundly to me.
The metaphors are rich and provocative; we're in them now. This world is indeed disappearing, and the richest eternal world awaits us!
The intensity, as was in each of the three of us, is in yellow!
In my heart forever.........

Slowly the truth is loading
I'm weighted down with love
Snow lying deep and even
Strung out and dreaming of
Night falling on the city
Quite something to behold
Don't it just look so pretty
This disappearing world

We're threading hope like fire

Down through the desperate blood
Down through the trailing wire
Into the leafless wood

Night falling on the city
Quite something to behold
Don't it just look so pretty
This disappearing world
This disappearing world


I'll be sticking right there with it
I'll be by y
our side
Sailing like a silver bullet
Hit 'em 'tween the eyes
Through the smoke and rising water
Cross the great divide
Baby till it all feels right

Night falling on the city
Sparkling red and gold
Don't it just look so pretty
This disappearing world
This
disappearing world
This disappearing world
This disappearing world


TECHNOLOGY..........

In “Conversations with God”, by Neale Donald Walsch, there is a warning I think of. I refer to it as the Atlantis passage, and I've quoted it a few times before." As I have said, this isn't the first time your civilization has been at this brink,"

God tells Walsch. "I want to repeat this, because it is vital that you hear this. Once before on your planet, the technology you developed was far greater than your ability to use it responsibly. You are approaching the same point in human history again. It is vitally important that you understand this. Your present technology is threatening to outstrip your ability to use it wisely. Your society is on the verge of becoming a product of your technology rather than your technology being a product of your society. When a society becomes a product of its own technology, it destroys itself."

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Jeff Brown: "The Awakening Man"


APRIL 28

A former criminal lawyer and psychotherapist, Jeff Brown is the author of “Soulshaping: A Journey of Self-Creation,” recently published by North Atlantic Books. Endorsed by authors Elizabeth Lesser and Ram Dass, “Soulshaping” is Brown’s autobiography – an inner travelogue of his journey from archetypal male warrior to a more surrendered path. He is also the author of “Apologies to the Divine Feminine (from a warrior in transition). You can connect with his work at www.soulshaping.com. 

The Awakening Man: A Portrait of Possibility For Humankind

By Jeff Brown
Originally posted June 30, 2011
http://soulshaping.com/?tag=awakened-man
The awakening man is conscious, heartfully defined.
Through his eyes, being conscious is not a cerebral construct, nor an intellectual exercise bereft of feeling.
It is a felt experience, an ever-expanding awareness that moves from the heart outward.
It is feeling God, not thinking God.
The new man is always in process, awakening through a deepening interface with the world of feeling.
He continues to strive for a more heartfelt and inclusive awareness. The awakening man has shifted his focus from a localized and ethnocentric perspective to a world-centric framework of perception.
His community is humanity. Rooted in the relational, his sense of responsibility extends well beyond his localized self and community. Where possible, his choice-making is fuelled by an expansive vision of possibility for all of humankind.
Not every man for himself, but every man for humanity.
The awakening man has reverence for the divine feminine, in all her forms. He celebrates the wonder that is woman. He is respectful, honouring and gracious. He is saddened by the horrors perpetuated against women by the malevolent masculine. He holds his brothers accountable.
He makes amends for his own misdeeds. He co-creates a world where all women will feel safe to move about freely, to find their voice, to actualize their inherent magnificence. He welcomes a world where women and men stand as equal partners. Humankind.
The awakening man is not externally derived. He is authentically sourced. He does not compare himself to others. He does not adapt his personality to the dictates of the crowd. He stands in his own centre, respectful of others but not defined by them. He works diligently to liberate his consciousness from the egoic ties that bind. He has become his own benchmark, valuing authenticity over image. He is the sculptor of his own reality.
The awakening man courageously works on his emotional processes. He clears his emotional debris and sheds his armour. He faces his issues and unconscious patterns heart on. He calls himself on his self-avoidant tendencies and honours the wisdom at the heart of his pain. He communicates his feelings in a way that is respectful to others.
He learns and speaks the language of the heart.
The awakening man leads a purpose-full existence. He has heard the call to a deeper life. Not satisfied with survival alone, his ambitions are rooted in higher considerations- the excavation and actualization of his sacred purpose. He is energized by his purpose, not by the machinations of the unhealthy ego. He is coated in an authenticity of purpose that sees through the veils to what really matters. His purpose is his path.
The awakening man is accountable for his actions and their effects. He does not deflect responsibility. He does not sidestep or blame. He is self-admitting and emotionally honest. He admits his errors, and makes amends. He works diligently in the deep within, crafting a more clarified awareness with every lesson.
The awakening man moves from the inside out. More interested in inner expansion than outer achievement, he cultivates and honours his intuition. He explores and develops his inner geography. He adventures deep within, integrating the treasures he excavates into his way of being. He seeks congruity between his inner life and his outer manifestation.
The awakening man seeks wholeness. He is not satisfied with a fragmented way of being. He has no attachment to archaic, linear notions of masculinity. He seeks a sacred balance between the healthy masculine and the healthy feminine. He seeks an inclusive way of being, one that reflects all of his archetypal aspects. He is role flexible, comfortable moving through life in many different ways.
The awakening man embodies the highest standard of integrity in his words and deeds. He makes a sustained effort to work through anything that is not integrity within him. His framework of integrity is never convenient or self-serving. He honours his word, even at his own expense. He moves from a value system that is unwaveringly incorruptible. He recognizes that success without integrity is karmically unsound and meaningless.
The awakening man prioritizes conscious relationship. He values authentic co-creation. He honours relationship as spiritual practice. He seeks physical intimacy that is deeply vulnerable and heartfully connective. He is attuned, engaged and healthily boundaried. When relational challenges arise, he courageously works through any obstructions to intimacy.
He stands in the heartfire.
The awakening man is a warrior of the heart. He has taken his clarifying sword inward, cutting away everything that is not compassionate. After too many lifetimes with weapon in hand, a benevolent warrior is being birthed at the core of his being. He honours the warrior capacity for assertiveness, but he is not arbitrarily aggressive. He moves from love and compassion.
The awakening man endeavours to live in a state of perpetual gratitude. He is grateful for the gift of life. He is grateful for those ancestors who built the foundation that his expansion relies upon. He is grateful for those who encouraged him before he could encourage himself. He is grateful for those who stand beside him in this lifetime. He knows that he does not stand alone.
The awakening man is comfortable in his vulnerability. He participates in his own revealing. He is not afraid to surrender- to reality, to love, to truth. This is not a weakened form of surrender, but one that is emblazoned with courage. It takes more courage to surrender than to numb. He openly explores his capacities for receptivity and tenderness. He does not identify these capacities as distinctly feminine, but as whole human. He is strong enough at the core to live in a vast array of emotions.
The awakening man moves through the marketplace responsibly, with a vigilant eye to the ways of the unhealthy ego. He is not opportunistic in a vacuum. He does not compete for competition’s sake. He does not accumulate for the sake of accumulation. In charting his course, he is mindful of his impact on humanity. He is empowered but he does not exploit power. He derives his power from his connection to source, not from power over others. Where possible, he shares the abundance, gifting back to humanity. He works hard to bridge the world as it is with a world of divine possibility.
The awakening man has reverence for Mother Earth. He has reverence for animals. He never imagines himself superior or distinct from the natural world. He understands the interconnected and interdependent nature of reality. He knows that if he does damage to the environment, he does damage to himself. He walks carefully, with awareness, consciousness and appreciation.
The awakening man has no claims on God. His spirituality is tolerant, inclusive, respectful. He honours all paths to God, so long they are respectful of others. He accepts those who believe, and those who don’t. He condemns any path that uses religious differences as a justification for destruction.
The awakening man brings forward many of the qualities of the healthy masculine of old. He is noble. He is responsible. He is productive. He is kind-hearted. He is protective. He is unswervingly honourable. He is down to earth. He is sturdy. He is flexible. He is realistic. He is hopeful. He is sensitive, not fragile. He is healthily egoic, not self-centred. He is both practical and heightened at the same time. He ascends with both feet on the ground.
He is really here.


Monday, May 7, 2012

America’s idiot rich / Salon


Some unknown but alarming number of ultra-rich Americans are now basically totally delusional and completely divorced from reality. This is now an inescapable fact, confirmed by multiple media accounts of billionaire thought and an entire special issue of the New York Times Magazine.
Here’s a brief list of insane things that are apparently common knowledge among the billionaire class:

CONTINUE READING: America’s idiot rich

Sunday, May 6, 2012

The Polar Opposite of Self-Awareness: Image Management

For anyone aspiring to the insights and hard-core lessons of a spiritual path ... this is indeed a provocative article.  It surely stares down deep into our psyches and shadow, and brings light to the darkness.  For those courageous enough, continue reading:   

CLICK HERE: The Polar Opposite of Self-Awareness: Image Management

A Closer Look At The Secret Service « Speak Easy/Alternet

Now the government is saying that the Cartagena hijinks were an aberration. Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano assured the Senate Judiciary Committee last week that the Secret Service’s Office of Professional Responsibility had received zero complaints of agent misconduct in the last two and a half years. That means total good behavior in roughly 900 foreign and 13,000 domestic trips.
But here’s the problem: it’s the Secret Service assuring us that the Secret Service is squeaky clean.......

CONTINUE READING: A Closer Look At The Secret Service « SpeakEasy

"Ode to Your Dark Side" ~ Lauren Zander/Huffington Post


Guess what? You have a dark side. Everyone has a dark side. And that dark side is talking to you and filling your head with nasty, mean, dark thoughts on a daily basis. Are you surprised? Most people are.
Whenever I mention this to clients, I get the same response, "Huh? Whatta you mean? Me? Dark side?" Well, I'm here to tell you that you do have a dark side and it's powerful. It will stop you in your life unless you acknowledge it, put language to it and ultimately laugh at it.
What exactly is your dark side? It is the voice of "the Seven Deadly Sins" we've all heard of, or that little devil who sits on your shoulder. It says mean, horrible things to you about yourself and other people that you would never say out loud, because you would be ashamed, embarrassed or afraid you'd get in trouble. What's actually dangerous is that these thoughts fly around in your head as if they were the truth, when you actually don't even know if you agree or believe them.
Most people don't want to acknowledge this darkness, so instead they pretend it doesn't exist. I promise you, you've met your dark side and heard it speak. When you walk down the street and say mean things in your head about people walking past, calling them fat, ugly, lame, stupid or whatever pops into your head, that is your dark side at work. Part of you snickers at those mean thoughts and part of you recognizes that they are dark and twisted. Instead of owning dark thoughts, most people hide them, which ultimately gives their dark side all the power. Until you expose it, understand it and own it, your dark side will own YOU.
Your dark side is also the voice that keeps your vices going. It tells you to have another drink, smoke the cigarette and play another hand of Black Jack. It's the voice that has you go underground and hide any behavior of which you're ashamed, like secretly eating a box of cookies in the middle of the night or pretending to be working when you're actually watching porn. Your dark side likes to stay hidden, but owning and exposing your dark side releases the power it holds over you.

Steps to Owning Your Dark Side

1) Admit it. 
You have a dark side. Acknowledge it and say it out loud. There is nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone has one.
2) Listen to it. 
Pay attention to your dark side. What mean things does it say about you? What mean things does it say about other people?
3) Understand it. 
How does your dark side work? How does it talk to you? What does it want you to do? Smoke? Party? Overeat? How do you let it get away with things? How do you let it run your life? Know your dark side.
4) Share it. 
Tell people about your dark side. It's normal. Everyone has their own version. Stop hiding it. Expose it. Once you share it with people, it stops having power over you. In sharing, you'll not only find out you're not alone, but you'll also have a good laugh with someone about theirs, too!
5) Laugh at it. 
Have a sense of humor about your dark side. Make fun of it. When you bring humor to your dark side, it isn't dark anymore.
6) Nickname it.
Give your dark side a funny nickname. (ie: Mean Charley, Sassy Susan, Igor, Nurse Ratchet, etc.) Make it a good one and share it with all your friends. When you give your dark side a nickname, it dismantles the significance of it.
7) Write a letter to it.
Talk to your dark side. Engage with it and say everything you need to say to it. Writing the letter helps you realize that you are in a relationship with your dark side. We think we're only able to have relationships with people, but we actually have relationships with many things. Your dark side is impacting your life. Understand this relationship and take control of it.
8) Make Promises & Implement Consequences.
Put in promises to stop your dark side so it cannot stop YOU any longer. My dark side is still hurt and mad at people from long ago. It wants me to play the mean conversations over and over again in my head. I've made these thoughts ILLEGAL for me. What I mean by illegal is that if I don't stop my dark side's internal discussion of past betrayal in less than 30 seconds, I have a consequence. Designing a consequence will help you keep your promises and ultimately muzzle your dark side. If I listen to my dark side and break my promise, my consequence is I have to throw $10 onto the street immediately. It totally works and stops my dark side in its tracks.
You are capable of dismantling your dark side. Remember this? There is a scene in the movie The Wizard of Oz that truly captures how the mysteriousness of your dark side can disappear within moments. When Dorothy and her gang arrive in Oz to see the almighty Wizard, they believe he is a scary, powerful force. But when the curtain is pulled back and he's exposed as an old man moving levers behind a curtain, everything falls apart. That's how it is with your dark side.
Once you acknowledge it, expose it and laugh at it, you will see it's not powerful at all. Your dark side is just a scared old man fumbling behind a curtain. You're the one giving it all the power and can just as easily take it away!

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

6 Kinds of Pills Big Pharma Tries to Get You Hooked on for Life | Personal Health | AlterNet

Why has Big Pharma failed to produce new antibiotics for deadly infections like MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), VRE (vancomycin-resistant enterococci), C. Difficile and Acinetobacter baumannii even as they leap from hospital to community settings? Because there is no money in it.



CONTINUE READING: 6 Kinds of Pills Big Pharma Tries to Get You Hooked on for Life | Personal Health | AlterNet

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

How Psychedelic Drugs Can Help Patients Face Death ~ New York Times



Pam Sakuda was 55 when she found out she was dying. Shortly after having a tumor removed from her colon, she heard the doctor’s dreaded words: Stage 4; metastatic. Sakuda was given 6 to 14 months to live. Determined to slow her disease’s insidious course, she ran several miles every day, even during her grueling treatment regimens. By nature upbeat, articulate and dignified, Sakuda — who died in November 2006, outlasting everyone’s expectations by living for four years — was alarmed when anxiety and depression came to claim her after she passed the 14-month mark, her days darkening as she grew closer to her biological demise. Norbert Litzinger, Sakuda’s husband, explained it this way: “When you pass your own death sentence by, you start to wonder: WhenWhen? It got to the point where we couldn’t make even the most mundane plans, because we didn’t know if Pam would still be alive at that time — a concert, dinner with friends; would she still be here for that?” When came to claim the couple’s life completely, their anxiety building as they waited for the final day.

A Brief History of LSD

Readers’ Comments

Readers shared their thoughts on this article.
As her fears intensified, Sakuda learned of a study being conducted by Charles Grob, a psychiatrist and researcher at Harbor-U.C.L.A. Medical Center who was administering psilocybin — an active component of magic mushrooms — to end-stage cancer patients to see if it could reduce their fear of death. Twenty-two months before she died, Sakuda became one of Grob’s 12 subjects. When the research was completed in 2008 — (and published in the Archives of General Psychiatry last year) — the results showed that administering psilocybin to terminally ill subjects could be done safely while reducing the subjects’ anxiety and depression about their impending deaths.
Grob’s interest in the power of psychedelics to mitigate mortality’s sting is not just the obsession of one lone researcher. Dr. John Halpern, head of the Laboratory for Integrative Psychiatry at McLean Hospital in Belmont Mass., a psychiatric training hospital for Harvard Medical School, used MDMA — also known as ecstasy — in an effort to ease end-of-life anxieties in two patients with Stage 4 cancer. And there are two ongoing studies using psilocybin with terminal patients, one at New York University’s medical school, led by Stephen Ross, and another at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, where Roland Griffiths has administered psilocybin to 22 cancer patients and is aiming for a sample size of 44. “This research is in its very early stages,” Grob told me earlier this month, “but we’re getting consistently good results.”
Grob and his colleagues are part of a resurgence of scientific interest in the healing power of psychedelics. Michael Mithoefer, for instance, has shown that MDMA is an effective treatment for severe P.T.S.D. Halpern has examined case studies of people with cluster headaches who took LSD and reported their symptoms greatly diminished. And psychedelics have been recently examined as treatment for alcoholism and other addictions.
Despite the promise of these investigations, Grob and other end-of-life researchers are careful about the image they cultivate, distancing themselves as much as possible from the 1960s, when psychedelics were embraced by many and used in a host of controversial studies, most famously the psilocybin project run by Timothy Leary. Grob described the rampant drug use that characterized the ’60s as “out of control” and said of his and others’ current research, “We are trying to stay under the radar. We want to be anti-Leary.” Halpern agreed. “We are serious sober scientists,” he told me.
Sakuda’s terminal diagnosis, combined with her otherwise perfect health, made her an ideal subject for Grob’s study. Beginning in January 2005, Grob and his research team gave Sakuda various psychological tests, including the Beck Depression Inventory and the Stai-Y anxiety scale to establish baseline measures of Sakuda’s psychological state and to rule out any severe psychiatric illness. “We wanted psychologically healthy people,” Grob says, “people whose depressions and anxieties are not the result of mental illness” but rather, he explained, a response to a devastating disease.
Sakuda would take part in two sessions, one with psilocybin, one with niacin, an active placebo that can cause some flushing in the face. The study was double blind, which meant that neither the researchers nor the subjects knew what was in the capsules being administered. On the day of her first session, Sakuda was led into a room that researchers had transformed with flowing fabrics and fresh flowers to help create a soothing environment in an otherwise cold hospital setting. Sakuda swallowed a capsule and lay back on the bed to wait. Grob had invited her — as researchers do with all their subjects — to bring objects from home that had special significance. “These objects often personalize the session room for the volunteer and often prompt the patient to think about loved ones or important life events,” Roland Griffiths, of Johns Hopkins, says.
“I think it’s kind of goofy,” Halpern says, “but the thinking is that with the aid of the psychedelic, you may come to see the object in a different light. It may help bring back memories; it promotes introspection, it can be a touchstone, it can be grounding.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: April 22, 2012
An article on Page 56 this weekend about the use of psychedelic drugs as part of the treatment for patients with terminal diseases misspells, in two instances, the surname of a cancer patient who was given one of them, psilocybin. As the article correctly notes elsewhere, she was Pam Sakuda, not Saduka. And an earlier version of this correction misspelled psilocybin as psylocybin.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Not so Secret Service: A column about responsibility and morality..by Cal Thomas

Boys will be boys, but men should be men; real men, not "Mad Men," or the promiscuous men lauded in "men's" magazine that are always on the prowl for new conquests. I'm speaking about men of honor and integrity who are the same in the dark as they are in the light........


CONTINUE READING: Not so Secret Service

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Conservative Politics, 'Low-Effort' Thinking Linked in New Study / Huffington Post / David Freeman

The Huffington Post  |  By  
Posted: 04/ 9/2012 10:44 am Updated: 04/ 9/2012 2:16 pm
Conservatives Lowthought
Conservatives and liberals don't seem to agree about much, and they might not agree about recent studies linking conservatism to low intelligence and "low-effort" thinking.
As The Huffington Post reported in February, a study published in the journal "Psychological Science" showed that children who score low on intelligence tests gravitate toward socially conservative political views in adulthood--perhaps because conservative ideologies stress "structure and order" that make it easier to understand a complicated world.
Ouch.
And now there's the new study linking conservative ideologies to "low-effort" thinking.
"People endorse conservative ideology more when they have to give a first or fast response," the study's lead author, University of Arkansas psychologist Dr. Scott Eidelman, said in a written statement released by the university.
Does the finding suggest that conservatives are lazy thinkers?
"Not quite," Dr. Eidelman told The Huffington Post in an email. "Our research shows that low-effort thought promotes political conservatism, not that political conservatives use low-effort thinking."
For the study, a team of psychologists led by Dr. Eidelman asked people about their political viewpoints in a bar and in a laboratory setting.
Bar patrons were asked about social issues before blowing into a Breathalyzer. As it turned out, the political viewpoints of patrons with high blood alcohol levels were more likely to be conservative than were those of patrons whose blood alcohol levels were low.
But it wasn't just the alcohol talking, according to the statement. When the researchers conducted similar interviews in the lab, they found that people who were asked to evaluate political ideas quickly or while distracted were more likely to express conservative viewpoints.
"Keeping people from thinking too much...or just asking them to deliberate or consider information in a cursory manner can impact people's political attitudes, and in a way that consistently promotes political conservatism," Dr. Eidelman said in the email.
The study was published online in the journal "Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin."
What do you think? Are conservatives less intelligent than liberals--or more intelligent? And is conservatism a matter of lazy thinking?

Monday, April 9, 2012

The Science of Fox News: Why Its Viewers are the Most Misinformed | Media | AlterNet

Authoritarian people have a stronger emotional need for an outlet like Fox, where they can find affirmation and escape factual challenges to their beliefs.

Photo Credit: ShutterStock.com
In June of last year, Jon Stewart went on air with Fox News’ Chris Wallace and started a major media controversy over the channel’s misinforming of its viewers. “Who are the most consistently misinformed media viewers?” Stewart asked Wallace. “The most consistently misinformed? Fox, Fox viewers, consistently, every poll.”Editor's note: This is an excerpt from Chris Mooney’s new bookThe Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science and Reality.
Stewart’s statement .....



READ MORE: The Science of Fox News: Why Its Viewers are the Most Misinformed | Media | AlterNet

"there were no words, but images flooded every cell in her being ...4 and a half decades!"

"there were no words, but images flooded every cell in her being ...4 and a half decades!"