Grief
James Finley (Part 2) – Sacred Psychotherapy: Bringing Depth and Spirit to Healing, Suffering, and Trauma
Ep. 109 (Part 2 of 2) | Dr. James Finley, clinical psychologist, trauma specialist, scholar, poet, and author of the powerful memoir, The Healing Path, has an extraordinary breadth and depth of understanding about trauma and the alchemical effects of adding a depth dimension to therapy. Here, he shares about his own experience of trauma and healing, the therapeutic effects of introducing the depth dimension to his clients, the dynamics of anger and forgiveness, the path of longing, and how love gives itself away in the preciousness of each moment, rendering ordinary life sacred. James’ profound understanding of grace is unmistakable, beautiful, riveting—both from personal experience and as a student of Thomas Merton, who introduced him to the wisdom of the mystics at the Trappist monastery, Gethsemani.
Practically everything James says is both a poem and a revelation, so whether you are Christian, Buddhist, or atheist, this conversation offers a therapeutic wisdom and understanding of trauma that goes way beyond the norm, as well as a transmission of infinite love, bottomless mercy. At the end, James laughs at how he is talking: “I can’t believe I’m talking like this…a traumatized kid from Akron, Ohio. It’s not coming from me; it’s flowing through me. All I’m doing is passing on what was passed on to me. So as it catches fire in you, it might pass through you into others.” Recorded August 17, 2023.
Read MoreJames Finley (Part 1) – Sacred Psychotherapy: Bringing Depth and Spirit to Healing, Suffering, and Trauma
Ep. 108 (Part 1 of 2) | Dr. James Finley, clinical psychologist, trauma specialist, scholar, poet, and author of the powerful memoir, The Healing Path, has an extraordinary breadth and depth of understanding about trauma and the alchemical effects of adding a depth dimension to therapy. Here, he shares about his own experience of trauma and healing, the therapeutic effects of introducing the depth dimension to his clients, the dynamics of anger and forgiveness, the path of longing, and how love gives itself away in the preciousness of each moment, rendering ordinary life sacred. James’ profound understanding of grace is unmistakable, beautiful, riveting—both from personal experience and as a student of Thomas Merton, who introduced him to the wisdom of the mystics at the Trappist monastery, Gethsemani.
Practically everything James says is both a poem and a revelation, so whether you are Christian, Buddhist, or atheist, this conversation offers a therapeutic wisdom and understanding of trauma that goes way beyond the norm, as well as a transmission of infinite love, bottomless mercy. At the end, James laughs at how he is talking: “I can’t believe I’m talking like this…a traumatized kid from Akron, Ohio. It’s not coming from me; it’s flowing through me. All I’m doing is passing on what was passed on to me. So as it catches fire in you, it might pass through you into others.” Recorded August 17, 2023.
Read MoreShachar Erez (Part 2) – Coping with the Horrors of War: An Israeli Therapist Shares the Agony, Grief & Uncertainty of Wartime, Insights on Alleviating Trauma, and the Grace of Integral-Spiritual Practice
Ep. 105 (Part 2 of 2) | Shachar Erez, longtime spiritual practitioner and integrally informed therapist in Israel, opens his heart, sharing his pain and overwhelming grief since the outbreak of war with Hamas and revealing another dimension of what’s going on than what we see in the news. It is a profound experience listening to a sensitive, compassionate person openly, honestly, courageously sharing what it feels like to be living with his family under threat of extreme violence, struggling to accept humanity as it is, working to help survivors reframe trauma to prevent PTSD, all amidst utter uncertainty as to the future of Israel and its people. Universal questions are raised: How to remain human in wartime? How is an ethical, spiritual, peaceful person to cope? Is there any hope for peace between Palestine and Israel? And, we are all broken—how do we accept the brokenness and continue to function?
The sustaining power of an integral-spiritual practice is clear—it is practice (intense workouts and meditation especially) that gets Shachar through and able to muster up the energy to help others, which in turn is so helpful to him. Shachar marvels at how sitting in the therapist’s chair allows him to embrace all that he hears—all the realities, all the horrors—when if he heard it on the news, he couldn’t take it. As a therapist, Shachar is very much thinking ahead to the near unimaginable challenge of helping all the people who are hurt by this war, in Gaza and in Israel, after the fighting stops. “How do you find a shrink for 12 million people?” he asks, adding, “This should be an awakening all over the Western world—people should not be living in fear like this in 2023.” Recorded November 1, 2023.
Read MoreShachar Erez (Part 1) – Coping with the Horrors of War: An Israeli Therapist Shares the Agony, Grief & Uncertainty of Wartime, Insights on Alleviating Trauma, and the Grace of Integral-Spiritual Practice
Ep. 104 (Part 1 of 2) | Shachar Erez, longtime spiritual practitioner and integrally informed therapist in Israel, opens his heart, sharing his pain and overwhelming grief since the outbreak of war with Hamas and revealing another dimension of what’s going on than what we see in the news. It is a profound experience listening to a sensitive, compassionate person openly, honestly, courageously sharing what it feels like to be living with his family under threat of extreme violence, struggling to accept humanity as it is, working to help survivors reframe trauma to prevent PTSD, all amidst utter uncertainty as to the future of Israel and its people. Universal questions are raised: How to remain human in wartime? How is an ethical, spiritual, peaceful person to cope? Is there any hope for peace between Palestine and Israel? And, we are all broken—how do we accept the brokenness and continue to function?
The sustaining power of an integral-spiritual practice is clear—it is practice (intense workouts and meditation especially) that gets Shachar through and able to muster up the energy to help others, which in turn is so helpful to him. Shachar marvels at how sitting in the therapist’s chair allows him to embrace all that he hears—all the realities, all the horrors—when if he heard it on the news, he couldn’t take it. As a therapist, Shachar is very much thinking ahead to the near unimaginable challenge of helping all the people who are hurt by this war, in Gaza and in Israel, after the fighting stops. “How do you find a shrink for 12 million people?” he asks, adding, “This should be an awakening all over the Western world—people should not be living in fear like this in 2023.” Recorded November 1, 2023.
Read MoreTyson Yunkaporta (Part 2) – Indigenous Knowledge & the Web of Life: Living & Learning in Times of Crisis, Recognizing our Relatedness, Healing Grief & Mental Illness, Sharing Healing Stories & Sustaining Hope
Ep. 103 (Part 2 of 2) | “What if I lean into the pain and come out the other side and survive it—and what if I take you with me, as the reader, and together we deal with our pain?” asks Tyson Yunkaporta, author, senior research fellow, founder of the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab. Tyson embodies this era of metacrisis, actively working with the global issues of our time in his work and in his personal life. His books are paradigm rattling and his whole life is a contribution—bringing forth ways in which Aboriginal Indigenous knowledge can help us, stating the need to find a collective narrative we can all agree on in order to survive, expressing himself with utter authenticity, and pointing out emphatically that each one of us is a web of relations, and that’s what matters most.
In his own uniquely raw, unguarded, authentic (and funny) way, Tyson describes his personal challenges with mental health and bipolar disorder and the states of mind he was in when he wrote his two books. Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World, was written in just weeks while manic. In dramatic contrast, Right Story, Wrong Story: Adventures in Indigenous Thinking was written while wrestling with depression. Tyson talks about disinformation and how we collectively need to get to the “right story;” about Aboriginal culture and what it means to be living in a colony; the amazing psycho-technologies Aboriginals have to deal with grief; the radicalization and polarization exacerbated by COVID lockdowns in Australia; the similarity between Indigenous knowledge and the scientific method; the sacredness of magic and how this cannot be scaled. Tyson is a window into Aboriginal Indigenous knowledge and a brilliant translator of that wisdom for the rest of us. Recorded September 21, 2023.
Read MoreTyson Yunkaporta (Part 1) – Indigenous Knowledge & the Web of Life: Living & Learning in Times of Crisis, Recognizing our Relatedness, Healing Grief & Mental Illness, Sharing Healing Stories & Sustaining Hope
Ep. 102 (Part 1 of 2) | “What if I lean into the pain and come out the other side and survive it—and what if I take you with me, as the reader, and together we deal with our pain?” asks Tyson Yunkaporta, author, senior research fellow, founder of the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab. Tyson embodies this era of metacrisis, actively working with the global issues of our time in his work and in his personal life. His books are paradigm rattling and his whole life is a contribution—bringing forth ways in which Aboriginal Indigenous knowledge can help us, stating the need to find a collective narrative we can all agree on in order to survive, expressing himself with utter authenticity, and pointing out emphatically that each one of us is a web of relations, and that’s what matters most.
In his own uniquely raw, unguarded, authentic (and funny) way, Tyson describes his personal challenges with mental health and bipolar disorder and the states of mind he was in when he wrote his two books. Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World, was written in just weeks while manic. In dramatic contrast, Right Story, Wrong Story: Adventures in Indigenous Thinking was written while wrestling with depression. Tyson talks about disinformation and how we collectively need to get to the “right story;” about Aboriginal culture and what it means to be living in a colony; the amazing psycho-technologies Aboriginals have to deal with grief; the radicalization and polarization exacerbated by COVID lockdowns in Australia; the similarity between Indigenous knowledge and the scientific method; the sacredness of magic and how this cannot be scaled. Tyson is a window into Aboriginal Indigenous knowledge and a brilliant translator of that wisdom for the rest of us. Recorded September 21, 2023.
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