Summer Gratitude as Everything Shifts

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On page 19 of my book Ritual As Resource I shared my “Mary Ritual” as the book’s first example of bringing “resource” to an opposite energy (or experience). I described her then (and still do) as: “a friend I’ve known and loved for over twenty years. More pertinent is that I know and deeply feel that Mary loves me unconditionally: In her eyes, I can do absolutely nothing wrong. It’s like having the perfect protective encapsulation of love.” Since my last blog, I’ve been witnessing and experiencing Mary’s last days on the physical plane as a true Earth Mother. Equally challenging is watching my best friend John courageously show-up as her primary care-partner. Additionally, aside from the complex tragedies abounding everywhere, my dear niece and goddaughter is undergoing breast cancer treatment and a bevy of other tough life challenges. Mary, John and Deb inspire me. None of them are complaining.  In the best ways possible, they express gratitude in their words and demeanor.

 In Alberto Villoldo’s book Courageous Dreaming he defines: “Gratitude, the feeling that we are blessed, helps us to stop being enslaved to our to-do lists and remember why we came here: to love, to learn, to grow, to discover what we can do to participate in the unfolding work called creation…with boldness and originality.”  Feeling “blessed” is something I can tap into during my current personal and professional experiences and challenges. I am amazed to feel blessed in a life filled with tragic losses and serious illnesses. These perspectives continue to humble and strengthen me as I am blessed at the same time. I am also grateful to be a part and parcel of “The Seismic Shift” that is presently occurring in the human experience. 

In the June issue of Spirituality & Health Magazine Paul H. Sutherland writes: “The change that is underway is profound and will seem to most to be revolutionary. What is this shift? The historic paradigm that our self-worth comes from what we own is ending. We’re moving away from valuing multiple cars, multiple televisions, plastic surgeries and saving little. The shift will underscore the false consumption-orientation economy that we in the West think is the key to prosperity and happiness. Finally, it is sinking into our collective head that our borrow/spend behavior does not make us happy.”  We are observing that a good resonant connection with nature, art, friends, family and the world as well as our Self (in the unfolding work of creation) can make us happy. Now, if we can only create the shared intention to organically evolve and share additional methods to support this shift while also focusing on reducing suffering and supporting possibility, we would have done our part to serve humanity.

My friend Mickey Lubell visited recently and shared three simple questions he uses, he has them posted on his computer monitor as a reminder to support the shifts I’m alluding to: 1) Is what I’m saying loving or respectful? 2) Does it need to be said? 3) Is it true? Initially, this struck me as utterly simple. Yet, when I practiced it myself, it improved my phrasing and communication became more impeccable and created space for other possibilities.  Simple as it is, it is also a practice.

A quick update from last entry: The move to the new practice space went as graceful as possible due to the wonderful help I received. I’m pleased in the newly emerging vibe of my new digs as I begin to feel more settled. It’s a perfect place to comfortably evolve my practice and art. Somewhat coincidentally, the two spring 10-week Focalizing groups I ran ended in the new space in very beautiful ways.

If I can be helpful, I have available time this summer for 1-1, couples, or other facilitation and focalizing.

To a grateful summer!

“The Times They are A-Changin"

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I have always loved the iconic ’60s song written by Bob Dylan. I had the privilege of observing fundamental revolutions happen then, and as I find myself reflecting on Dylan’s lyrics, I become deeply grateful to be partaking yet again in his visionary wisdom. Transformations happening now are even greater in their intrinsic global connection that is tangible.  They are noticeable not only in the media, but also in a felt awareness, and are challenging for all of us. 

It’s been a whirlwind six weeks since my last entry.  I’m heeding an inner calling to move my practice to a quieter, more intimate refuge for healing.  After 15 years serving me and my clients well, I will be leaving my Fifth Avenue professional space. So, it’s “good-bye” to the hubbub of commercial real estate, and “hello” to a quieter, tree lined setting for a very private space. Like any big move or change, it has been quite consuming, and I want everything to be as gracious and welcoming as circumstances allow. 

Additionally during this time I’ve been leading two 10-week experiential courses called Focalizing Through Tough Times: Reinventing Ourselves Naturally.  We are entering our 8th session of an amazing personal and communal journey, exploring transpersonal realms of learning from a future that wants to emerge through us.  The nine points of the Focalizing Star Image have come alive for each of us in very unique ways as we have listened to one another’s sorrows, joys and challenges from a larger shared reality. We’ve learned about Conscious Courage and the cherished treasures we tend to overlook because of our conditioning. When we begin to tame the guard dogs that protect our blind spots, it allows us to be more open to the inherent voices of nature.  Then, these treasures can become resources for scaling the changing times as we allow them  to emerge and have flexibility to access them. We’ve noticed that there can be a loving space between our nervous system activation and a more soothing regulation. This is a subtle, yet powerful new awareness for many, as is discovering consenting to what is can be a path to serenity and a more informed energy flow. We have just begun to explore how to “crystallize” and “prototype” the future wanting to emerge through us, thereby providing some next “landing strips” for these mind-blowing evolutionary times.

I’m very excited to experience a landing with my students as our final gathering in this series will serendipitously be held in my newly transformed practice milieu.  This series, along with my ongoing studies, will inform two larger Fall Focalizing Courses beginning in September.

Stay tuned and join us on our ongoing journey to wholeness!

Additional Currency for our Times

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Joyous spring!

Since October, my world has been deeply impacted by the confusion and suffering stirred up by worldwide economic insecurities and the resultant rapid shifts in experience and perceptions. Everything is affected, and the intricate web of life is being felt more intensely in our day to day existence. If it feels like chaos that is because it likely is! On the other hand, we also seem to be creating a larger and more informed space and context for the resolutions of our personal and cultural “stuckness.”

I noticed a profound inner shift in myself recently and it came out of my own Focalizing practice. In all this, I realized that my primary currency for living life is transforming. I have been slowly observing this and watching how it is gradually manifesting in physical reality and the insights as they are reflected back to me.

It was only after this shift that I recognized that this currency manifested in the outer shapes and forms of life, namely my finances and other physical realities. I like to think of myself as a generous, big-hearted guy but I have always felt a deep need to being able to survive. Yet it came as a surprise to me that my system has been focused and anxious about financial security and physical realities. Not so odd, I guess, but compared to the “felt awareness” (as solid as a rock in physical reality) a new clarity is emerging. My renewed currency is about deepening my caring connection with others and myself and the sustainability of all that this entails. It’s all about the unseen tangible good feeling that comes from caring actions, both given and received. It is that place where the formless becomes form, and where felt and unseen realities morph into the physical. I have not given up my love for cool material things like my Mac—this love has simply been rearranged in the order of my conscious priorities. The former now takes a far junior role to this deeper connection with others and the nature that I emerge from.

It now seems that all my personal and client encounters are even deeper and more mutually gratifying than before. I am continuing to learn from this, and was delighted to get a synchronistic email from a participant in the “Focalizing Tough Times” groups that are presently under way. He wrote: “My experience in group today was profound. I came into the room with my feelings of restlessness and immediately felt that drop out of my head and into my gut where that energy could be dealt with. The other thing is my sense that this economic realignment is about connecting in more genuine and authentic ways that look externally like less income but the universe may be aligning itself in such a way that we may all make less, have less but live more. Could be quite nice.”

Yes, a tipping-point shift from “growth & more” to “caring, respectful sustainability” of the shared spirit that makes life worth living “could be quite nice.” I sense that this is already happening and invite others to join with me and share resonance and experience.

I feel privileged to be on the edge of a personal and global transformation that appears to be quietly unfolding in and around us. If my readers have an interest in exploring these sensibilities explore my web site Resource Links & Books and join the fall Focalizing Workshops which will soon be posted on this site. Contact me directly to explore if you could use more personal and 1:1 facilitation!

Thanks for sharing the journey!

Inspired Visions

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Happy 70th Birthday

Roshi Bernie Glassman

A long-time friend and teacher, Roshi Bernie Glassman continues to inspire and guide us about Not Knowing (suspending certainty & preconceived ideas); Bearing Witness (to the joy & suffering in the world—listening deeply to the situation, to discover what, or even if, action is warranted); and Loving Action (when warranted, healing our self and others). These tenets of Not Knowing, Bearing Witness & Loving Action have become my cogent guidelines for navigating the many present personal and global uncertainties I and my clients are dealing with. On the fun side, we, with others, will celebrate Bernie’s 70th Birthday on March 12 in NYC at his favorite pizza parlor near Columbia University.

After a nasty bout with bronchitis and my back going out of whack in February, I had to cancel my participation in a Focusing Institute weekend event at The Garrison Institute, a community learning process I was really looking forward to. Inspired by tenets, and taking loving action, I was able to let go and make peace with myself for missing an event I wanted so much to be a part of.

Recently while on the mend, I addressed a large cluster of Robert Wood Johnson grantees in The Network for the Improvement of Addiction Treatment (NIATx), a $13 million grant project for advancing recovery operated out of the University of Wisconsin. It was an honor to speak with such committed front-line individuals improving the “continuing recovery” needs for individuals and families with science-based research. Then excitedly, two days later I began my participation in a virtual global classroom of 160 participants from 28 countries learning more about removing the cultural blind spot that inhibits nature’s voice in helping us to resolve conflict. This online class with Otto Scharmer (senior MIT faculty and author of Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges) and organized by The Presencing Institute helps me stay attuned to this applied research that I’ve been tracking and integrating for over five years. It is a very powerful and gentle (perhaps, even pleasurable) present and future orientation to move with.

On February 12th I presented at The Open Center and the results and feedback were deeply gratifying, professionally and personally (including one participant sharing “this was the first time I truly felt connected to everyone and every thing. It was a powerful felt awareness”). In less than 90 minutes, I was able to produce an experiential “Introduction to Focalizing: Solutions to Real Life Challenges.” This presentation made me very excited about the two 10-week small Focalizing groups I’ll be starting later this month.

As mentioned in previous entries, I’ve joined an inspired global vision that the US government creates a cabinet level Department of Peace (legislation is already in Congress and at the top of people’s choices in the polling) with a modest budget. Within that infrastructure, we should invite brilliant minds like Roshi Bernie Glassman, founder of the international Zen Peacemaker Organization, Otto Sharmer of The Presencing Institute, Eugene Gendlin (University of Chicago) of The Focusing Institute, Peter A. Levine of The Foundation for Human Enrichment, and representatives from the The Peace Alliance, Institute of Noetic Sciences, Non-Violent Communication, and other national and global resources who can facilitate access to our deeper natural wisdoms for collective co-creative transformation. Right now, we must not become myopic on the economy when a much greater existence is being rewoven. I invite you to join me in this vision.

News, Inauguration....& Peace

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Dear Friends:

The news is what we are living, the Inauguration has the potential for creating a global, spiritual shift-in-the-wind of our experience.

I'd love to share my winter newsletter with you, click here   

Even more important, I invite you to join me in the "Postcards for Peace" campaign and prayerfully mail them on Inauguration day, click here for details.

At a press conference today, President-Elect Obama's transition team is being presented with change.org's top ten "people's desires." Creating a "US Department of Peace" is #2 on this top-ten list. Please help make this happen.

Michael (& Elias)

Awesome 2009 Ritual

[Note: While this ritual can be an antidote to the uncertainty I referenced during the most recent entries on global economic somersaults, it can also be of a much more personal nature, may I suggest that you trust your instincts. You’ll need to find a comfortable position that has a private feeling to it for this ritual. You can read this ritual and perform it, or you can download my 27 minute spoken version here and listen to it in a relaxed way]

Follow this: We can distill ritual into three refined elements and still benefit from its magical powers. These elements are: Intention the force making transformation possible, Resource a catalyst for amplifying the intention energy that also makes your BE-ing feel good, and the Curious Observer the inner part of your self that takes an interested, neutral, perspective or view allowing the inner energies to self-reclaim each other.

I am initiating this 2009 ritual with my own primary Intention: that each participant reading this has an awesome 2009 grounded in gratitude and humility. I invite each of you to bring your own realistic primary Intention to our virtual gathering (or, vortex of good energy). And, you can all Curiously Observe the results as they mysteriously manifest. No need to post anywhere, better to hold sacred these experiences as protected and subtly effusive.

You now know my Intention for this 2009 ritual, I hope you have yours or can grab it quickly. It can be the same as mine, or it can be the dissolving of any inner barrier impinging on or blocking your vital life force in any area, right now.

With clear intentions in earnest play, move to Resource, the energy that nurtures our Intentions and fosters their manifestation. We all have many more resource energies than we first realize. I'm going to choose a special couple as my resource energy to fuel this ritual’s Intention. As you get the drift, please allow your own mysterious resource-of-the-moment memory to surface (from yesterday or ancient history) and be a good energizer for your intention and those of the larger collective in this vortex and our shared humanity.

Shabd Sangeet Khalsa and her husband True Indigo are my resource couple. They inspired me in 2008, and helped me differently re-claim my calming sense of wholeness that makes my experience of them a resource, a felt-awareness. Shabd Sangeet has opened my olfactorary senses (and some of my clients) to foster the energy of re-patterning, in a method that also fits my new learning in neuroscience/neuron-plasticity.

True has written a book named A Personal Aristocracy: The Power of Nobility. There is no text that has captivated me so since Peter A. Levine's Waking The Tiger in 1998. True’s writing has me learning to dance/rest in an infinity I can totally trust. That is something, especially for one who considers myself a research scientist! This photo of my friends was taken two days ago in Arizona. I invite their spirits to grace our ritual along with all of 'your' resources.

Now, if we just let go of our Intention (allow to float away) this begins to bring us to presence (being present and sensing at the same time). Ritual does not like to be pushed; no judgment, no agenda. To come more into presence, in a relaxed way put aside voices of judgment, cynicisms and fears, even just temporarily. Just hold your resource image in your minds eye, letting it develop in a sensory way (color, smell, light, heart). Very gradually invite your body to connect with the image. No rush, slow is fast here. As we hangout in this experience a bit, we may notice body sensations (especially if we close our eyes). We just want to give them tons of space, whether they are subtle or expansive. Make believe you’re resting back into True’s aforementioned infinity, and just notice. Now, in your own time, slowly invite your intention back into conscious awareness, edge by edge. Notice any body sensations or images as you do this. Now, give these awarenesses space, just noticing

With presence and curiosity you will quickly or gradually notice a commingling of the Resource energy and the Intention energy, this is good. We just want to keep giving space to whatever we notice next. Space is love and it transforms. At some point in time, you decide without haste, just bring the original Intention front and center again and notice that it has changed. It will be more “approachable” and perhaps a blind spot has dissolved, giving direction for a graceful next step. Feel your whole body. Notice an adjective or two that discerns its sense-of-self in the moment. Envision yourself coming out of this ritual space and holding close to your heart whatever new information your innate intelligence presented you about your intention. Now, walk softly into 2009 allowing for this manifestation to mysteriously enter your world in the most perfect and timely way.

Repeat this ritual with new intentions to keep amplifying the awe.

Note: The elements of above ritual are graphically illustrated through Focalizing’s nine-pointed star, click here.

Mp3 download here.

Looking forward to sharing the awe-someness of 2009, Michael

My Follow-Up: Economic Woes & a World Peace Initiative

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Since my last entry on the world economic crises, much has been happening. The following Wednesday I was contacted by the New York Open Center inviting me to offer a course in February '09 : Solutions to Real-life Challenges: An Introduction to Focalizing, even offering a free two-hour introduction. I accepted and have begun to develop the material.

Then on Saturday November 8, my colleagues Cristina Casanova and Jan Crawford and I facilitated a full day workshop for twenty participants demonstrating how we are informed and transformed by delving into a deeper cut for the innate felt-sense intelligence available through Focalizing or what the famous German psychotherapist Bert Hellinger would call spirit-mind. It was very impressive how we experientially participated in unseen intelligence manifesting in the “field” within ourselves and illuminating new possibilities as we did our work together.

Another colleague suggested that I offer a small group or two for local area people who are struggling with the uncertainties of our times and how to re-position themselves in whatever they may next be called to undertake. As a result, I will facilitate two groups beginning in March 2009: Reinventing Ourselves Naturally Through Focalizing. Similar offerings to other mental health staff and/or constituent bases in the months ahead are also in development.

While we are all struggling to find our grounding, it helps to do something that feels good and has multidimensional implications. For some years I have been supporting “Creating a U.S. Department of Peace.” With all the money we spend on defense, it only makes sense to create an infrastructure to bring the greatest minds and existing wisdoms together to create visions and models of peace and nonviolence for the planet. This legislation already has traction in the U.S. Congress. It is one of those small but BIG things a new President can launch to begin to put the U.S. back on the world stage in a respected leadership role. Please join me in this quest by exploring some of the easy ways you can help make this happen at www.ThePeaceAlliance.org  (also, please consider the important, simple post card campaign: http://tinyurl.com/5hbr87).

With deep gratitude for the opportunities to be a small part of making a difference, I wish you a spirited Thanksgiving holiday.

Global Crises: We Don’t Have to Hit Bottom...

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...emotionally, psychologically, or spiritually! This past week while preparing for a training presentation for addiction therapists, I was struck by several themes, and indeed wisdoms, that speak directly to the multidimensional and interconnected global predicaments that are swirling around all of us. I had re-read the words of the late M. Scott Peck, M.D., author of the all-time bestseller The Road Less Traveled when he stated "I believe the greatest positive event of the 20th century occurred in 1935 with the convening of the first AA meeting. It was not only the beginning of the self-help movement and the beginning of the integration of science and spirituality at a grass- roots level, but also the beginning of the community movement. I think of addiction as the sacred disease. Very probably, God created alcoholism in order to create AA, and thereby spearhead the community movement which is going to be the salvation not only of alcoholics and addicts, but of us all."

In my sharing with the group on the evolution of the healing (and recovery) tools of the community movement such as Stage One and Stage Two Recovery, Somatic Experiencing and Focalizing, I was also aware of some key elements that I’ve integrated into the latter with group settings. These insights and tools incorporate Otto Scharmer’s (from MIT) teachings and his book Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges about learning from the shared inter-connected field of our existence, Bert Hellinger’s “spiritual constellations,” and World Café methodologies centering on “conversations that matter” and discovering new opportunities for action.

Personally having “recovered” from a multitude of both personal and community crises, I for one will not sit by and feel un-empowered and/or victimized by our present circumstances. On some level we all felt them coming, and I encourage us to face them head–on with the tools at hand. As we in addictions work know, we don’t have to hit bottom. We can halt the downward spiral of victimization and provide assistance no matter how far down we have already gone. High-bottom or low-bottom, everyone can recover from the disease of victimization with the help of a strong support system and knowledge of the energetic field that supports us all — a creative vortex where there is “magic in the air” supporting great discoveries from deep inner journeys and allowing us a source of collective mastery.

I am “dynamically linked” to a number of inspiring people, treatment centers and healing organizations. It will be my mission to engage a conversation with them in the days and weeks ahead about how we can organically meet our collective challenge in ways that allow us to move forward with grace and dignity and at the same time benefit all. Never before in history has our human, global inter-connectedness been so tangibly obvious — to have a blind spot to this and not seize the moment would be a tragedy.

If you are wondering how you can start in your own course of action in alignment with my own, I have a few suggestions to offer: (1) Since whole-hearted acceptance is always the pivotal shift to meaningful transformation, I invite you to listen (in a full-bodied relaxed way) to this 6 minute spoken meditation by Bert Hellinger titled Consenting (by the way, it also inspired the naming of a vibrational essence organically created over the last year in a collaboration between myself and Shabd Sangeet Khalsa). (2) Read a brief, yet powerful excerpt from Otto Scharmer’s book here and some of the above links or search your own stirrings and note if an inner voice calls you to action, no matter how small or large, (3) take that action and observe what happens. Lastly, stay tuned and I will keep you posted on the organic process with this recovery that I begin with this writing. Contact me if that would be your calling, we don’t want to be in this alone.

PS: There are still a few openings in the November 8th NY workshop on Hellinger's Work & Focalizing, consider joining us.

Good Summer, Vehicle Demise & Organic Happenings

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The weather has mostly been great on weekends making for a restorative and very pleasant summer. My nineteen year old station car that gets me home on Thursday nights has seen its demise, with my needing to call AAA three times. It has served me very well. In the same magical way I wrote about that vehicle coming to me in the book Ritual As Resource, a new one (this one only nine years old!) came to me in a similar way, without hassles or time that I did not have to waste for looking. I feel fortunate and blessed once again, and in many ways.

A lot has been organically emerging in shadow of summer activities. I have been exploring the benefits of very specially designed Orchid Essences used to enhance Focalizing made by internationally known botanist Shabd Sangeet Khalsa - a client who came from Alaska a year ago to work with me, and later became a collaborator. She is a very talented and gifted woman. So far, the results have been quite amazing with my clients, even in my own personal growth with this vibrational medicine, an expansion of, and complement to somatic and energetic healing. We are currently preparing more info on this for the web site to give you the full story. Stay tuned!

As summer closes, projects are aligning for the fall and winter. I've been invited to do a morning therapist training (Oct 22) by Sierra Tucson, Inter-Care and Marworth on "Somatic Experiencing & Focalizing: An Integration of Innovative, Soulful & Energetic Approaches to Addiction and Trauma Healing." Click here for deatils. On Saturday November 8th I've been invited to do another Special Saturday on Bert Hellinger's "Family Constellations and Focalizing," this experiential one-day workshop is sponsored by the Institute for Authentic Process Healing (IAPH) and my co-focalizers will be Christina Casanova and Jan Crawford. For registration & more info click here.

A one-hour DVD interview I did last spring for a grant proposal on intergenerational healing and the Holocaust is in the process of being re-edited as brief video clippings for this web site; another reason I hope you'll stay tuned. I'm excited about this, when I replayed and watched the DVD and heard my spontaneous heartfelt answers to questions posed in the interview I heard a new clarity. And, this leads me to yet another new initiative, furthering my work with adoptee healing; IAPH has created "The Adoption Healing Project" which will include the use of adoptee focus groups and full day workshops culminating in a multi-CD series for adoptees to use on their own. This will evolve over the next year.

Wow, and this is just what's coming to me at the moment. It boggles my mind that in my “silver years,” I can have all this coming to me while still conducting a full-time, dynamic private practice. I feel so blessed and honored because I've lived to see many miracles in my own life and in those all around me. I mosey into the fall season with a glow in my heart and a new but older station car…..:-) to keep me writing & renewing at the foot of the Catskills.

More to come….

Independence Day Transformation

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My Independence Day weekend has been one of reflection and easy socializing. On the reflective side, a colleague and friend, Christian de la Huerta, shared last week about his first ten years of life living in Cuba under an oppressive regime. People went to sleep every night fearing a knock on the door. Nobody felt safe. For him, coming to this county was a miraculous lifting of his and his family’s daily terrors. I’m refracting this with the media version of “Patriotism” that is banging us on the head in such complex ways. For me, it’s not a “my country, right or wrong,” yet I feel blessed to live with the personal freedom that allows me to explore and share my discoveries and live as full and rich a life as possible. This was a gift from the toil of our founding fathers; and a part of a very mysterious process of human evolution. America is still a bold experiment on the world stage.

Some feel that this bold experiment has seen its best days and, with global shifts expanding daily and poor and uninformed choices made by our leaders, we will never be what we once thought we were. That would be impossible. Yet, we can be something even better, as a measure of my independence; I can receive a magazine like Ode - a print and online publication about positive news, about the people and ideas that are changing our world for the better. As a member of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (who recently published the book Living Deeply that utilizes ten years of scientific research to demonstrate the global consciousness of the moment and its preparedness to positively shift from the individual out), this freedom to explore human consciousness is a treasure I cherish beyond words.

The media gives us content that they have access to or are fed and fits with the mainstream. What we don’t get is news of the gigantic force (organizations, groups, individuals) that challenge themselves daily to find and live in the constructive energy of making a better world. IONS, mentioned above, was founded more than thirty-five years ago by Edgar Mitchell, one of the early astronauts who walked on the moon. On the return flight he saw the earth as a living, throbbing blue orb in the galaxy that made him feel part of a living home base and the universe it resides in. His attempts to better understand this experience in consciousness led to the founding of IONS.

I believe that this country still has the ingredients to become a respected leader on the world discovery stage at even greater levels than before. If you want to share (or argue) with my quietly held belief, I ask you to start with two simple steps (1) Join IONS & their Shift-in-Action program and read their 2008 Shift-in-Action Progress Report. It is astonishing! (2) Join (virtually or otherwise) the efforts of many who for the past approximately eight years have been lobbying the U.S. Congress to establish a U.S. Department of Peace and Nonviolence. Originally proposed in the nineteen thirties to offset our expenses with war, it is now gaining momentum. We sorely need an infrastructure for bringing together our leaders who can help us create peace and healing. The “technology” already exists. Let us be the ones to gather this wisdom and make it accessible globally. This would give us back the vigor and respect that make the distinction “independence” cogent and timely. We need the grounding of an authorized and fully appropriated federal agency that could help focalize the restoration of the planet, make better lives us and for our kids, and make us feel good that we are part of the solution, not passively allowing obvious problems to escalate.

These recommendations are but the tip of the iceberg as what is presently available and known, and what actions are already taking place. Start with these two and others will present themselves. Do so and I promise that next year there will be a new uplifting experience to your Independence Day!

As a practitioner of the healing arts, I know the value of coming out of our conditioned personal world and cultures and experiencing a felt awareness of enlarged realities that sometimes help us find our place in it all. From my everyday bits and pieces, I’m thrilled that the Focalizing.com web site sent out its first newsletter; download it here. Personally, I’m both proud and humbled by the articles in it. Sign up to receive your own future copies of future issues here.

One last thing, in my media encounters over the year’s one public radio interviewer named Nicholas Cimorelli really impressed me with his breath of knowledge, wisdom and warmth. Recently, Nicholas interviewed me again and the dynamic discussion is now an audio pod cast (and discussion segments) and can be heard at our web site any time. There is also a transcript to download for those who prefer reading: The interview was titled Focalizing: An Energy Psychology for the 21st Century (click title for podcast).

Wishing you a great summer!

Three Cool Things to Share

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At the Caron Foundation’s annual awards breakfast in New York City on Friday, May 9th, I was honored with the “Unsung Hero” award for my contributions to the addiction communities. I was nominated by Crossroads, Antigua. They wrote a thoughtful piece for the presentation and the program. Read it here… I am deeply honored and thank Lisa Baruch (in photo) of Crossroads for escorting me to the event.

I’d like to do a little sidebar here for those who don’t identify with being in addictions recovery. As far as I’m concerned, addiction isn’t limited to alcohol, drugs, sex, or gambling; we can be addicted to our conditioned thinking. That is a serious addiction that keeps us from feeling whole and alive and having our needs met. So, in one-way or another, we’re all addicted and can fit into this addiction recovery paradigm.

Secondly, the book I’ve been encouraging folks to read The Untethered Soul written by Michael Singer and published by the Institute for Noetic Sciences just won the Nautilus Book Award conceived to recognize world-changing books, and to celebrate how they contribute to positive social change, spiritual growth, conscious living, high-level wellness, and responsible leadership. I am very pleased and affirmed to hear that others find the rich spirit in this text.

Lastly, as a courtesy to those of you who read my musings I am offering the entire 32-page text of Organic Solutions to Real-Time Challenges: An Introduction to Focalizing as a FREE down, simply click here…

After a busy week upcoming, I’m off for some R&R and will be back in early June with more tidbits and my first newsletter in a long time.

Enjoy the spring flowers!

A Jam-Packed Weekend

After a very full week of private practice I spent Friday afternoon reviewing the transcript of an interview of me by psychotherapist and health journalist Nicholas Cimorelli. He titled the 60 minute interview Focalizing: An Energy Psychology for the 21st Century; a transcript is available by simply clicking on the preceding title. I was pleased with the outcome and look forward to the interview in a pod-cast format on this web site in the next week or so for folks to listen to or download.

When that was done my partner Elias & I went uptown to set-up for Saturday’s Family Constellations & Focalizing workshop. I’m pleased to report that the workshop was a huge success. In my introduction, I placed our work in a Focalizing context and Cristina Casanova and Jan Crawford did about seven very moving “constellations” with our twenty participants. The participant response has been very affirmative with a big email buzz following the event and asking for more. One participant Robbie Tucker wrote of her experience the following day in a workshop review (click bold to read).

In the ongoing power of this Family Constellation healing methodology (I unknowingly expanded on the constellation I did and blogged on 11/06 concerning my dad(s), on Sunday afternoon we went to Long Island to have lunch with the 91 year-old dad that raised me. It was a brief visit as I had evening plans in the city. Just before leaving, my dad called me aside and honored me with a very private gift that was beyond anything I could have ever expected, and I was deeply touched. This Bert Hellinger Family Constellation work just keeps going, (it’s subtle & powerful) like the Eveready rabbit!

Sunday evening I went to a meeting with some of the Institute for Authentic Process Healing (IAPH) community members. It was intended to be a planning meeting and I found myself observing, as well as participating in our process. We planted seeds for some new events and necessary fund-raising, but that was not the most significant part for me. The meeting provided me with a new direction for the community as it is emerging and I have been allowing it to evolve and sharing it with community members as I am able with very enthusiastic responses. This is the same twenty-two year old community that has supported my research and I am forever grateful to the group and individuals. I’ll share more on this as it materializes.

This weekend I rest, reflect, integrate and continue my sharing process.

Enjoy the best of spring, Michael

Spring Awakening…

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While continuing to be blessed with a dynamic practice, I find myself continually inspired and in a state of awakening in many ways: currently I’m almost finished with Michael Singer’s new book, The Untethered Soul. I have found this groundbreaking book so nourishing to my soul and psyche that I have a number of my clients reading it along with me. Concurrently, I’ve joined Oprah Winfrey in her ten-week 90 minute live webinar event with Eckhart Tolle going chapter by chapter through his book, A New Earth. Over five million people logged on and have been participating from all over the world. Now into its fifth week (all shows are still downloadable) this is a world wide web and consciousness phenomena! Both books are charting a new direction and shift in conscious awareness that is truly liberating!

I am constantly amazed at my own journey and I’ve been finding new clarity and a ground of BE-ing that feels like a spring blooming of sorts. Recently, I was invited to write an article for an Italian psychotherapy magazine’s upcoming issue with the theme of “courage.” It was a great opportunity for me to make distinct what I refer to as “Conscious Courage.” In short, Conscious Courage is a state of BE-ing; it is a coming into our self through our heart and life-force allowing us to face challenges, difficulty and fear, instead of withdrawing from it. With all the energy and somatic psychologies that are available to us now, mindful courage is required if we are to face both the personal and global challenges confronting us as we struggle to heal our lives and world. As soon as the article is published, a copy of it will appear on this web site in English.

A couple of weeks before, I was interviewed for a documentary on intergenerational healing for individuals with Holocaust legacies. While on camera, I was reminded yet again of what a great opportunity trauma resolution represents for mankind. I have personally witnessed the healing of individuals with survivor legacies, and I recognize how much conscious courage is required to enter the healing domain. If we could take an example like genocide to demonstrate that mass societal healing is in our grasp, who knows how fast that healing could migrate to the many other troubled areas in our world? Could this not aid in a resolution to all types of human suffering and global challenges?

As an fyi, coming up on April 19th is an all day workshop titled Family Constellations & Focalizing: Energy Psychologies for the 21st Century and sponsored by the Institute for Authentic Process Healing (IAPH). It was fully enrolled to an enlarged capacity less than two weeks after posting it. This too is very exciting. So many people are open and looking for ways to more gracefully move forward in these complex and confusing times. We will be planning another similar event soon, please get on emailing list (on this site) if you’d like to attend or call or email your interest. The following day there will be a grass-root IAPH meeting to explore and plan events for remainder of the year. Volunteers with skills are always welcome for help with this nonprofit endeavor, simply email for details.

I’m already looking forward to summer! More soon!

Organic Healing through Cyberspace!

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I was reminded, once again, that organic happenings take time, the very personal as well as the professional. The Graceful Guidelines for Sexual Healing text from articles page on this web site was first written for a magazine ten years ago this month, it has been re-edited and reprinted in many venues. What a delight for me to receive the below email acknowledgment this week and to reflect that the message still resonates in a such good way for folks:

Hello Dr. Picucci,

I wanted to write to thank you for your article "Graceful Guidelines for Sexual Healing." I found so much of it to be relevant to my own experience, and am grateful for it.

I'm a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and have been in therapy for about two years now. I began in traditional cognitive therapy, but didn't begin making the strides I am now making until I began seeing an Somatic Experiencing practitioner. I found SE to be completely transformative and I'm now actually training to become an SEP myself.

As far as your article goes, I found that I'm really having to emphasize the sacredness of sex to myself as I begin the somewhat awkward journey into starting to have sex from a loving place rather than a compulsive place. It is scary to be in my body for the very first time while being sexual. It's taking a lot of time to process and integrate, but I chose a loving, intuitive and conscious partner to take this journey with me. The moments in which I've succeeded in staying present with everything that goes on in me, I have been amazed by how beautiful sex can be, and how raw and pure intimacy can be. It's also interesting what you say about revisiting adolescent awkwardness---I've discovered, by tracking myself somatically, that each developmental stage is alive in me and wants to experience being sexual (without my interference) and that that is how I can manage to be fearless and stay embodied during sex. I didn't know that that was possible, or that there was a part of me that was still childlike, whole and intact after what happened to me. I am so glad that that part still has healthy curiosity and wonder, and will develop with my support.

Anyway, thank you again for your wonderful article. I imagine it would be important to anyone interested in healing sexually, but to people for whom there's no choice but to develop loving consciousness about sex if they want to have it at all, it really means a lot.

All the best, Salima

[thank you, Salima]

Family Constellations & Focalizing: Energy Psychologies for the 21st Century

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The major problems of our time are systemic; they cannot be understood in isolation. They need a systemic, or holistic, approach to be solved. - Fritjof Capra


Capras’ statement illuminates my experience. Cristina Casanova, Jan Crawford and I recently planned April 19th as the 1st in a series of Special Saturdays called Family Constellations & Focalizing (click bold title for full details); it is our approach to manifesting Capras' statement. Bert Hellinger’s techniques are drawn from his many years of developing Constellations for healing and restoring the natural flow of life. Personally, Hellinger’s unique observations have brought to light and resolved a long-time personal struggle of mine (see 11/19/06 entry below). My take on the distinction between Hellinger’s Constellations work and Focalizing and all other energy psychology healing processes I’m familiar with such as Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, Wave Work, Healing Imagery, Thought Field Therapy, among many others, is that they make us more resilient, whole, and capable of meaningfully connecting with our world. As a result, our healing gets rooted and grounded, or what I refer to as becoming vertically integrated. What I experience as profoundly different vis-à-vis Hellinger’s work and Focalizing is that accessing our ancestries we can restore the “hidden order of love” and resolve unseen entanglements. This produces a palpable and felt-sense horizontal integration of healing energy. We become less the “reach-outers” attempting to pull in what we desire to us.

Focalizing, albeit a newer matrix in the energy psychology family, weaves and envelops an individual in a vortex of healing energy and, in effect, re-organizes emotional and psychological DNA and works on our “3rd dimension.” The goal and outcome of focalizing is to get us to the place where we can rest into a place of serenity and grace thereby allowing intentions, needs and desires to become fully and freely self expressed and manifested. In a sense, the chase is over as we learn to just be with the wholeness of life’s’ paradoxes.

I invite you to join Cristina, Jan and me on April, 19 as we eagerly share our learning and experiences of these remarkable transformative tools. If you are unable to attend, stay tuned for a full report.

iPhoto Expresses 30 Years of Recovery

Over the last several months, I’ve acquired a new digital camera and a Mac and much to my surprise, I’m having a ball with iPhoto. Hence, the new images, I hope they help to convey my ongoing discoveries on multidimensional levels. Pictures do speak a thousand words and these in particular evoke many feelings. When I view them while aware of my felt senses, with judgment suspended and an open heart, I’m flooded with good feelings.

That’s me in Maui on the right in late December outlining the “talk” I gave for Crossroads Centre and the Staged Recovery Project @The Institute.Org in NYC last week. On the far left is Lisa Baruch of Crossroads and Ana Venezia of The Institute flanking “happy me” at the event. It was an honor to be with an addictions recovery community on the same evening that marked my own 30th anniversary in the recovery process, a challenging journey beyond my wildest dreams.

It was a hard-hitting presentation, as I had my first opportunity to share a larger context of my own faceted recovery work that has informed my research and inspired my experience; all the while expanding my horizons and creating shifts in perception. I was able share an authentic story of how I developed fresh eyes and ears on the most graceful ways of healing through Stage Two recovery. This stage has the power to relieve our bodies from “pockets” of frozen trauma energy which keeps us unconsciously repeating unrewarding (or destructive) behaviors or in isolating from what we want most. These energies are fragments of trauma lodged in our nervous system that disconnect us from ourselves and our worlds while causing havoc and keeping us in a state of dysregulation.

I also shared for the first time publicly the pivotal life experience in 1989 that began my shift from a linear, cognitive and emotional healing framework to prioritizing somatic and body-oriented paradigms resulting in the possibility of having a more graceful and efficient healing process without shame or blame. This is a big time saver. When we shift our consciousness to the body and energy fields we can experience ourselves from a more evolutionary perspective thereby eliciting more compassion for ourselves and others.

The group that attended ranged from individuals a week in recovery to others with more than thirty five years under their belt. Some of the newcomers fretted at the idea of yet another stage of recovery, this is understandable. Yet, similar to a staged treatment process for other illnesses the foundation stage of healing supports and makes possible that which follows in order to access even deeper healing. I sensed for many it was an evening of seed planting and the take-home message offered was to consider that an addiction is the cannibalizing of our psychic energy and soul and that recovery is the clearing and making of space for love and wholeness to manifest.

I am grateful to Crossroads and the Staged Recovery Project for this opportunity and to the Freedom Institute for hosting it. A great 30th anniversary, indeed!

Aloha to "Tipping Points" in 2008

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The winter solstice, December 21, 2007 was an unusually quiet day spent all by myself on a condo terrace in Maui while visiting our dear friends and colleagues Drs. Tom Kane and David Shaw, who were our holiday hosts. I was deep in thought and pondering: The Mystery of 2012: Predictions, Prophecies & Possibilities. The book and it’s messages have been resonating with me the for the last six months knowing that the 2012 winter solstice is just five years away. My take away message is that the date represents a major tipping point for the human race. While I personally hold that time as a metaphor, I also experience rapid movements and major shifts in the human experience and perceptions, beyond what previously occurred.

While reading these articulate and lucid essays from twenty-six renowned experts on the 2012 possibilities, my own possibilities continue to unfold. As it so happens, I’ve been invited on January 16th to give an evening talk that I’ve called Beyond Our Wildest Dreams. In this backdrop, I decided to integrate some of the messages of this book, one in particular by Ervin Laszlo struck me profoundly, he states: “We now live in a period of transformation [personal and societal], when a new world is struggling to be born. Ours is an era of decision - a window of unprecedented freedom to decide our destiny. In this decision-window, ‘fluctuations’ - in themselves small and seemingly powerless actions and initiatives - pave the way toward…where the system tips in one direction or another. This process” he states “is neither predetermined nor random. It is a systemic process that can be purposively steered.”

Messages like this provide the larger context for what excites me about the Focalizing work that has evolved out of the new paradigm of energy psychology. Each Focalizing event (with whatever challenges/intentions individuals bring) results in a tipping point that is concretely experienced and resulting in a tangible positive shift not only for the person, couple, or group but also the larger systemic process as well. Folks who have done this work with me report that they’ve lessened their focus on binary (either/or) thinking, emotion, or even psychological pre-conceptions and expanded their felt awareness of the life force within and around them.

Come and join us on January 16th 2008 at 8:00 PM (RSVP Lisa @ 212-759-3508 by January 10). The talk is being organized by Crossroads Centre, Antigua, a wonderful international non-profit holistic rehab center founded by Eric Clapton. The evening is being hosted in NYC by The Freedom Institute, 515 Madison Avenue (53rd between Park and Madison, 35th floor) another respected non-profit addiction resource center.

I wish all of you a 2008 that is filled with grace and tipping points leading to a good place beyond your wildest dreams.

“Life Energy & the Emergent Therapeutic Paradigm:
A Balanced Approach to Body, Mind and Nature”
Berkley, California Oct. 24 – 26, 2007

Attending the first International Somatic Experiencing conference in Berkley, California was a real treat; not only that I would be there but that I would also be presenting Focalizing in an honored way. Long before I had the words for it, the super-tuned reading of life energy, “inner” radar, ran my life. It was what I needed and used to survive. The physical world met some of my most basic needs. Yet, for soul survival and even for some fun, I organically developed neuro-pathways that helped me negotiate the terrain in the safest way possible. One could say I became a very intuitive survivor. In either case, what seemed like a real horror show as a child through a lot of grit, inner work and spirit has been transformed into a gifted adulthood. I get to participate in my ongoing healing and that of my clients in quite profound ways that are beyond my wildest dreams, using skills I learned as a small boy.

The conference was much more scientific (all the neuroscience & neuron-plasticity behind energetic practices) than I expected, and this delighted me. The reality looms in that even though we have scientific evidence that energy & somatic healing works, it can only very gradually be mainstreamed as it moves from research and academic levels. There are not as many pharmacopeia in the emerging paradigms, but perhaps a common ground can be found soon. I trust that there are real smart in-touch people out there and it’s only a matter of time.

I was invited to present with brilliant long-time pioneers, educators and authors to an audience of about 350 colleagues. I learned so much from my co-presenters in fine-tuning my own skills. Among them were trauma healing beacon Bessel van der Kolk, Body Mind Center Director Stephen Porges, Somatic Experiencing Originator Peter A. Levine, and a New York Times neuro-science writer Sandra Blakeslee who just coauthored* a book called The Body has a Mind of Its Own. In this compelling, cutting-edge work, two generations of science writers explore the exciting science of “body maps” in the brain and how startling new discoveries about the body mind connection can change and improve our lives. It explains how our body maps are profoundly elastic and the self doesn’t begin and end with your physical body but extends into the space around you.

The more we can accept the message in the theme of this conference, the more likely we will be to access the non-visible, non-physical realities that our beings nest in. In doing so, we discover the luminous laughter that dissolves all darkness, all differences, all discord, all disharmonies, everything that weeps and wails. And this can deliver us to grace: a force, sweetness, something like a vibration of solace spread everywhere, but which an illuminated consciousness can direct and concentrate on specific points for further healing and awakening.

A closing aside: The Tartan book launch party at Saks mentioned last time was an enormous success. I extend big kudos to Jeffrey & Doria on their amazing accomplishment. And, thanks to those of you who brightened the evening with your presence.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I offer gratitude for all my inner and outer resources.

*Sandra’s coauthor was her son Matthew who represents the fourth generation of science writers in the family. The mother-son collaboration is heart warming for me and makes this book a real contribution of multidimensional perspectives for our time.