2010: Finding Calmness in a Storm of Change

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I spent the last week of December enjoying the holidays with friends, and renewing myself in the mountains. 2009 was a year with many challenges: Both my parents were seriously ill, often in crisis mode, I moved my private practice space after 15 years, and many clients and friends were losing jobs or finding themselves in a troubled world that none of us could have perceived. There has been much suffering in my immediate world and on our planet, yet there have also been many joys and I am grateful.

I seem to live in two worlds: Most of the time I’m in the world of consciousness, with its sensing, aliveness and awakening; then I’m in the physical world, with its beauties, joys and suffering, I often struggle to find words to express myself while bridging these divergent yet inseparable experiences. Sometimes I find that writing here helps me connect this duality. Also, when working with clients on their emotional and physical struggles, I can sense when they are in a better place of being. It’s contagious and helps me feel integrated.

Further than that, I’m aware that when my clients find resolution in the work we do, it affects their larger worlds, as in a ripple effect. It supports the notion that maybe we really can heal the world by healing ourselves. Another way I’ve heard this described is Acting locally to evolve globally, which is also the theme of a new book I’ve recently found inspiring. It’s called, Spontaneous Evolution: Our Positive Future (and a way to get there from here), and in essence it’s about the scientific possibility that a spontaneous remission of insanity could occur on our planet. My own experience of having two deadly cancers going into remission makes the premise feel like a real possibility.

Three other books that serendipitously were holiday gifts support the above possibility: Taking the Leap by Pema Chodron, One Soul, One Love, One Heart: The Sacred Path to Healing all Relationships by John E. Welshons, and lastly The Red Book by C.G. Jung, are all highly recommended.

While I wholeheartedly look forward to the new year, it was an easy, fun vacation, relaxing and bouncing from book to book (between movies, of course) fortifying my sense that there is also calmness in a storm of change.

I wish all my clients, colleagues, family, and those reading the very best that this new year and new decade has to offer.