My Approach

Deepen your Conscious Connection with your Self, your Loved Ones, and Our World.

As human beings, we all struggle with patterns and habits we would like to change.  We have all tried (and succeeded) in making changes, but what do we do when we get stuck? What about those blockages we just can’t seem to move? It takes courage to reach out for help when what we have been doing just no longer works the way it once did.  When we are ready to really grow and heal, we often need to face factors that perhaps we have just never known how. My approach leads you to weave and integrate your mind, heart, and body together, and I operate from five core beliefs about creating the change we seek, change that is deep, sustainable and permanent.

Core Operating Principles

1. Change must occur simultaneously in mind, heart, and body.

 If change only happens in one area of our being (even if they are well-intentioned changes), it inherently causes imbalance in our system. Such imbalance cannot be sustained for long.  Everything about the Conscious Growth & Healing work is about integration. 

• The Mind (thoughts, beliefs, values, psychology, ego, language, stories, etc.)
• The Heart (feelings, emotions, behaviors, attachments, etc.)
• The Body (reflexes, neurobiology, chemistry, nutrition, chronic illness)

Our on-going struggles in life are the result of our Parts being misaligned and out of balance with each other: one part is given too much privilege to be in charge, or other parts are habitually dominated.  For example, there is a deeply valued approach in our culture that if we just “put our minds to something”, we can accomplish it.  This inherently promotes an imbalance as it privileges the mind over the other systems in the body or the emotions.  While this may work extremely well in certain situations, when it comes to seeking change in our personal and interpersonal lives, it is all too likely to recreate the very problem we are trying to resolve. In so many ways, we have been both taught or allowed to believe that an imbalanced relationship between our Parts is normal.  Only by deepening and exploring our experiences in all three Parts can we begin working in closer alignment with ourselves. The changes we have longed to make real in our lives then begin to emerge.  Old habits begin falling away. New feelings and sensations emerge as if on their own. And the effort of change as we have known it is filled with ease and confidence.

It is from this primary principle that my tagline–“Embracing Your Wholeness”–emerges.

2. Change requires a new capacity to be built first.

Change, no matter whether it is beneficial or detrimental, always creates stress on the system of balance in our mind, heart, and body.  As humans, we are prone to seek security through familiarity, and stepping into a unfamiliar thought, feelings, or sensation is disorienting.  It is new and unfamiliar, and that can lead us to feeling vulnerable and exposed. Unless we are conscious of this, we all too easily slip back to old patterns of familiarity when the process of change starts to feel uncomfortable.

Without a new capacity in place, the stress of any change or transformation will not be tolerated by the body/mind/heart system.  One easy way to understand this principle is that any change, even if it is a positive change, creates stress in some Part of us.  Many of our change attempts in the past have only served to “max out” our tolerance for stress, leaving us feeling overwhelmed (or just making excuses as to why we shouldn’t stick with the change). So we don’t stick with the new, and go back to the old. Therefore, if we are going to set off a mini-explosion of stress our system has never been able to tolerate previously, we must build a new container able to withstand the explosion.  This is a process we call “resourcing”.

3. Change cannot happen in isolation.

In order for true change to take place, we must feel and trust that we are connected in meaningful ways with those around us (friends, family, community, co-workers). In the process of intentionally destabilizing our systems of familiarity in order to rework an old pattern, it is vital that we are able to trust that doing so will not cause us to be judged, rejected, or shamed because of the change we are making. 

We live in a society that in many ways promotes as normal a sense of deep disconnectedness. As a result, so many of us are conflicted and feel insecure about the depth of connection we have with others, and we perpetuate these insecurities in the stories we carry out in our thoughts, feelings, and actions.  We cycle through feelings of self-shame or resentment of others, returning over and over again to old strategies in our attempt to resolve these overwhelming feelings. Only when we can feel seen, heard, and safe do our experiences begin to shift and change.  This is a relational process that must be in place to support our change.  We must know and feel that we are not alone.  We must feel connected to ourselves, to others, and to our world, and know with a confidence felt in all of our Parts that we belong to something greater than us.

4. Change is always organic.

I reject any one-size-fits all approach. I believe that all people and their groups are built for growth and expansion, and that any one formula or prescription for this goes against our very nature. The most needed change can rarely be pre-defined. Our mechanisms (mind, heart, and body systems) we use for assessing problems and determining their solutions are inevitably built on old and undesired experiences, the very experiences and ways of relating to our problem that we are trying to get away from.  Our mind gets wired around what we have known, and is therefore limited and ineffective at identifying—much less solving—what the problems are.  How then can we use our that programmed mind to identity the way forward into what we don’t know? Rather than focusing on a new what (e.g. “My goal is….”, “My objective is….”), I emphasize focusing on a new how (“I will practice in a new way”), trusting that the new what will emerge only when the new how has taken root.

5. Change always involves a kind of disruption.

Even when change is good and beneficial, angst is likely experienced, whether we acknowledge it or not. Many times, this angst can be cause resistance in any or all of our body, our heart, and our mind.  This angst, when unprepared for and unacknowledged, will keep driving us back to our old habits and strategies, even if we know they won’t really work.

The phrase “Loving Our Fear” summarizes for us simply, yet so powerfully, what I am all about.  It presumes (and accepts!) that we all have the capacity for incredible fear, but that our capacity for even greater and more powerful love is within us as well. In fact, it is our birthright to know the confidence of love inside of ourselves, able to hold and contain, and then to melt, any fear that may arise.

I am often misunderstood when my clients hear me refer to love.  In this work, love is not a feeling, a thought, a belief, or a set of behaviors. Love cannot be defined by a set of expectations, rules, or procedures.  It is neither an action, nor is it a choice. It is not something we can control nor manipulate.  Love is both us, and not us.  It is ours to use and tap into, but it is not ours to own. Love is a powerful force of creating something truly new, the force that drives our courage to connect more deeply, to keep moving forward even when we are confused and scared.

I use the word love to refer to the most powerful force and energy that we are connected to.  Many may use other terms for this energy: Life-force, God/Goddess, The Universe, Nature, etc. It doesn’t matter what word you may identify with best.  I use this word “love” because it inspires in us both something that is both part of us and also moves within us at all times  We recognize we will never define what love is, yet we accept it as being what empowers us to embrace our fear.  And in embracing our fear, we ultimately know that we are embracing a greater wholeness within ourselves.

My Approach

Embracing your wholeness encourages you to acknowledge and accept every facet of your experience, build new capacity to contain fear that comes up, and develop new understanding and beliefs about yourself and your world.  This is what I work with you to do.  Throughout our partnership with you as you change, I strive to integrate the following elements into every counseling/coaching session and every group, workshop, or training I offer.

Acceptance

This is where you share with me.  We all experience feeling accepted in different ways, but in order to feel accepted we must first believe that we have been seen and heard.  I strive to listen and attune to you as deeply as possible, reflecting and validating elements of your experience or struggle which may be invisible even to you.   I also recognize that part of feeling accepted may at times involve holding you accountable to the commitments you have made to yourself. Helping you to develop a sense of compassion for yourself that is balanced with commitment is a major part of what I offer.  Acceptance corresponds to your Heart change.

Education

This is where I share with you.  As humans, we love information, and I love to share it with you!  With new information or a different perspective, the mind is enabled to operate more flexibly, assess situations and problems from a new perspective or even a new paradigm.  With alternative ways of looking at old struggles, the mind is able to let go of old habits, rather than being constrained to “what has worked”.  The mind may not be able to grasp the full implications of the new information, but this is vital in creating space for new experiences to occur and new meanings to form.  Education corresponds to your Mind change.

EXPERIENCE (Activities & Practices)

This is where the sharing stops, and the doing starts. The activities and practices we guide you through (and encourage you to practice on your own) serve as an exploration of your internal systems. This could be looking separately at mind, heart, or body systems, or it could be to observe the relationship between them.  I strive to guide you in a context and environment which feels safe enough (but also a little unfamiliar) and encourage your practice and participation at your own pace. These activities allow you to build new connections within yourself, leading to deeper confidence and greater clarity.  Once you have done something and practiced it several times, it begins changing your neural pathways. In time these new pathways are strong enough to replace the old ones that weren’t serving you.  Experiential corresponds to your Body change.

Our Name and Logo

According to the dictionary, connexus is a synonym for connection.  For me it has several meanings that play off its parts and how it sounds.

First, I am all about connecting and making connections.  These can be connections made between disparate parts of our experience (such as the connections between mind, heart, and body); connections made between us and others that are new and alive; and even brain connections, the reorganization of neurons in the brain and nervous system.

Connexus also sounds like “connects us” – a very powerful invocation of how we are already connected with one another in our shared humanity. This also encourages us to explore the ways in which we can connect more deeply, more lovingly, and with more empowerment with each other.  Alluding to “us” reminds us that in order to change we cannot go it alone, that we are in this together, and that our greatest success as individuals can only occur when we are involved together, in partnership, as a team.

Lastly, Connexus has the word nexus in it, which is defined as a bond between parts of a group or a whole.  Nexus in the name is about the relationship between our internal Parts and the relationships between us as humans as we function as part of group. Rather than focusing on the individuals in any group, or on any individual part of ourselves, nexus turns our attention to the “bonds between” and how our parts can only function in optimal health when working in conjunction with one other.  When we add a prefix, con-nexus literally means “bonded with”; co-nexus means “shared bond”.

My logo is all about this Connexus. The image is an ancient symbol called a triqueta, and represents for me the joining of three elements in harmony, each part being essential to the whole.  If we expand or focus on only one point of the triqueta, the whole will become distorted and dysfunctional: Mind, Heart, and Body. Further, it illustrates our commitments: Education, Acceptance, Experience.  It reminds us that we can always engage our desire for change from different angles, and that a change at one point (or an offering of one kind), will always have an impact across the entire whole.  Exploring and expanding our repertoire of skills and approaches restores balance to the whole system. The circle that joins these three elements of mind-heart-body is our Consciousness (which some may also call our Soul or our Spirit).

It is from this vision I hold, from my desire to heal ourselves and bring wholeness to our world, that I invite you to embrace your wholeness.  As you do, I are confident you will experience a depth of change and transformation that perhaps you have only dreamed of.  

I am honored to be a partner in your journey of growth and healing.

Deepen your Conscious Connection with your Self, your Loved Ones, and Our World.