For the sake of all beings on Earth, human and other-than-human, there is an urgent need to transition away from the industrial growth society and usher in the Great Turning towards a truly just and life-sustaining society. At this critical time, everyone has a part to play.
The impact of the industrial growth society on the planet and people everywhere includes a great deal of collective trauma desperately in need of acknowledgement and collective healing.
These world-shaping collective traumatic events include wars, violence, slavery, colonialism, genocide, forced migrations, epidemics, intersecting systemic injustices, and massive loss and disruption to ecological systems and processes.
The ability to muster and sustain the willingness to face our painful feelings or sense of powerlessness, fully acknowledge aspects of our collective painful history, and transcend
dualistic views of good/bad and victim/perpetrator, requires guidance,
learning, and psychological, emotional, and spiritual support.
- Feeling overwhelming grief, fear, anger, guilt, or despair about collective social justice or environmental issues?
- Or perhaps are you feeling numb, frozen, paralyzed, or hopeless in the face of the immensity of these issues?
- Are you worried that no one would understand if you were to really express what you think and feel?
- Wondering if anything you can do will truly make a difference? Is it enough? Or where to start?
- Have you experienced trouble sleeping at night, persistent negative thoughts, or burn out?
- Ever find yourself seeking distractions in order to avoid the intensity of your feelings of worry, grief, or despair?
- Do you find yourself looking for someone to blame, yet feel conflicted about contributing to further polarization or perpetuation of enemy images?
- Are you longing for a greater sense of connection, understanding, and support?
In order to be an effective agent of change, we all must reckon with these powerful forces. However, spiritual activists, known and unknown, throughout history demonstrate what is possible when we learn to transform our suffering into inspired action.
Whether working with me in a group setting or privately one on one,
you will have the opportunity to learn how to:
- Acknowledge your pain for the world, without pathologizing it
- Validate deep feelings of love and concern for the world (planet and people)
- Deepen your sense of gratitude and blessings
- Conceive of a comprehensive framework of response to overwhelming existential threats
- Practice bearing witness with empathy and compassion
- Free up energy that may be bound up in denial or repression (of either pain or love)
- Develop inner and outer resources as psychological, emotional, and spiritual support to face overwhelming feelings and sustain your engagement
- Gain new perspectives on time, space, self, others, and the world
- Deepen self-awareness, particularly of body-based wisdom, thoughts, feelings, needs and values
- Distinguish underlying needs and values from specific strategies intended to fulfill them
- Develop skills for nonviolent communication and action
- Create and participate in ritual and ceremony that support you and others in healing
- Address the hidden dynamics affecting your individual and our collective lives
- Remove obstructions to the flow of love in our collective lives and re-establish that flow
- Transcend duality and ideological/political polarization
- Develop or increase your sense of community, connection and belonging as an antidote to isolation or sense of disempowerment
- Deepen empathy and compassion for yourself, other people, and all beings
- Transform and expand your usual sense of self and experience of interdependence
- Connect with the resources of your ancestry
- Heal collective and transgenerational trauma, liberating past, present and future generations from suffering
- Empower and inspire yourself and others to act to protect and serve life and justice
Based on the Work That Reconnects, established by Joanna Macy and others, along with a unique combination of practices and approaches drawn from:
Buddhist psychology and mindfulness
Nonviolent Communication
Systemic Constellations
Transpersonal counselling psychology
These five traditions are the most powerful means I have found for realizing an enlarged view of the self, others, and the world. Experiencing such a shift in perspective gives rise to greater wisdom, compassion, and internal freedom, which opens up new possibilities in our individual and collective lives.
Two ways for Concerned Planetary Citizens to work
with Compassionate Resolutions
GROUP SERIES
We occasionally offer closed group sessions online. Subscribe to the mailing list to receive notifications about new cohorts forming. Click here for more information regarding schedule and cost.
PRIVATE SESSIONS
This option suits individuals that are either not interested or not available to join a group series or retreat. Schedule your first individual session here.