People sometimes ask me what kind of training I have to do the counseling work that I do. That question always makes me want to laugh and cry.

Yes, I have training in multiple spiritual, psychological and coaching modalities. Personal healing and spiritual awakening has been a central focus in my life since my late 20s. But, I didn’t embark on this path to heal others. I was crawling through the muck of my personal story, and was sick and tired of suffering.

It has not been a straight line, this healing path. There’s a saying that we travel in spirals as we heal, revisiting similar issues cyclically. Each time you find yourself seemingly going over the same ground, check in and see what’s shifted since the last time you were here. Are you catching the patterns faster? Do you have more awareness about the process you are in? Is there are part of you that is not quite as caught up in the story as it plays out? This is progress. We heal, sometimes slowly, and sometimes more quickly. But, movement is happening. Can you give yourself credit for that?

Out of Purgatory, acrylic on paper