In the sections to come I am going to tell my healing and growth stories. Here I introduce the schools where I did much of this work. Each of these schools has an experiential (Beige) side that has people heal and grow simply by experiencing what the school has to offer. But each school also has a group (Purple) side where you join the community and offer service to the world.
The Medicine school I attended was strongly influenced by Hakomi. It is just so obvious when working with people that you first need to get them more connected to their bodies. Get them to slow down enough that they can actually notice moment to moment what is going on for them. We were taught to use the Hakomi principles when working with our clients.
The school uses two medicines, MDMA and mushrooms. After doing some initial talk sessions to establish trust and to work on the client’s sacred intent we start with an MDMA journey. This medicine works in the realm of relationship and body. Relationship to yourself and others. And it is where we can start working on the traumas. There is a whole fascinating physiological explanation of why MDMA is so effective for working with trauma but I won’t go into that right here. Just know that it works, and there is really good science backing that claim. Then after the guide feels that the client’s traumas are now somewhat manageable (they never really go the way, we just learn to assimilate them better), then it might be time to explore the realm of spirit and the “other” world that we visit when we ingest psilocybin. We don’t jump straight here because if the client has unprocessed trauma a psychedelic journey can be really brutal. This is how many people got so hurt in the 60’s and 70’s. But held in the right way, this sacred journey into self can be life changing. For many, the initial entry into this other world can be rough, but quite often they land in a place of beauty beyond imagining.
After receiving such profound healing and awakening, some people feel called to be of service and lead journeys of their own. And learning to guide deepens them into their own healing. For many years there was a thriving medicine therapy teaching program in the Bay Area. Unfortunately that fell apart, but others will rise. This work is too important for it not to.
It is hard to explain a HAI workshop to someone who has never done one. You have to experience one before you can fully understand. HAI holds weekend retreats where people are welcomed to a “room of love”. The workshops each have a different theme but in addition to that they always work on healing the shame we carry about our bodies and our sexuality. They don’t do too much explicit teaching (except for a bit on sexuality), but the exercises are designed to help people be more mindful of what is going on for them moment to moment, and to give them opportunities for profound healing.
HAI doesn’t just tell you to open to love it has you jump straight in and do it. Before HAI I believed, in a theoretical way, that we all are faces of God/Universe. At HAI it no longer was theoretical – I was loving the person right there in front of me. For real, with all my heart. And then stepping to the right and loving this one, and now this one. Felt it in my heart and body. They call the Sunday of the workshop “Miracle Sunday” because of the amazing transformations. Again it is something you have to actually experience to understand.
After you have done the levels, if you want to go deeper there is the call to service. To join as volunteer for the workshops. You have to take several training classes, and you have to pass an active listening assessment before you can even be a provisional team member. Not everyone passes. Then you have to assist two or three workshops and get a thumbs up from the other assistants and facilitators. When you assist the levels it gives you a chance to really deepen into the practices. People who are ready to go even deeper are called interns and they publicly commit to live by a set of principles. These principles are remarkably similar to the Hakomi principles.
This school of healing was inspired by the Japanese practice of forest “bathing”. ANFT certified trainers take people out on very gentle nature walks. Participants are invited to slow down and connect their body with the more than human world. They step into a liminal state of here and now, in relationship to all the beings surrounding them. It provides safe support and structure to connect with the natural world. After every invitation, people come back to a circle and are invited to do a short, heart based share of what they just experienced. Hearing from others helps people to go even deeper into the experience
After rediscovering their intimate, vital relationship with nature, some people feel called to service. To learn how to guide others to find themselves in the natural world. ANFT offers a six month certification class followed by a four day immersion retreat to train people to lead forest therapy walks. Although ANFT doesn’t have an explicit set of principles, they might as well adopt Hakomi’s. They would fit perfectly.
In college, I desperately dived into Zen meditation to escape my anxiety. It worked beautifully. Zen opened me to a spirituality free from religious dogma. But most practitioners did not seem fully happy. Zen had only half the answers I was looking for. And I went on to other things. But it had a profound impact on me. Later I started to read Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach and I discovered that they follow a practice (called RAIN or RAINING) that is almost exactly the same as Hakomi! And yet again the principles are the same.
The center for mindful self compassion has a wonderful set of courses to help people become more kind and loving towards themselves. Despite a common misconception, getting more self compassionate makes you much more able to have compassion for others. It is based on work by Dr. Kristin Neff which in turn is loosely based Buddhist compassion and mindful techniques with some modern research thrown in as well.
I took the course at a really tough time and I was feeling pretty worthless. The course turned me around in a very powerful and amazing way. I’m very grateful. And of course just like all the other paths if you dive in deep enough you might feel called to service. They have a teaching path for people that want to teach these courses. What a beautiful vision — to have this message of compassion spread further and further out until it reaches everyone.