Background
Living From the Heart has its origins in a personal experience, fall of 1997. At the urging of a Presbyterian minister and therapist, I attended a “Men’s Initiation Weekend” sponsored by the Mankind Project. During that workshop, I witnessed men of various ages and backgrounds undergo personal transformation with the guidance of compassionate non-professionals. Using the framework of "the hero’s journey", participants traveled a personal path from descent through transformation to discovery. Each of us left with a heightened awareness of our own emotional challenges and hope for the path forward. Personally, I was fascinated with the possibilities for myself and desired to bring this work to other men.
Shortly after this, we moved to California, where I became involved with the Mankind Project/Los Angeles. I further developed my skills as a process work facilitator by attending training workshops, reading major works in the field, listening to recorded lectures and participating in weekend courses at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Most importantly, the honing of my skills is a result of staffing numerous personal development workshops—both my own and those sponsored by other organizations. Over the last eighteen years, I have led over 350 weekend workshops with Living From the Heart and worked individually with more than 200 men, women and couples.
Core Principles
My work and teachings are grounded in Biblical principles: core values and perspectives that can be found as well in many other “depth soul work” traditions. Because of this, the LFTH work is open to anyone, regardless of their faith tradition or lack thereof.
The goal of The Living from the Heart Work is to learn how to “live below the shoulders” — where our true self is located. Much of our current culture values analytical thinking and problem solving above emotional literacy and heart-centered maturity. As a result, a great deal of human experience is buried or repressed in order to get on with the business of daily life. For most of us, however, a point arrives where what we have tried to ignore begins to demand attention. This is where the work begins.