Background

What brought you to this type of work?

I have been part of meditation, yoga, and spiritual communities for the last 20 years. Well before I became a licensed professional counselor, I was acutely aware of the profundity and pervasiveness of human suffering and the various philosophical and spiritual paradigms aiming to alleviate that suffering. Some philosophical models and communities I gravitated toward — such as Advaita Vedanta, Bhakti Yoga, and Zen Buddhism — while other communities I left because I found them unhelpful at best and harmful at worst. Some of the experiences that have stayed with me the most are the ones that I witnessed to be the most harmful.

For example, one of the biggest problems I have witnessed in spiritual communities, especially when Eastern philosophy is adopted in the West, is the problem of Spiritual Bypassing. People read or encounter these profound texts that equate non-attachment with the ultimate goal of peace and transcendence — which I agree with on the level in which it is intended — but the level in which these teachings are coming from is often not the level needed by the individual at that particular time. There appears to be a problem of inappropriate scaffolding or mixing levels, in which Eastern philosophical approaches are co-opted out of context and in a way that does more harm than good by training people to use avoidance and suppression at the expense of true non-attachment. The goal is not to give up your life and live alone in the forest with no material possessions and no other relationships. The goal is to sustain your mental peace while being in the world — but not of the world. That is consensual surrender.

I have also witnessed seekers on meditation or yoga retreats having real spiritual and mental health crises that needed the attention of a licensed mental health professional — but instead, the response they received from the teacher was dismissal for being “too attached” or “caught up in illusion”. This is harmful, retraumatizing, and unethical. These responses are not appropriately scaffolded to the level of the individual’s need. In these encounters, I realized that there are different types of truth, the things that are Ultimately Real (e.g., that we exist, that we have awareness), and there are things that are experientially real in the moment (e.g., suffering, pain, crisis, etc.) that are not eternal. We cannot apply a profoundly higher truth to a problem that needs a different level solution — we need to approach problems on the level in which they exist within a framework for how to move forward. This is how real growth happens, and there is incredible power within Eastern teachings to truly help people find peace and transcendence — but they must also be used wisely.

I do the work that I do because I have never encountered proper scaffolding in a spiritual community. Conversely, the field of mental health has a problem of dismissing and pathologizing people in the spiritual community — often taking a materialist perspective of mind and consciousness — reducing the human experience to a couple of pages in the diagnostic manual. Humans are profoundly complex and incredible beings with huge potential for growth, and they deserve better. I believe there needs to be a resource for combining spiritual practice and mental health for truly transformative personal work.

Therefore, the goal of Yogi Counseling is to bridge two worlds that for so long have felt unbridgeable.

What makes you qualified to specialize in these areas?

I have a Ph.D. in Counseling from a Research One University with the highest accreditation standards for our field — and one of the top 10 academic institutions in the world for what I do. My academic research relates to the utility of mindfulness for assisting both counselors and clients in improving their wellness and the overall therapeutic relationship. This work hinges on frontiers in neurocounseling and interpersonal neurobiology that looks at the energetic field that exists between people in relationship and the process of co-regulation. In addition to my Ph.D., I also have a Masters in clinical mental health counseling from a program that employs some of the top people in the field of counseling. These two degrees allowed me to become a Licensed Professional Counselor and a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist — and recently, an Assistant Professor of Counseling at a university in the Pacific Northwest. Finally, I have a double Bachelors in Philosophy and Religious Studies, with emphasis on Eastern philosophy and Asian Religions. I also have a 20 year meditation practice and have been involved in spiritual communities and retreat centers in four countries (New Zealand, Australia, United Kingdom, and the United States).