ABOUT

MY STORY

As a child, I was highly mystical and fascinated by consciousness and reality. I saw, knew, and sensed a living, magical, dreamy world that was as alive as my physical reality. I recall lying on the grass outside, gazing up at the sky, and wondering how I could know I was really real or if there was a way I could prove that the unordinary world I lived in was real.  

Over time, my unordinary world became ordinary, and I moved into adulthood, pursuing a pathway as a psychotherapist, pastor, and spiritual guide with a thriving career. I prided myself on still straddling the unordinary edge between psychology and spirituality –incorporating some woo without being too weird. 

My reality was fractured when, on an ordinary Thursday in January, when walking back to our car after ice hockey practice, my eldest son was hit by a car and died a few feet from me. A primal agony rendered open in me as I watched him die. The magic vanished. The raw reality of the real world crashed on my shoulders. I was in a waking dream state, and it was a nightmare. Not only was I traumatized and grieving. My children and family were equally reeling from their own trauma and grief. I lost my job, community, and home. We moved across the country. We buried our son. I was devastated.

In the months and years following his death, I wanted to recant the magical dream of my spirituality. Ordinary, waking life was painful, and there was no escape hatch. There was one thing that changed my mind. I needed to connect with him. Nothing could stop me from wanting to be with my son in body, soul, mind, and spirit. There was a maternal yearning that stopped at no end to find him and feel him with me.

I only knew how to connect with him through that magical world, so I turned to unordinary awareness to find a connection again. I wanted to connect with him daily as though he were still alive. I didn’t want to go to a retreat, go back to therapy, or join a support group. Just getting through the day was hard enough. I wanted to sit in a chair in my own home and feel him with me. I needed him to be real….and it had to be really real.

Over time, I noticed that I was naturally using some methods for unordinary awareness that I had used long ago to get that really real connection. First, I taught breathwork for stress reduction class at a community college in my early 20s. Suddenly, I was returning to the box breathing and breath holds to support myself when I would cry. Second, I learned how to meditate when I was 15, and the first method I learned was mantra meditation. I began to repeat simple words, like ‘allow’ or ‘stay’ when the grief was overwhelming. Third, I found comfort in sitting in front of our wood stove and gazing ahead at the fire. Over time, I would notice sharpening and softening of my gaze when I felt most alone, which I had learned how to do through dristi for balance during my yoga practice of over 20 years.

I began using these induction techniques, and my relationship with him came to life. I noticed my grief tempering, the trauma symptoms lessening, and my presence increasing. I experienced a dimensional connection with him that didn’t ignore the physical reality. It opened up a new realm of possibilities, including expanding my sense of space, time, and self. I discovered him, and it was really real.

I started using elements of the method with my family, especially my living children, and the results astounded me. They reflected deep meaning, profound insights, and new perspectives that paralleled a dramatic shift in their symptoms. They were discovering their own connections, not just with the loss but with how they made meaning for themselves. They were growing beyond ordinary reality into an unordinary awareness that changed how they perceived what happened and its meta-purpose.

As I slowly emerged into my practice again, I made a sharp pivot and began using these unordinary state methods with adults and teens, with the same results that had helped me the most. Individuals were accessing an ordinary-unordinary state of awareness that was diversifying their perception, transforming their perspective, and changing their state of being. This translated into tangibles, such as making clearer decisions, defining purpose, quieting the mind, and improving well-being, including how they felt about themselves, their relationships with others, and how they showed up at work, home, and with family. 

Today, I teach and train this method, the GAZE Method, for adults and youth. This method guides you to experience an unordinary-ordinary state of being that is sustained and integrated into everyday life. You discover a waking dream state you carry into normal life. You use this state of being to receive guidance, clarity, and direction in what you do and how you show up in what matters to you the most. You learn how to create a new reality in your life –a permanent positive state of Being.