The Division Bell Originally used to signal a division, or vote, in the British House of Commons, the name was adopted as the title of Pink Floyd’s fourteenth studio album with the intent to instead find a pathway to unity. Although voting is often seen as the height of democratic process across commonwealth countries, by…
When I drove down the parkway to climb my first frozen waterfall, I was a young woman with an uninterrupted story since childhood. My inner narrative consisted of thoughts about myself (I am unloved, life is painful, I no longer want to live) as well as the emotions that accompanied these (hurt, anger, unhappiness.) I…
After decades of healing work, I am convinced that power is at the core of our personal and planetary issues. That is why when people ask me what I do, I tell them I am a Guide to Self-Empowered Healing. In our society, men are trained in the expansion and uses of their power, but…
In stillness there is freedom, a state where we are no longer caught in the pain of the past or in fear of future events. Freedom is intimately connected to sovereignty, because free people are harder to control than those who live in fear. And what do we fear? That our wealth will be taken…
Several years ago, I worked as a guide in Antarctica. While it was standard practice to do everything for our clients, I made mine as self-sufficient as possible believing this would elevate the true wilderness experience they had come for. On one such trip, some of my clients wanted to take turns navigating the ubiquitous…
For decades, I lived in chronic, deep depression. I had no idea why I was there, or how to get out from under the black cloud. So I did what a lot of people in that situation do: I self-medicated with drugs to numb the pain. Then, one day when I was twenty-eight years old,…
We live in a hyper-materialistic world, one that directs our consciousness to focus on the outer at the expense of the inner. But if life happens from the inside out, this basically hijacks our internal navigation system and replaces it with mindless conformity to a uniform reality. Anyone who steps outside of this reality is…
I can’t say when my anxiety turned into depression, but with hindsight and many years of therapy I know that it goes as far back as I can remember. Long-term anxiety, like the type I lived through as a child, eventually morphs into depression, as feelings of hopelessness and helplessness take over the psyche. Depression…
I don’t recall the exact age I suffered my first panic attack, but I do remember how it felt. As my chest tightened and my breathing became shallow, my oxygen level dropped, and I thought I was going to die. Breathing is fundamental to life, and when it gets restricted, for whatever reason, we fear…
In 1992 I began what became a two-year process of letting go of street drugs so I could spend more time with my new-found love, climbing. When I give presentations, I inevitably get asked the same question: “Didn’t you just trade in one addiction for another?” And I always give the same answer: Yes, and…