Carlos Castaneda’s books captivated me during my adolescence. I was so naïve and those books really influenced my thinking at the time. I took off on my own right after my junior year of high school and found myself living among the Kiowa tribe in Oklahoma. I became totally immersed in their culture and then went on to train with Horace Daukei, the last surviving traditional doctor among the tribe. Life among the Kiowa did not match my Castaneda induced fantasies, so I had to let go of all that and completely revise my expectations.

Horace didn’t know how to deal with his own emotions or resolve some of his personal issues. There were times when it was very difficult to be around him. I understood that Horace was human. I could see his pain and confusion, but I also recognized the gifts that he carried. Horace worked with ancient healing powers that had been passed down through a lineage over hundreds of years and I knew he could help me develop my own connection to these healing powers. I managed to separate the unhealthy human aspects of Horace from the powerful gifts that he carried. I went through hell, but I made the best of the situation and stuck around long enough to get what I needed. Horace eventually became very destructive and I had to sever ties.

I dropped back into college around the time that things started to unravel with Horace. I completed a degree and then spent the next six years in Kansas City, Missouri and Albuquerque New Mexico. I had an intuitive feeling that I would be doing a lot of traveling overseas so I decided to set up a base in New York City.

I went through a few too many mugging attempts over the years and nearly got arrested the last time it happened in New York when I chased the attacker down the street with pepper spray. I said to the officer "…What am I supposed to do, get beaten up because some guy thinks he’s going to rob me. The officer responded by saying "…This is New York …You’ll just have to get use to it". I thought to myself "…Ok …I’m going to find a Chinese master (sifu) that I can train with and then I’ll permanently disable the next guy who thinks he’s going to mug me."

I commute by subway at all hours of the day and night when I’m in New York. I’m also traveling through developing nations in different parts of the world. I’ve gone through a number of incidents and I felt that I better do something before I end up getting hurt. I always wanted to train in Chinese martial arts anyway so this gave me a good reason to follow through.

I stopped by a martial arts supply store in Chinatown one evening and asked the store clerk who he recommended. The clerk pointed to a rack full of flyers and told me to take whatever I wanted. Some of the flyers had photos of Shaolin Monks and looked very impressive. But there was one flyer that really caught my attention. The flyer had no photos, was in an unattractive yellow color and the English grammar was terrible, but I had this feeling as I read the description of Sifu Lee Tai Liang. I went to Lee Sifu’s school a few days later and began to train with him that following weekend. I did enjoy the classes, but these practices are so complex and I felt like I wasn’t really getting it, so I decided that I needed to train privately.

Lee Sifu began by teaching me a number of chi gong practices. I started thinking "…why are we doing this? …what’s the point of all this? …I need to learn to rip someone’s head off!" I was operating from a set of expectations and much of that came from all the movies I’ve seen over the years.

I had enough sense to realize that many masters had developed these practices over thousands of years. I decided to keep myself open and trust that Lee Sifu really understood what I needed to do to attain mastery in this discipline. Chi gong practices are essential to create a strong foundation, develop internal power, heal the body and develop mentally and spiritually. I gradually came to understand the importance of these practices.

I’ve had so many expectations along the way and things usually did not turn out the way I thought they would. But I’m not going to just give up on my dreams because reality isn’t conforming to my preconceived notions of what I think it should be. I’ve learned to be flexible, to adjust my expectations and to adapt to life as it unfolds before me. Sometimes I have to step back and reassess when things are not working the way I think they should and ask myself "…What is it that I need to understand here …What do I need to be doing differently?"

I later traveled to China to train with one of Lee Sifu’s cousins in Dai style xin yi. Yang Sifu had a small number of consistent students who were really dedicated. Others showed up intermittently to train. Many just came to hang out and talk with their friends. And there were always a lot of young guys sitting around with their beer and cigarettes playing kung fu video games at the cybercafés when I went to check my email. But none of these guys ever showed up to practice. I could see Yang Sifu’s frustration at times. I felt really sad to see someone with so much to offer being so undervalued.

Chinese martial arts have evolved over thousands of years into highly complex systems that allow one to develop the body and mind. The old masters had tremendous power. Some had developed paranormal abilities and could do things that would be considered superhuman.

Practice takes a tremendous discipline and commitment. The process can be very tedious and even boring at times. And it can take years of practice to really see results. But these masters worked for hours a day over the course of their lives to develop these capabilities. Year by year they attained greater levels of mastery.

The Chinese, Tibetans, American Indians, East Indians and other ancient cultures have developed esoteric systems over hundreds and thousands of years. Special gifts of knowledge and power were passed down over the centuries though many of the ancient cultures. These gifts were often carried by masters, gurus and indigenous healers and were passed down in the form of a transmission from one generation to the next. People sought out the lineage holders as spiritual mentors or when they were in need of assistance.

I lived for a number of years among some of the American Indian tribes. I’ve spent time training in China and have stayed in different parts of India and Sri Lanka for periods of time. I’ve spent years studying and training within a number of disciplines. I see how these systems provide a vehicle of transformation. I can also see the narrowness and limitation within individuals who are locked into just one system. I’m fascinated by these systems and I’ve learned to go into various cultures and disciplines, take what they have to offer and then work diligently to find useful applications for my own life. I keep what works and continually refine.

The influence of our modern civilization has had a profound impact upon indigenous peoples and other ancient cultures throughout the world. Native doctors among the American Indian tribes wanted desperately to pass their gifts on, but fewer and fewer people within the younger generations were receptive to what they had to offer. Many of the old doctors took all their gifts and knowledge to the grave with them.

There were many powerful doctors among the American Indian tribes in years past. Some healing powers were passed down from mentor to apprentice over hundreds of years. Other healing powers came to individuals during the vision quests. Individual doctors were known for their areas of specialization. Word of their gifts would circulate among the tribes and people would seek out individual doctors with the specific healing gifts that best served their needs.

There are so many diverse healing traditions from around the world that are facilitated by completely different kinds of forces and beings. I have experienced a variety of healing practices facilitated by American Indian doctors, a Buddhist Monk, Hindu Priests, Christian Faith Healers, a Philippine Psychic Surgeon, a Brazilian healer, etc. They all have their own unique gifts.

Healing is a process, but so many people looking for a quick fix are expecting some kind of instantaneous healing and they are not willing to assume personal responsibility or do any work on their own. They go to a healer with the attitude of "just do me". The healer is then expected to magically take away all sickness, emotional pain and the problems they face in their day to day lives.

Western medicine has made remarkable advances and is the most viable option for some health issues. But Allopathic medical model has taught us to take medication or do surgery to remedy a problem. And marketing firms are continually conditioning us by telling us that we will experience instant gratification if we buy a certain product. This kind of daily influence has a profound influence on our whole outlook on life.

Psychic surgeons can sometimes reach into the body and remove a tumor. Faith healers allow a power to work through them that instantly heals one’s afflictions. Seeking assistance of these individuals may sometimes be our best option. One of the problems with instantaneous healings is that it often fixes a problem without addressing its underlying source. Tumors sometimes grow back. Other conditions may also re-manifest.

Instantaneous healing can be a wonderful thing. Keep yourself open to possibility and do whatever works for you. The main drawback to instantaneous healing is that it may not facilitate a greater consciousness or encourage one to take personal responsibility. Many people resort to their old patterns and go right back to sleep. They don’t learn, grow or mature in any way. Maybe you have healed from cancer or some other really serious condition. That’s wonderful and I’m very happy for you, but that is only the first step.

We go through so much of stress during the course of our lives. Some of us have lived through emotionally traumatic experiences. Childhood trauma and neglect can result in permanent physical changes to the developing brain. These changes in brain structure can cause psychological and emotional problems in adulthood.

Many of us come from very dysfunctional families. Dysfunctional family dynamics get wired into us so that we find ourselves experiencing many of the same kinds of emotional reactions and reenacting many of the old family dynamics in our present day relationships.

Most people never really digest the hurts, losses, and disappointments of their everyday lives. These stresses accumulate within us day after day. And many of us contain huge backlogs of undigested emotion. That has a very numbing or deadening effect.

Many people within our modern world are highly over stimulated. It’s common for people to spend hours a day in front of the television and many even fall asleep with the tube on. Our body-mind gets so bombarded by all the sensory input from television, movies, talk radio and other forms of entertainment that we cannot process our own feelings and issues.

Many of us are also living at a very frantic pace. We’re under lots of pressure, working long hours and getting very little sleep. That creates a form of chronic stress within the body-mind. Our body-mind’s digestive processes are impaired when we are continually stressed out, over stimulated and do not allow ourselves to get adequate rest. Our body-mind cannot possibly be as responsive to healing under these circumstances.

Most of us haven’t learned how to deal with our emotions. These emotions get pushed down inside of us where they putrefy. It can feel very uncomfortable and even painful when these feelings and memories begin to resurface. We can sometimes feel anxious, uneasy, vulnerable, irritable or angry after healing sessions. We may, on occasion, feel a sense of nausea or agitation that makes us want to jump out of our skin. We may even find that situations begin to manifest in our life that reflect these emotions. Sometimes we become afraid and think "…I don’t want to go there. And we may wonder "…How is this a part of healing …Why is this happening? …shouldn’t I be feeling peace and love?"

Many people want all the pain to instantly go away, but it’s never going to work like that. The pain that we avoid poisons us, wrecks our lives, and spills over to have a negative impact upon the lives of others and the world in which we live.

The healing sessions initiate a process of detoxification. Old memories, thoughts and feelings begin to surface so that they can be digested. The process can feel uncomfortable at times and you may go into some difficult periods where you feel confused, overwhelmed and drained.

It’s normal to doubt the whole process during these periods. There were times when I wondered if I was getting anywhere. I have found from personal experience and the experiences of many that I’ve worked with, that the difficult periods will gradually become shorter in duration. Old emotional patterns become more transparent so that you do not get so caught up in them. Over time you will feel lighter and stronger. And you will become more energetic and experience a more powerful connected to your source.

The hurt, pain and confusion stuffed down inside of us feels horrible and that causes us to desire substances that are not good for us. That accounts for much of our need to smoke, drink, or take something, eat things that are not good for us, eat way too much or too little, over stimulate ourselves and create more drama, chaos and confusion. Our vices help to maintain a level of numbness that prevents us from really having to feel what’s going on down inside of us.

Many of the clients I’ve worked with over the years smoked or drank heavily, or used other drugs. Others were on all kinds of medications. Their lives were often a mess. But I’ve seen many instances where clients go through a transformation. The lights start to come on within and many of the addictions and other negative patterns start to fall away. These clients start losing their desire for the cigarettes, drugs and other toxic influences. They start to desire things and experiences that truly nourish them.

Constitutional make up plays a large part in determining how a person responds to the healing sessions. There are vast differences in constitutional make up from one individual to the next. Some of these differences have a lot to do with culture. I’ve spent lots of time in India and Sri Lanka. South Asians are more likely to be locked into cultural constraints that prevent them from enjoying certain freedoms that people in much of the world take for granted. But they also tend to be much less armored than we are in the West and that makes them very responsive to the healing sessions. I’ve find a similar malleability among many people from Central and South America. Many of these people have very remarkable responses to the healing sessions.

Those of us who grow up and live in the west are immersed in different kinds of daily stress. Our world moves at a faster pace. Many of us westerners have a greater tendency to intellectualize everything because we’ve learned to live in our heads. Our tendency to disconnect may cause us to lose touch with our bodies and emotions and that’s why we can be so lacking in self awareness. Much of our reality is also spoon fed to us by the media. The resulting passivity causes us to become less engaged in life.

Some of us have developed very rigid defense systems over the course of our lives. Maybe we had to shut down in order to survive. But we ended up shutting down parts of ourselves in the process. Buried emotion acts like cement by keeping everything locked into place and that creates internal resistance. Our bodies and mind develop a rigidity that causes us to become set in our ways and that may prevent us from growing or maturing. Parts of our mind congeal so that we cannot be fully present or really grasp or respond to what is happening in our world. It can take a lot of effort for us to work through or dissolve the armor so that real change is possible.

Healing is a partnership and you really do need to participate in the process if you are serious about attaining your goals. Start by making time to really be present with yourself. The breathing practices that I give as homework activate the generative healing powers of the body-mind and that will help you digest feelings, thoughts and experiences. Much of the armor will begin to soften and dissolve. Feelings and emotions will flow more readily within you. Memories will also surface. And you will develop the malleability that will enable you to progress much faster. This is why it’s so important for you to work consistently with the breathing practices in the time between your healing sessions.

I was working with a man shortly after he had gone through a breakup. He was still having feelings for his ex and it was also evoking issues pertaining to his family of origin. He did one session at that time and then I spoke with him by phone a week afterwards. He said something to the effect "…I should be over this …I shouldn’t be having these feelings." He didn’t even return my call when I left a message to let him know when I would be back in town. It’s very common for people to be so disconnected that they cannot see how shutdown or damaged they are. And many people will stay locked into the same patterns for the remainder of their lives.

I was going through something similar some time ago and I was very conscious of the fact that I needed assistance to heal and move forward in this part of my life. I happened to be in Sri Lanka at the time and I had just learned of Gnanasumana Thero, a Buddhist monk who is known throughout Sri Lanka for his gift of healing. My wounds were wide open at the time and I knew this was the best opportunity gain access to the underlying source of the problem. I kept going back night after night and I had received fourteen healing sessions by the end of the month when I had to fly back to America.

One of my friends commented by saying something to the effect that I always go to the extreme. It’s not that I go to the extreme. It’s that most people in our modern society do not understand that this kind of consistency is often required to get in and create the kind of change they really want.

We all form expectations. That’s a normal part of the way we construct our maps of reality and we need some kind of map to help us to navigate through life. It’s important for us to realize that the map is not the territory. Many of us are lacking in self awareness and our confusion is compounded by all the misinformation out there. Sometimes we latch onto whatever belief system sounds good and we end up operating with maps that are not a very good reflection of the terrain.

Many of us get stuck on our maps and then we’re not being fully present. Some of us make the mistake of demanding that life meet us on our terms, but it’s just not going to work like that. It’s okay to have maps. But we need to continually test our beliefs or models of reality to determine how useful they are and to modify them if we want to be congruent with reality.

There are some individuals and types of conditions that do not respond to this type of healing. I make a real conscientious effort to help people find the solutions that will work best for them. And I’ll make other recommendations if I know that the form of healing I work with will not address an individual’s needs or if I see that they are not showing significant improvement.

There are many instances where I work with people after they’ve experienced a few setbacks and all it takes is two or three sessions to get them back on track and moving forward in their lives. Others may come from extremely dysfunctional families and have lived through years of traumatic abuse. All those convoluted relational dynamics and traumas are usually very deeply ingrained.

All of the backlogged emotion that we carry needs to be digested. Patterns associated with traumatic experiences and dysfunctional family dynamics that we have internalized need to be reconfigured to create new healthier models that serve us. The healing sessions also help one to develop a strong foundation and other essential resources that are necessary to live a meaningful and productive life. This process can sometimes take a few years of consistent healing sessions and daily practice.

I carried some deep emotional wounds that made it difficult to function and I knew that I had to do something. Healing became a matter of personal survival. I passed the survival stage long ago, but I’ve integrated these practices so they have become a normal part of my everyday life. What motivates me is that I continue to grow and develop new capabilities.

We’re all unique and our needs differ, yet there are certain considerations that apply to all of us. One thing for certain is that we all need some form of practice or discipline to keep us moving in a positive direction.

I’m becoming increasingly more aware of the consciousness or life force (or lack thereof) in all foods. I’ve developed a sensitivity that allows me to feel which foods have a negative or positive effect upon my body. I then make the daily conscious choice to eat healthy foods that nourish my body and mind.

Many of us are living busy lives and we don’t have three to five hours a day to devote to practice. But most of us can find at least 15 to 30 minutes. You might be surprised how much time becomes available if you turn off your television and computer.

I’ve watched my mentor and a number of gurus and other spiritual teachers get into serious trouble because they never really dealt with their own emotions or personal issues. Many of them are tremendously powerful, yet they have become the focal point of these huge dysfunctional dramas playing out involving themselves and many of their followers.

The issues that arise in our lives are a reflection of where we are within ourselves. Some issues are difficult to face, but they are here for a reason and that we need to face them as part of our process of development.

Undigested emotion deadens our awareness by shutting down our senses. It diminishes our power and creates a lot of confusion as different parts of our mind are operating by conflicting sets of programs. It’s important for us to understand that emotion is an octave of spirit and it is also a part of our essence that makes it possible to be aware of what is happening in our world and how we are being affected by it. Emotion also put us in touch with our needs and the understanding our needs leads to the fulfillment of our life’s purpose.

Our soul is often obscured by all the conflict and emotional backlog that we contain within. Our physical and subtle bodies, our mind and emotions are the lens through which our soul emanates into this world. Healing allows more and more of our true essence to shine through.

Deep tissue massage is very effective at breaking up the body armoring that constricts consciousness and reduces range of motion. I usually get at least one deep tissue massage a month. All kinds of feelings come floating up to the surface and that makes it easier for me to get to the underlying source of the issues I’m dealing with so I can work though things faster.

I get healing sessions whenever the opportunity presents itself. But I rarely find healers that I feel comfortable with. I’ve relied primarily upon the vision quests and I’ve been going twice a year for some time now. The process can be very difficult to get through, but the vision quests have done more than anything else to affect real healing and growth in my life.

There were many times when I’ve felt frustrated between my trips to the mountains because I felt that I needed something more to keep me moving forward. I first learned about yagyas (yagnas) as I read Joe Vitale’s book The Attractor Factor in the spring of 2006. Hindu pandits (priests) chant ancient Vedic mantras for hours a day. The pandits conducting these yagyas are in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh in Northern India. But I can feel the process taking place as I wake up during the nights. I’m just about to complete a three month series of the yagyas at the time of this writing.

Earlier stages of healing were more about recovering from the wounds and that process continues, but now there is a much greater emphasis on self realization. I go on with these practices because I continue to grow and develop new capabilities. Every hour of practice, body work, healing session, yagyas or vision quests takes me another step forward in my own personal process of evolution.

I’m truly inspired by the masters, gurus, indigenous healers and other realized beings who continually demonstrate that there is so much more to us and to life than most people will ever grasp. They are continually showing us through example that we have only just begun to scratch the surface. And what we get out of all of this depends on what we put into it.