I don’t know how it happened, but it did. Out of the blue, a miraculous spiritual awakening experience. It hit like a lightning bolt and unfolded over the course of a week. No drugs of any kind. In fact, I was attending a class on Computer Networking at an IBM education center in Dallas, TX.
The story is too long to tell here, but here’s what is important. I came away from that experience knowing that nothing mattered but love. Love was the only thing worth caring about. And love is all there is.
All of the issues I had stressed over and fought about had no more significance – it was the really small stuff, never again to be sweated!
From that moment on, I began seeking for answers. I went to churches and spiritual gatherings, attended workshops and conferences, but could not quite find what I was looking for. Nothing quite matched the knowing I had been given in that week-long awakening event.
At least a year had passed, and all this time I had this whole new reality on the inside, but I was still living many of the same old habits and patterns that didn’t feel good any more. I was watching myself in relationships, work and daily life wondering why I couldn’t live in a way that aligned with what I felt inside. And I didn’t know how to change.
Finally, one day I found myself in my room on my knees praying. I was asking for a teacher to come and take me by the hand – someone who could guide me personally through the changes I wanted to make in my life.
At the end of that prayer, I stood up. “What did I just ask for?” It was divine guidance that orchestrated that request, and almost immediately, a guide showed up and began teaching me, and my life began to change.
Initially, this guide appeared in spirit. It was another year before I met him in physical body. In August 1998, I saw my teacher and guide for the first time. He was Shaykh Muhammad al-Jamal, a Sufi master from Jerusalem.
My heart parted open and felt as if it melted onto the floor. He saw me walk into the room and motioned for me to come to the front of the room where he was sitting on the floor.
He asked me what was in my heart. I fearfully replied “I don’t know.” I thought he was going to say there was a dark oogly boogly or something, because I knew I was still not living the life I wanted to be living. However, he said “There is a deep, deep longing for God.”
He put his hands on my head and said some prayers in Arabic. I was vibrating so strongly and flying so high that my feet did not touch the ground for a week.
That was the beginning of the beginning. Soon after, I left my job at IBM, gave away all my material possessions, sold my house and one of my two cars, and moved to northern California to a community that was coming together to bring the Sufi teachings to the US.
The Sufi teachings are about purification of the heart – cleansing away all of the barriers that we take on along our human journeys that keep us from knowing the reality of the existence that resides in our own hearts, the resting place of compassion and unconditional love.
While at the Sufi community, I helped to transition a school of energy healing to what is now The University of Spiritual Healing & Sufism. I continued to study with my teacher, affectionately known as Sidi, until his passing in November 2015.
Today, I still work with the University as well, helping to train healers, peacemakers and leaders to carry the message of Peace, Love, Mercy, Justice and Freedom to the world.
In my private practice, I carry a similar mission. Instead of training people to become healers, I help people to heal personally from physical and emotional discomforts and dis-ease. I am most passionate about helping people to make changes that will improve their own lives and simultaneously create an environment for healing and sustainability for humanity, the animal kingdom, all of nature and the planet.
Because of my own past experiences with illness, including hypoglycemia, fibrocystic disease and ulcerative colitis – all of which have been healed for about 20 years – I realize the impact of child development, traumas, emotions and belief patterns on physical and emotional illness.
Many of my programs have focused on helping people heal from issues related to food addiction, emotional eating and digestive dysfunction.
I realize how our relationships with food and our bodies reflect the state of our relationship with God and our deepest inner truths.
I still love this work and continue to offer these programs, and as I dove deeper into the spiritual work, the focus expanded to include the impact of our choices not only on ourselves, but on all of nature and the earth.
This journey has led to the birth of the Community for Conscious Living.
You are invited to join us. To learn more about the community, CLICK HERE.
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