1.Regarding Your Session #1 (Title: My Story - Diving in and Dissolving Away - Discussion of my internal journey - why it was necessary to explore and even more important to let go.) Can you tell me  more about your internal journey ?

When my sister Lisa died I was 20 years old. Losing her in the way we did - she ended her own life - sent me spinning. At first the spin took me further into smoking pot and the occasional binge drinking as I had very few skills in dealing with pain of this sort. In hindsight though her death freed me. I didn’t care about the standard Jewish path expected of me anymore and because my parents were so scared of anything else happening I had more freedom. I dropped out of school and moved to San Francisco.

In San Francisco I continued self-medicating and expanded this self-medication to hallucinatory substances. Where I was lucky is that the escapist tendency was eventually overrun by my need to understand what went on in my family and what goes on in my psyche and therefore the experiences I had really helped me open up and see things in a different way. Slowly I understood that the substances merely opened a door and let me glance in. To really go deeper into understanding I had to find a way to daily, consistently, unmedicated-ly explore. That is how I was led to meditation and writing. I dabbled in meditation at this point but I started to write quite a bit while I was in San Francisco, a practice I continue to this day. Writing about my internal process, what I understand about my self and the dynamics of growing up in my family of origin has been vital to my growth.

2.  Can you tell me about your exploration of your own family of origin system ? What did you learn, and how did it shape you?

My family of origin is fascinating like all families are. In brief, we were an outward picture of perfection while internally we had our stuff - just like everyone else. The perfection piece is the killer, literally, in our family as perfection is a no win situation. To be perfect is to be perfect in the eyes of everyone and this of course is impossible. There is no way to make everyone happy - to satisfy everyone’s needs - so the impulse to do so is untenable. But having that impulse, learned and driven by the structure in my family, we were forced to deny self for other. If I need to be perfect and make sure others are ok then I must deny my impulses because they will undoubtedly trigger someone else. My needs and desires and the direction I am drawn to go must be put aside to take care of other. The longer I do that the farther away from self I become until I lose touch completely with who I am and why I am here and what I want to do with my life.

I witnessed Lisa struggle to find who she is until that struggle ended. I saw Eli do the same thing in his own way until finally, happily coming out the other end. As for me my life’s work to this point has been trying to peel off that belief system and find out who I am. Truly this exploration has been the defining thing in my life and has led me to help others do this work also.

3. Are you now working as a Psychotherapist and if so where ? If you are not working in that field can you tell me where you ar