Meet Toby: A Journey of Wholeness

I received a B.A. in Psychology from Binghamton University in 1991. Then my education began. Through both personal and professional contact with the western Psychiatric institution I quickly became disillusioned by healing methodologies that focused on “what’s wrong” and diagnosing “conditions” and “disorders.” I did certainly recognize that there were very useful perspectives and tools, as well as genuinely kind, well-intentioned, well-educated and well-trained people within the mainstream psychotherapeutic community. However, I felt that reducing the ineffable vastness and mystery of the human experience to mere concepts articulated within “bibles” of diagnostic criteria, belied the arrogance and ignorance of a system that seemed more interested in control and managing experience, than in compassion, love, wellness and awakening to the purpose and inherent value of challenging experience.

My deep sense is that our wellness is inextricably tied to our essential connection to and relationship with the earth and beyond that, with our authentic Self; that which is revealed when we use techniques and practices that call ourselves back from the outwardly focused, derived sense of self and practice presence with ‘what is,’ right now. I resonate with the perspective that this derived sense of self, often called ‘ego’ or the ‘story of self,’ is created and perpetuated through the deep denial of core wounds and a conditioned fixation on attempting to get our basic needs for self-worth, belongingness, acceptance, approval and love met from other people and outer circumstances.

This denial creates a duality within comprised of what we will and will not consciously identify with. Much of life entails the ongoing reckoning with and gradual acceptance of all within ourselves that we deny and have difficulty consciously owning as being a part of ourselves. In my 20’s, this awareness led me to the perspectives of deep ecology and earth-based spiritual traditions such as the Native American Sweat Lodge where I informally apprenticed with a water pourer for 5 years. During this time, I greatly deepened my study and practice of many forms of meditation, continued exploring a wide variety of group and individual therapeutic approaches, received Reiki attunements and began experiencing the power of Energy Medicine.

My own healing journey led me into the arms of a healing center in Anchorage called White Raven Center in 2004, where I experienced the core emotional healing process, also referred to as Rapid Transformation Therapy (RTT). My experience and 16 years of facilitating clients in this modality earned me a Master’s degree (M.A.-RTT). RTT is a body-centered or somatic modality, modelled on the core principles of holotropic breathwork, which uses breath to move attention out of the thinking mind and allows the body’s natural intelligence and innate capacity to restore balance and heal to be our guide. Through the use of simple breathing techniques that assist us in keeping our attention focused on our immediate experience, we encounter emotional and energetic residue from pain and trauma unconsciously denied in order to survive. As sessions progress and we allow for the processing of unresolved pain, we fall into our own heart and call back all projections from our own inner conflict. As we accept more and more responsibility for our experience, blame, lack, judgment and powerlessness fall away.

During my first few years facilitating this work, my own gifts of subtle perception and my ability to serve as a guide to others on their journey of awakening continued to be revealed and more fully develop.

I am drawn to approaches to wellness that view challenges within our experience as opportunities to discover where we have learned to reject, deny and judge ourselves; where we have learned to close our hearts in an effort to protect ourselves. As these self-denials are largely subconscious, and thus are very difficult to become aware of through the conscious thinking mind, talking about ourselves or ‘talking story’ in an attempt to reveal what’s limiting us often ends up creating more of what we’ve already experienced as limitation, constraint and suffering. Through learning to shift our attention from the ‘story of self’ to the immediacy of our experience right now, we can become more aware of our conditional self-acceptance, gradually take greater responsibility for this inner division, and experience and increasingly embody our authentic Self.

This derived sense of self or ‘story of self,’ is perpetuated through the deep denial of core wounds. It is generated and perpetuated through conscious and subconscious identifications with fear, lack, powerlessness and other self-limiting beliefs that essentially claim as truth that liberation, salvation, peace and love is something acquired from without, rather than realized and surrendered to within. Of course, this false identification of self is the perfect means by which we lead ourselves to surrender and to remember our beingness. In other words, it is exactly what many would label as ‘problems’ or ‘disorders’ that lead us to true self-acceptance and peace. Nothing is happening to us. It all is happening for us, conspiring on our behalf to lead us to the best versions of ourselves we can be. Of course, I understand that it often does not feel that our life challenges are actually some benevolent invisible hand leading us to self-awareness and peace. This is why I am here to walk with you.

I embrace the perspective and teaching echoed within many traditions, that “the problem” only ever exists in the thinking mind. Further, what presents as a challenge contains within it all that is necessary to collapse the duality within by becoming aware of and embracing the disavowed and denied parts of self. As the duality collapses and we move into greater and greater acceptance of self, we shift the internal energetic dynamics that have magnetized to us the reflection of all within us that we have sought to avoid. Over time, we are able to attract more and more into our lives that reflects our inner peace; the sense that we are o.k. and good enough, as we awaken to being the creators of our own experience.

After this deep initiation through my work at White Raven Center, my path led me out of Alaska where I continued my study and practice of energy medicine through the indigenous Peruvian tradition of the Q’ero people. Through this lineage, my understanding of the archetypal healing journey grew tremendously. I learned much about how to intervene and address conditioned patterns of resistance, self-sabotage and self-limiting behavior at their energetic roots, the generative matrix or source level of these issues. And, put simply, it all begins by walking through the doorway of guided breathing that leads you back to your own denied heart.

I am grateful to live in a time when my awareness is able to be informed by so many wisdom traditions, from the indigenous peoples of North and South America to the Toltecs and Vedics, to the Taoists, Buddhists, Christian mystics, Hawaiians and the mystic poets where I repeatedly find the same truths uniquely expressed through each tradition’s distinctive cultural lens.

I am passionate about the healing power of the drum and music and still drum professionally to this day. My heart also opens wide to the wilderness and to the beauty and power of ceremony. In 2017 I became a father to my son. In 2019, my daugher was born. My partner and our two children are the greatest blessings of my life. In my service as a facilitator of the healing process, I do my best to hold sacred space in the most present, safe and respectful manner possible for each participant to whom I offer support and guidance.