Spiritual PsiKology

Chakras are energy centers in the body that correlate with emotional, spiritual and health issues. Understanding the lessons each chakra offers can give us important information and insight on ourselves, where we get stuck and how to nourish our inherent strengths.   Renee also offers her unique system for manifesting or moving our ideas and inspiration into the world using the Chakra sy...

Spiritual Psi-Kology works directly with the emotional, spiritual or body felt experience of a person using guided imagery, hypnotherapy, mindfulness and Shamanism. Western psychology operates primarily from a rational or intellectual perspective, which can be very helpful, but is limited. Each of these approaches are effective in different circumstances.  Renee talks about her decision to pr...

Facing depression is the heroes journey. We go into the cave of our own unconscious and heal, slay or expel the demon that is hoarding the treasure of our own authentic self. When we face our depression, we gather the priceless treasure of our own life energy and bring it into the world for the benefit of ourselves and those around us.  In Spiritual Psi-Kology, nothing lives in our psychic sp...

We all benefit from healthy, loving relationships in our lives. But most of us didn't get the "How To" manual on creating and maintaining intimacy that works for us. Renee offers four simple, actionable steps to bring more love and depth to the relationships in your life. The four A's of intimacy are: Acceptance Appreciation Asking For What You Need Adult Ego State  There are also four things...

Happiness often comes from the outside, but joy arises from within. We can cultivate joy in our lives through creativity, selfless service and random acts of kindness.  As William Shakespeare once said, "The joy is in the doing." From this perspective, joy is a verb. Renee describes how doing street art in the middle of the night became a way to manage emotional turmoil and transform her own...

Love and fear are opposing forces that drive our decisions and dominate our life experience. Renee talks about her long experience with anxiety and how we can outgrow fear. The forces for love and the Universal Life Force, aka God, are infinitely generative and creative.  Tapping into the flow of life and moving into the unknown are imperative skills if we are to find the true joy and fulfill...

The spiritual principles underlying the 12 Steps are powerful tools for anyone who wants to use them. Renee highlights the guiding principles for each step and how to apply it for personal growth and transformation.  The principles for each step are 1. Honesty 2. Hope 3. Surrender 4. Courage 5. Integrity 6. Willingness 7. Humility 8. Love 9. Responsibility 10. Discipline 11. Spiritual Awarene...

Our demons are our fears, dysfunctions and unresolved emotional issues. Our allies are our honesty, willingness and openmindedness as well as the wealth of human and spiritual help that is always available to us. Our allies grant us the courage and hope to be able to face our demons and perhaps even transform them, as garbage is transformed into compost under the right conditions. Renee talks abou...

Myths, great stories and the characters in them are like instruction manuals for personal growth. The story of Snow White provides a powerful template for the healthy marriage of our intellect (The Prince) and our intuition (The Princess,) or the unhealthy relationship of judgement and self-criticism (The Evil Queen) with our own authentic self. Renee retells this classic Western fairytale and off...

It's easy to confuse neediness with love. Optimally, love is what we bring to a relationship and what we share within it. As adults it is empowering to be a whole person first, to fulfill our own needs rather than entering relationship hoping to be fulfilled. This doesn't mean that we don't give and receive from others. It means that we do better when we turn to the larger stream of life to fulfil...

The Divine Feminine connects us with important resources for fulfillment, growth and healing that are often under valued by our culture.  We all have masculine and feminine principles within us that work together to create a healthy, balanced person. Frequently we over value the masculine currents of intellect, power and material prosperity at the expense of the feminine currents of creativit...

Multiple Intelligence Theory points out the many ways we can be smart in our lives besides reading, writing and math. Some are gifted at dance or sports. Musical intelligence, social awareness, even contemplation and self awareness can be valuable skill sets if viewed from this perspective.  We all have many ways we are talented or intelligent, though we may not recognize them.  Acknowle...

I'll try anything once, but I won't do a 7 day water fast again. Though I went in openminded and without expectations, my 7 day water fast was still surprising. It was a powerful experience and I'm still unpacking the take aways.  Fasting is an ancient practice with modern appeal for longevity and health. But fasting can clear more than just your digestive system. Retreating from regular life...

Confrontation can be compassionate and empowering. Renee offers a simple formula for healthy confrontation which is effective and transformative. There are times to let things go and times to confront intentional negativity and harm. Learning to discern when to speak up and when to move on is part of our personal growth work.   The golden rule found in most spiritual and religious tradit...

Sex, intimacy, love and desire are the engines that drive relationship and drive us crazy. We can have sex without intimacy and intimacy without sex, but many of us seek a blend of both. There are lots of reasons people have sex and many ways to express intimacy. Having open and loving, passionate and interesting connections can be as challenging as it is fulfilling. Navigating our own sexuality a...

The Divine Feminine has many faces. In Christianity the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalen are powerful figures. We can look at them as archetypes of madonna and whore or we can look at them as real women with important stories to tell and as role models for feminine strength and compassion.  Renee talks about rejecting the female role models in her life as weak and uninteresting. Many women model...

Non-duality is the experience of the one-ness of all things. There is a ground of being underlying the duality of the material world. Duality is the pairs of opposites; day and night, love and hate, fire and water, peace and fear that create the dynamic tension of the everchanging and impermanent physical realm. Most major religions and many spiritual traditions point to non-duality as a path...

Equanimity is loving detachment. This powerful, peaceful practice is one of the Four Immeasurables, Buddhist principles for healthy boundaries and happy relationships. The other three "Immeasurables" are loving-kindness, compassion and joy. These attitudes work as a unit and teach us how to show up in with our best intentions and let go of the results. With equanimity as our guide, we learn that h...

Trauma can absolutely be healed. In Spiritual Psychology, trauma is caused by the splitting or shattering of the self in an attempt to manage an overwhelming event or long term distress and not go crazy. From this perspective, trauma is actually a brilliant coping mechanism. Like a breaker switch trips to keep the house from burning down when there is an energy overload, the psyche can be reset an...

From a karmic perspective, our birth circumstances are not a coincidence. Whether you believe in reincarnation or not, it can be empowering to consider that we might have been drawn to our family of origin as a template to show us where we need to evolve and heal on a soul level. When we can take responsibility for our life, we can move from a place of helplessness to hope. It is our decisions, ch...

The Golden Shadow holds our hidden gifts, repressed creativity and withheld courage. Where our dark shadow may be our suppressed wild and destructive urge; our golden shadow can be a profound source of deep wisdom, guidance and empowerment. Renee talks about the unexpected changes her own golden shadow facilitated in her life and how you can connect with this inner resource for yourself.  ---...

Sensitivity is a superpower when we know how to manage it. We all have many extra senses that are generally considered intuition or instinct. Because our culture doesn't recognize experience that isn't testable in a lab, these other ways of knowing are usually unrecognized and underdeveloped. Renee talks about the risks of being unconscious about these sensitivities and the many advantages of usin...

Dissolving depression, letting go of grief and surrender to the circadian rhythms of the universe are important for growth and health. Sacrifice on a transpersonal level is more about releasing what no longer serves us than it is about virgins being devoured by Minotaurs. However, ancient myths have much to teach us about the wisdom of sacrifice, of "feeding the gods."   When we try to cheat...

We all prostitute ourselves. When we trade our integrity and inner truth for money, security, power or attention, that is our inner prostitute. Prostitution in this transpersonal sense has more to do with selling our worth and values than it does with selling sex. In fact for some, like the late Shannon Williams, being a whore may even be an empowering act of self expression and civil disobedience...

Spiritual bypass is when we use spirituality as a way to avoid our own unresolved emotional suffering or personal growth work. 3d and 5d are new terms for evolving consciousness out of the realm of duality and into the higher planes of non-duality and unified experience. Evolution is imperative but it is both easy and dangerous to evade or deny our own shadow when seeking the light. As long as we...