An Introduction to Presence-Centered Healing and Transformation
Rhonda Mattern

After decades of intensive spiritual disciplines, I learned to leave my physical body, work with inner guides, and consciously wake up in dreams. These experiences brought deep insights and fulfillment, but they didn’t change the things I most longed to change in my life: abusive and unfulfilling relationships, work I disliked, and a judge and jury screaming “bad girl” 24/7 inside my head.

Six years of therapy with two different psychologists left me with countless insights—and the same list of challenges. My therapists said my dysfunctional parents had caused my suffering, but eventually I realized that another couple was also involved. They’ve been around a long time, so you probably know them well.

The names of these on-again off-again lovers are spirituality and psychology. Many of us think they’re just perfect for each other, but they’ve been dragging their feet to the altar for decades. Like all couples, they get triggered into unconscious patterns. Sometimes they can’t see each other’s beauty, and other times they outright badmouth or ignore each another. Here’s how this couple’s rocky history manifested in my own life:

For years, I turned to spiritual teachings to live a more fulfilling life. The best of them offered practices to help me consciously experience my spiritual nature (i.e., soul or higher consciousness). This was a revelation and a gift!

But no matter how many times I experienced my spiritual nature, mechanical thoughts and emotions eventually triggered me back into old ways of being. So I turned to psychology, and learned to understand my conditioning and release long-repressed emotions. These were essential experiences, but they didn’t end my suffering—they just took the edge off it.

While many spiritual teachings either damn or ignore the mind and emotions, psychology often returns the favor by ignoring the soul. Both overlook a basic reality: the experience of consciousness for human beings includes both soul and mind. Even the word human reflects this sacred collaboration: hu means God or spirit, and mana is Sanskrit for mind.

Most spiritual practitioners understand the importance of psychological healing, but mistrust any psychology that leaves the soul behind. Similarly, most psychologists recognize the importance of the soul, but lack training to help people experience it more consciously.

In a world littered with holistic approaches, I spent nearly two decades learning dozens of healing techniques. And these weren’t casual dates: I committed myself to each approach for years. I tried breath work, body-centered therapies, and visualization. I clarified my mission and goals. I beat pillows and screamed. I sipped flower essences like a love-starved hummingbird. I let go and let God. And still I suffered.

After years of this exhausting hunt and peck, I finally hit pay dirt: a unique blend of spiritual practice and psychology called presence-centered healing and transformation.

What Is Presence-Centered Healing and Transformation?

The poet Rumi once said that when love brings two things together, a third thing is created, something completely new and unique. This explains why presence-centered practice is so radically different from the spiritual and psychological practices that preceded it. This isn’t just talk therapy with a few spiritual disciplines pasted onto it, or a spiritual teaching with a few psychological tools thrown in. It’s a completely new discipline that’s emerged from the insights of its parents:

Insight #1 - Spiritual Teachings - Healing and transformation happens when you: Experience the wisdom, compassion, and love of your spiritual nature

Insight #2 - Psychology - Healing and transformation happen when you: Understand your unconscious patterns and choose new behaviorial strategies

Insight #3 - Presence-Centered practice - Healing and transformation happen when you: Bring the consciousness of your spiritual nature to unconscious patterns (in very specific and skillful ways)

Here’s a simple analogy to help you grasp the significance of the third insight above:

Picture your soul as a beautiful castle. Now see your limiting attitudes and emotional reactions (e.g., angry outbursts, judging yourself mercilessly, etc.) as alligators in the castle moat. It’s not enough to learn how to enter the castle, because alligators keep pulling you back into the moat. It’s not enough to learn how the alligators pull you into the moat, because that doesn’t get you back into the castle.

Spiritual teachings show you how to get into the castle. Psychology teaches you how alligators pull you into the moat. Presence-centered practice helps you take the next step: learning concrete skills that help you bring higher consciousness to limiting patterns in a way that actually helps you break free of them.

Presence-centered practitioners help people tame their inner alligators by teaching three essential skills:

• How to consistently and reliably distinguish your soul or spiritual nature from your mind (despite years of meditation, I was not skilled at doing this)
• How to explore unconscious patterns while anchored in higher consciousness (and what information it’s essential to gather during this exploration)
• Specific actions to take (and not take) to help unconscious patterns to heal

Working with presence-centered practitioners is likely to be different from anything you’ve ever experienced, and it can change things you thought would never change. During presence-centered classes and mentoring sessions, you don’t talk about consciousness—you experience it! Your mentor will help you to deeply connect with the awareness beyond your mind, not just for a few minutes, but throughout the entire session, and not just now and then, but during every session.

The poet Hafiz once called man “a divine elephant with amnesia living in an anthole.” Presence-centered practice offers tools to help you break free of limiting patterns and create a life that more fully reflects who you are and what you love most. People from all walks of life are increasingly turning to presence-centered tools because they address a universal spiritual need: to bust out of whatever anthole that’s holding you back.

So that’s a bit about my journey. Now I’m curious about yours.

Have any of you experienced similar struggles juggling spiritual awakening and psychological healing? What are your current challenges with that? What are you learning from those challenges?

Join in on the discussion by clicking on the DIALOGUE button below or find out more about Rhonda's next tele-class — Living from the Whole Self: An Introduction to Presence-Centered Practice — starts in February.For details, visit Rhonda Mattern's website.