I recently had a short video made about me and my point of view as a therapist. Thank you Aaron Richter!

Today is the first day of a New Year—and a new time in our lives.  There is excitement in the air, for the gift we receive today is time—a new day, a new year, another chance to heal and grow.  Time is the medium of evolution allowing the unfolding of life’s purpose.  The days of this New Year, used consciously, will awaken our purpose and lead to our enlightenment.

Time used constructively heals the wounds that would crush our life’s expression.

Time used mindfully carries us like a mighty river to our depth.

Time used consciously transforms life experience into wisdom and illumination.

No wonder we’re excited at the prospects of this New Year and its gift of time.

It takes time to heal.  We must proceed slowly, day by day, unraveling the damage that confounds the full expression of our identity.  Our wounds run deep for they were inflicted practically from our first breath.  The painstaking work of loving all the lost parts of ourselves back to life, vitality, and full expression must be done slowly, day by day, throughout this bright New Year.

Today we begin the journey back to our self and to truth.  We take the hand of our frightened inner child who was shamed into believing it was of little value and hold this child in our care and protection.  We comfort this terrified child, buried within us, who hid for safekeeping until this very moment.  We open the prison gates with our love and breathe life into this forgotten existence.

Today we begin a sacred journey through a New Year.  Slowly, through the days of this new time, we develop our dishonored child into the fulfilled adult that life intended.

This bright New Year with gratitude, humility and love, I begin a new time in my life.

My friend and colleague Daniel Mackler made a new short video about me, called “Fred Timm Shares Some Wisdom — Ancient Greece, Modern Wisdom.”  Enjoy!

Most are not aware of the soul crimes of their ancestors.  These betrayals remain unknown, as they are passed unconsciously through the generations.

But some are more sensitive by nature, and feel these wrongs as violations.  They question the source of this poison infecting them, since its source feels external to them.  As unnamed traumas begin to contaminate these sensitive types, they perceive a grave error, dissonant from their sense-of-self.  This discernment can begin in early childhood. Continue reading →

Love enters our being through the heart.  Love is a powerful force which compels us to grow beyond the limits of our upbringing.  Once away from our unconscious families, we are safe to heal our traumatic history and integrate our fragmented self into a whole person.  This integration is the marriage within, in which our human nature weds our higher nature; our instincts wed our ideals.  We become a whole person at last, at one with it all.

Most profoundly, this integration of the self changes the rules.  Continue reading →

As economic and ecological collapse looms in our world, we humans must embrace a necessary transition.  We must evolve from outer to inner definition.  This is the new way.  This alone will save our planet home from desolation and our species from extinction.  To be part of this timely change, here are some suggestions.

Do’s

Do inner work:  Grieve and heal childhood trauma; free yourself to be real.

Stay single:  Stay with yourself, find yourself, love yourself—find your singular purpose as defined from within and contribute this needed gift to the world. Continue reading →

The relationship between a therapist and client is a professional and unequal relationship.  It is highly personal for the client and not so for the therapist.

The client reveals secrets and highly personal and private details of their life experience and childhood; the therapist maintains boundaries and self-discloses carefully if at all. The client needs re-parenting; the therapist is the parental surrogate. The client needs to be emotionally held as children do; the therapist does the holding.  The client needs to be seen, heard and witnessed; the therapist sees, hears and witnesses.  The client presents issues; the therapist assesses these issues and offers interpretations of them that often connect to childhood history and trauma.  The client is the student; the therapist is the teacher and can confront and guide the client into a deeper understanding of self.  The client works to a deeper insight into self and behavior; the therapist facilitates this growth.  The client grows, stays stuck or quits; the therapist lives separately from the client and though saddened if a client is stuck or quits realizes this is a choice of the client.  The therapist may be influenced by the client’s issues and growth, but ideally remains detached from them.  The therapist realizes as much as they root for the client, it is up to the client to do the work and grow.  The therapist has a separate life that should be of more interest to the therapist than the life of the client.  The therapist continues to work on his/her issues to be of value to the client.

What makes a good therapist?

Good therapists have healed their own childhood issues and have evolved into enlightened adulthood.  They have done the most profound inner work of all—they have healed their ancient childhood wounds.  They have evolved into their true selves and work to manifest their gifts. They are universal beings and belong to life, nature and truth—not the limits of their upbringing or culture.  Living out of their true selves allows them to interact with the client in a genuine and generous manner, since they understand human dynamics and defenses from a healed and universal perspective.  They also empathize with the client since they have suffered similar traumas but have healed them which offers the client hope.  These enlightened therapists are living examples of what a healed and manifested life is, since they practice what they preach.  They know the theories and sound practices established in the conventional canon of human psychology and spirituality, but their greatest strength is the living example of their healed lives and the gifts and joy in living these enlightened therapists embody and manifest. Good therapists teach their clients self-therapy and work to get the client out of treatment and on their own.  Good therapists will not abandon their clients, but be there as long as needed, but overall want their clients to grow up, leave treatment and be on their own.

What makes a bad therapist?

Bad therapists have not healed their childhood wounds.  They practice from learned theories and not from healed and enlightened living.  Bad therapists are like bad parents and exploit their client for their own needs, enjoying the power they hold over the client.  Bad therapists withhold love and understanding and manipulate the client to fulfill their own unmet needs from childhood.   Bad therapists induce dependency relationships in the client and misuse the power they hold over the client as their own parents misused their power over them.  These bad therapists cannot teach or lead by example because they are not genuine, enlightened people themselves.  Often they resent the growth in the client because it points out how stuck and emotional dead they are themselves.  They keep the client infantilized, withholding approval and endorsement of the clients strengths so that the client will remain a dependent “child” and not abandon the “adult” therapist.  Also, with a dependent client, the therapist insures an income flow no matter how unethical this may be.

Like many of us, I wanted to change the world.  But my best efforts seemed irrelevant as the steamroller of average people’s destructive living plowed through, almost taking me with it.  Then I had a revelation:  that despite this troubled world, I had grown—evolved.  I had changed.

As a Seeker, I was different—more self-aware, more profoundly human, more accurately me.  And this brought me to my second revelation:  that since I had changed, the world had changed too.  When you and I change, the world changes—and it only takes a few to set new ways in motion.