I have been guiding people for the past 20 years in changing their belief systems and emotions to personal change. While the self help industry has grown with the digital revolution and flooded the internet with millions of articles and information, these seldom give you the depth needed and the practical tools for real and lasting change. My intent is that Self Mastery practices in my courses offers you a deeper and well proven process with practical exercises that will shift your thinking, emotions and behaviors permanently at the core.

What I am fundamentally sharing about is how to change your negative thoughts, emotions, emotional reactions and behaviors. The most effective way to do this to change your beliefs (most of which are sub-conscious), and release repressed emotions. I’ve learned and developed many practical ways to do this. Exercises that are practical are important to me. I want things that work and are repeatable. That’s probably due to my mechanical engineering education. You won’t find a lot of “woo-woo” or new age philosophy written about here. If you do, I am probably punching holes in the logic, or application of it.

I didn’t get into this field 29 years ago because I thought it would be cool, or make money. I got started because I was unhappy. More details on that below. My mind was full of incessant thoughts of judgments and blaming than I couldn’t stand anymore. Any approach to fixing how the gears in my mind worked had to make sense. Oddly this led to developing consciousness awareness. It seems like an abstract quality to develop for practical real world results, but it works.

I was very blessed. I had an extraordinary teacher in Don Miguel Ruiz. He was a neurosurgeon by training. He was also trained in the shamanic traditions of his Mexican ancestors. He taught me to apply spiritual wisdom in practical ways to relieve my mind of suffering. I feel part of his genius was in making practices straightforward and simple. I try to do that as well. [read more]

As you get into my Self Mastery lessons one of them might lead you to believe that what I teach is from a particular field of psychology. Yet a different exercise will indicate my approach comes from a mindfulness background or Buddhist practice. Later in the course you might think some practices come from other spiritual traditions. You will find similarities to different traditions. However, it is in the blending of these different practices, and practices that I created myself, that you get a comprehensive system for dealing with the different parts of your mind. I’ve taken from many areas and combined them in a unique way.

What I share is principally about developing consciousness. Then using that consciousness to break the programming of sub-conscious (unconscious) beliefs that are at the core of problems in people’s lives. How are unconscious beliefs at the core of so many problems? For starters, if you consciously knew the source of the problem you could just change that thought or emotion and the issue would be solved. That doesn’t happen because the source of the problem is located somewhere in your psyche that you are not aware of, hence the term unconscious. Unconscious beliefs are at the source whether it is incessant negative thinking, emotions like anger, anxiety, depression, unworthiness, insecurity, jealousy, or a behavior dealing with spending, eating, exercise habits, or relationship sabotage.

Giving you methods so you can get into those unconscious corners of your mind and clean them out is a passion of mine. It’s like the ultimate game and I get to share with people how to play. In the process you get power back over your mind, emotions and your life. Then you have the opportunity to make your self happier, and make your relationships better. That makes the world a better place.

I am very grateful and feel blessed to have been able to share these practices the past 20 years. I continue to grow and evolve as I explore it. I continually try new things to see if I can develop faster and more effective approaches to help people change in ways they want to. It’s one of the ways that I keep from getting bored.

A personal note about my journey

I don’t come at this approach to happiness from a naive background. I don’t have a Pollyanna perspective about emotional suffering and pain that people experience. I hit my tolerance for emotions of fear, self judgment, insecurity, and frustration when the woman I was with got so angry that she picked up a fire poker and came at me. In her previous fits of anger she had thrown things, scratched me, or taken a swing at me but this was different, somehow surreal. On the chance that it wasn’t a dream, I grabbed hold of the fire poker until she relaxed and put it down. I realized I was exhausted from trying to fix the relationship. I didn’t have the tools to change the dynamics of emotional drama we were both doing. In short I was in an emotionally abusive relationship. That was when I started to look inward at my messed up thinking and decisions that had gotten me there, and kept me there that long. (FYI: I immediately left that relationship when it got to that point. I chose not to be in that volatile environment while I figured things out.)

I had also just left a career where I was burned out from being at work 80+ hours a week. The two major areas of life, career and relationship, that were supposed to be my source of fulfillment and happiness were failures for me. Fortunately they happened at the same time. I say fortunately because I didn’t have a place to hide my attention and avoid dealing with how I created my unhappiness and chaos.

It took me more than a few days to stop finding fault with everyone else and acknowledge my responsibility in all of it. I resisted swallowing responsibility for my choices but as I reviewed my half I couldn’t escape the truth. I was the one responsible for getting myself into the career and relationships I was in. I was responsible for choosing to stay when things were miserable. My girlfriend persuaded me into believing I was at fault for her anger, but I was the one who believed it. I resisted acknowledging until I couldn’t deny the truth. I finally accepted that I had a responsibility for the events and what I was feeling in my life. I was responsible for the thoughts in my head. What surprised me was that taking responsibility gave me a sense of having personal power.

I realized that if I had the power to create my misery, then I also had the power to create joy and happiness as well. I just had to figure out how. I vowed that I would figure out what was in my unconscious decision making process that had gotten me into unhappy situations, and what had kept me there. I made a deep commitment to change this unconscious decision process so I didn’t end up there again. I committed to being happy no matter what. I would no longer live in the fear and miserable emotions that were filling my life.

Two weeks later I was sitting and listening to a gentleman by the name of don Miguel Ruiz. Nothing noticeably profound happened that evening, but his common sense, kind insights, and perspective were a breath of fresh air to my own incessant thinking. As I left that evening I knew that I could learn a lot from this man. At the time I was unaware to realize the profound impact his deep wisdom and powerful practices would have on my life.

Since that day in April 1994 Don Miguel went on to write best selling books such as The Four Agreements, The Mastery of Love, and The Voice of Knowledge.

I worked with don Miguel personally for several years to change all my beliefs and completely change my perspective on everything in life. I learned how to be happy and have a quiet and peaceful mind in the face of life’s chaos and conflicts.  Much of his teachings were filled with understanding of Spiritual knowledge from around the world. In his genius he would strip down esoteric teachings and explain them in common sense language. However, his words were just the wrapping around his true gift of consciousness, unconditional love, and acceptance.

First learning, then learning to teach

After spending the first few years of my work with don Miguel mastering how to be happy in the world I turned my attention towards sharing with others. I spent the next several years learning many methods he uses to create powerful results for people. It has been my honor and pleasure to share those methods, techniques, common sense and unconditional acceptance that he shared with me.

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