What IS this place?
It’s a garden. A place for respite.
Here you will find a welcoming hug and an offering.
Overall, it’s my call for a new WAY of being.
What IS this place?
It’s a garden.
A place for respite.
Here you will find a welcoming hug and an offering.
Overall, it’s my call for a new WAY of being.
As a psychologist it’s my job as well as my great passion and joy to help people find their center and their own unique “way.” I do this by helping them identify and remove whatever blocks their path, dims their light, and shuts down their heart. By rediscovering the tender part of themselves that they’ve disavowed they can move forward on their life’s journey with a wonderfully fulfilling feeling of wholeness—the positive, optimistic energy I call their “glow.”
Tenderness is at the root of my professional practice. It is at the root of the books I write. It is the essence of my humanity—and yours. So, welcome! Please, stay a while—let’s get to know one another.
As you scroll through this website, you will discover that The Tenderness Way has both an educational and a psychotherapeutic mission. I will show you why tenderness is a core psychology that motivates all human beings. You will learn that tenderness has its roots in amae, a Japanese word that eludes perfect English translation. Amae is a need for sweet, kindly affection from others. In earliest life it is our emotional nourishment. It implies a promise of wordless understanding, a trust that our needs will be met happily. And this need for adoring tenderness remains a silent wish all of our lives.
All of this is clearly explained in the WHY TENDERNESS? page. You will understand why this vital ingredient is missing in so many lives, as well as in the way we interact with Mother Earth—and why so much of this planet, this home we share, will continue to suffer and slowly die unless, here too, we become more tender.
Incidentally, the ABOUT section has two parts. One is About Faith, which is a précis of my professional background. The other part is About My New Book. If you read the Introduction and Chapter One I have posted here from Tenderness: The Way to a Deeper and Sweeter Connection with Ourselves, Each Other and Mother Earth, my book-in-progress, you will learn a lot more about tenderness, and how it shows up in the world today.
“Tenderness.” The word itself invokes an inner warmth. It is something positive, something spiritual, and sadly, far too often unattainable. This new website, TheTendernessWay.com encourages you to make tenderness a part of your everyday life. Here I will show you that not only is tenderness attainable, it can be cultivated. Developing a tenderness consciousness and way of being, this new brand of emotional intelligence I call TQ, can change your life!
For those of you who want to course correct, learn more about the importance of wholeness for your greatest psychological health and wellness, and live a more fulfilled and joyful life, visit SERVICES. Perhaps there’s an area of your mental health that you’ve neglected, or a part of you that feels stuck. This is where you will find a host of therapeutic offerings, including psychotherapy services and The Tenderness Way Workshop.
For those who wish to stay awhile, please navigate over to my ‘Under The Tenderness Tree’ BLOG which will offer timely topics you may find of interest in these general categories: Tenderness in Therapy, Tenderness in Nature, and Tenderness in Everyday Life.
This area is very special to me and I hope will come to be so for you: please don’t leave without a visit to COMMUNITY that I call “Tenderness Rising.” It’s a place where you can interact with like-minded people who share their tenderness experiences, and perhaps share a telling experience of your own. There you can also find educational, inspirational, eye-opening material, including articles, books, videos, songs, poems, profiles on People Who Glow and more from thought leaders, sages, journalists, authors and other change-makers.
As you visit with us your understanding of tenderness will take on new dimensions. It will no longer be a word you rarely use. Nor will tender experiences be uncommon occurrences in your life. Growing in tenderness you will experience a greater appreciation of yourself and others and a natural expansion of your well-being.
Are you ready to AWAKEN to your birthright and learn how to tender love and freely receive it? The time is now.
Our greatest strength lies in the gentleness and tenderness of our heart.
—Rumi
As a psychologist it’s my job as well as my great passion and joy to help people find their center and their own unique “way.” I do this by helping them identify and remove whatever blocks their path, dims their light, and shuts down their heart. By rediscovering the tender part of themselves that they’ve disavowed they can move forward on their life’s journey with a wonderfully fulfilling feeling of wholeness—the positive, optimistic energy I call their “glow.”
Tenderness is at the root of my professional practice. It is at the root of the books I write. It is the essence of my humanity—and yours. So, welcome! Please, stay a while—let’s get to know one another.
As you scroll through this website, you will discover that The Tenderness Way has both an educational and a psychotherapeutic mission. I will show you why tenderness is a core psychology that motivates all human beings. You will learn that tenderness has its roots in amae, a Japanese word that eludes perfect English translation. Amae is a need for sweet, kindly affection from others. In earliest life it is our emotional nourishment. It implies a promise of wordless understanding, a trust that our needs will be met happily. And this need for adoring tenderness remains a silent wish all of our lives.
All of this is clearly explained in the WHY TENDERNESS? page. You will understand why this vital ingredient is missing in so many lives, as well as in the way we interact with Mother Earth—and why so much of this planet, this home we share, will continue to suffer and slowly die unless, here too, we become more tender.
Incidentally, the ABOUT section has two parts. One is About Faith, which is a précis of my professional background. The other part is About My New Book. If you read the Introduction and Chapter One I have posted here from Tenderness: The Way to a Deeper and Sweeter Connection with Ourselves, Each Other and Mother Earth, my book-in-progress, you will learn a lot more about tenderness, and how it shows up in the world today.
“Tenderness.” The word itself invokes an inner warmth. It is something positive, something spiritual, and sadly, far too often unattainable. This new website, TheTendernessWay.com encourages you to make tenderness a part of your everyday life. Here I will show you that not only is tenderness attainable, it can be cultivated. Developing a tenderness consciousness and way of being, this new brand of emotional intelligence I call TQ, can change your life!
For those of you who want to course correct, learn more about the importance of wholeness for your greatest psychological health and wellness, and live a more fulfilled and joyful life, visit SERVICES. Perhaps there’s an area of your mental health that you’ve neglected, or a part of you that feels stuck. This is where you will find a host of therapeutic offerings, including psychotherapy services and The Tenderness Way Workshop.
For those who wish to stay awhile, please navigate over to my ‘Under The Tenderness Tree’ BLOG which will offer timely topics you may find of interest in these general categories: Tenderness in Therapy, Tenderness in Nature, and Tenderness in Everyday Life.
This area is very special to me and I hope will come to be so for you: please don’t leave without a visit to COMMUNITY that I call “Tenderness Rising.” It’s a place where you can interact with like-minded people who share their tenderness experiences, and perhaps share a telling experience of your own. There you can also find educational, inspirational, eye-opening material, including articles, books, videos, songs, poems, profiles on People Who Glow and more from thought leaders, sages, journalists, authors and other change-makers.
As you visit with us your understanding of tenderness will take on new dimensions. It will no longer be a word you rarely use. Nor will tender experiences be uncommon occurrences in your life. Growing in tenderness you will experience a greater appreciation of yourself and others and a natural expansion of your well-being.
Are you ready to AWAKEN to your birthright and learn how to tender love and freely receive it? The time is now.
Our greatest strength lies in the gentleness and tenderness of our heart.
—Rumi
What is Wholeness?
In the field of psychology, the general understanding of effective human development is that one stays on a maturational track by successfully navigating all growth milestones along the way, birth to death. Ideally, the whole person is an individual who functions healthfully on physical, emotional, mental, and moral channels, moving through their life cycle with energy and confidence. Thus, being solidly on track is the essence of well-being and mental health. Feeling off track, or sensing that a part or parts of you are lagging behind, missing or shut down, is why people come to therapy or seek self-help books and programs.
The truth is that most people have some uneven development, with only parts of themselves off track. They may have a great family life but are floundering occupationally, or vice versa. They may be thrown by transition stages such as graduations, new parenthood, divorce or death.
These are all challenges which bring extra stress that overwhelms capacities for a time or can even change the shape of lives. Few people know why they’re blocked or why they feel unfulfilled—but they do know that they don’t feel quite whole. “I’m just not myself,” they might say.
The famed American Psychologist Abraham Maslow coined the phrase “self-actualization” as the highest human achievement. But before him, Carl Jung, the great Swiss pioneer of Modern Psychology, called the journey toward wholeness individuation, a process of growth and maturity that requires inner examination in order to discover the “fully alive” and “fully healthy” version of the person you are uniquely capable of becoming.
Jung used the symbol of the beautiful, unified mandala to visualize his wholeness psychology. In Eastern spiritual traditions the mandala is a representation of the cosmos. Just as the universe is thought to have an organizing center, a Deity, an energy that keeps order in the midst of chaos, Jung applied this same definition to the human realm. As he explained, “The mandala is the psychological expression of the totality of the self… a center of personality, a kind of central point within the psyche, to which everything is related, by which everything is arranged, and which is itself a source of energy.”
When was the last time you glowed? Imagine yourself like a radiant mandala, balanced, harmonious, serene, full of color and light. Get ready to find that life force again.
Follow your bliss … If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.
—Joseph Campbell
In the field of psychology, the general understanding of effective human development is that one stays on a maturational track by successfully navigating all growth milestones along the way, birth to death. Ideally, the whole person is an individual who functions healthfully on physical, emotional, mental, and moral channels, moving through their life cycle with energy and confidence. Thus, being solidly on track is the essence of well-being and mental health. Feeling off track, or sensing that a part or parts of you are lagging behind, missing or shut down, is why people come to therapy or seek self-help books and programs.
The truth is that most people have some uneven development, with only parts of themselves off track. They may have a great family life but are floundering occupationally, or vice versa. They may be thrown by transition stages such as graduations, new parenthood, divorce or death.
These are all challenges which bring extra stress that overwhelms capacities for a time or can even change the shape of lives. Few people know why they’re blocked or why they feel unfulfilled—but they do know that they don’t feel quite whole. “I’m just not myself,” they might say.
The famed American Psychologist Abraham Maslow coined the phrase “self-actualization” as the highest human achievement. But before him, Carl Jung, the great Swiss pioneer of Modern Psychology, called the journey toward wholeness individuation, a process of growth and maturity that requires inner examination in order to discover the “fully alive” and “fully healthy” version of the person you are uniquely capable of becoming.
Jung used the symbol of the beautiful, unified mandala to visualize his wholeness psychology. In Eastern spiritual traditions the mandala is a representation of the cosmos. Just as the universe is thought to have an organizing center, a Deity, an energy that keeps order in the midst of chaos, Jung applied this same definition to the human realm. As he explained, “The mandala is the psychological expression of the totality of the self… a center of personality, a kind of central point within the psyche, to which everything is related, by which everything is arranged, and which is itself a source of energy.”
When was the last time you glowed? Imagine yourself like a radiant mandala, balanced, harmonious, serene, full of color and light. Get ready to find that life force again.