Relationships That Invite Health: An Overview of Basic Attendance Part 1
Windhorse Journal Podcast
Dear Listeners, This Podcast series on the Windhorse practice of Basic Attendance explores the discipline as an expression of the wisdom, compassion and resulting reciprocity that can manifest in ordinary human relationships when cultivated within a ground of openness and relational warmth. I came to the Windhorse approach after graduating from the Naropa Institute—now University—in 1980, and I had the good fortune to be around when this was being envisioned with other Naropa graduates. My attraction to this vision and practice had to do with the emphasis on a person being fundamentally...
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Could I Be A Voice For Those Still Suffering? Pt. 5
Windhorse Journal Podcast
Dear Listeners, Welcome to today’s podcast, the conclusion of our five-part series of Julia’s first-person recovery story. By its nature, what’s being told here is certainly unique, as each person’s journey is completely individual. But in this case, the highly unusual nature of our series goes further, as her team—Janneli Chapin, Jack Gipple, and Chuck Knapp—are also sharing their perspective, making this a truly rare opportunity to experience the multifaceted inner workings of a recovery journey. We had originally planned to have this series end after four segments. However, once...
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Could I Be A Voice For Those Still Suffering? Pt. 4
Windhorse Journal Podcast
Hello friends and listeners, I am so glad that you are here, and I hope that you will enjoy today’s podcast. Hopefully you have had the opportunity to watch the first 3 podcasts. I was very excited to have been given the opportunity to make these podcasts with Windhorse, and in particular with Jack, Janneli and Chuck. In 1992 I took a medication that triggered a severe bipolar episode that sent me spiraling into a nightmare that lasted more than 20 years. You can hear about many of my experiences on the first 3 podcasts as Jack, Janneli , Chuck and I discuss our relationships over...
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Could I Be A Voice For Those Still Suffering? Pt. 3
Windhorse Journal Podcast
Dear Listeners, Welcome to today’s podcast, a first-person recovery story which we believe is a unique contribution to the resources on extreme state psychology—particularly around the phenomenon of cutting. In Part Three of this five-part series, we again join the members of Julia’s long-standing Windhorse team—Janneli Chapin, Jack Gipple, and Chuck Knapp—as they discuss the 12 years of their working together, along with her psychiatrist, Dr. Green. Today’s dialogue covers a wide and dynamic arc. Beginning with the horror and helplessness of Julia’s former life having almost...
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Could I Be A Voice For Those Still Suffering? Pt. 2
Windhorse Journal Podcast
Dear Listeners, Welcome to today’s podcast. In Part Two of this five-part series, we once again join the four members of Julia’s long-standing Windhorse team as they continue to discuss their stark experiences and the realities of her recovery—particularly as this conversation takes them more vividly into her experiences of cutting. Speaking with unusual directness about the dynamics they experienced with each other and with the larger mental health system, this open-hearted discussion explores the power dynamics that harm and those that heal. Again, they speak about—and most...
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Could I Be A Voice For Those Still Suffering? Pt. 1
Windhorse Journal Podcast
Welcome to today’s podcast, a first-person recovery story which we believe is a unique contribution to the resources on extreme state psychology—particularly around the phenomenon of cutting. The arc of our story begins with Julia, who’s lost in a hellish life predicament, feeling “intrinsically ruined”—with no sense of a way out. At this point, pretty much everything she’s known as reliable reference points have been lost, and her confused acts and thoughts are only begetting more confusion and pain. Making matters worse, the trauma that lies at the root of her extremely...
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Recovery is possible, no matter how disturbed a mind has become
Windhorse Journal Podcast
In this podcast, four long-time Windhorse practitioners discuss the 4th (and last) principle of recovery: “No matter how disturbed a mind has become, recovery is possible." The conversation touches on the loss of connection with self, others, and the world—and the unique path each person walks to reclaim and reintegrate those parts of themselves that are innate but covered over by confusion.
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Recovery is the path of discovering one’s own health and sanity
Windhorse Journal Podcast
Anyone who’s considered the territory of recovery from extreme mental states knows this to be a vast and subtle topic. And if this is a concern of yours, it’s also critical to reasonably understand—otherwise you may not recognize some of the key patterns as they’re occurring.
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The Integration of Windhorse and Open Dialogue
Windhorse Journal Podcast
Welcome to this podcast discussion that explores the integration of the Windhorse approach with Dialogical Process that derives from Finland’s Open Dialogue treatment approach. We are also fortunate to publish here an original paper by Phoebe Walker, The Evolution of Dialogic Practice within the Windhorse Project, that provides substantial background for this exploration
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Co-Presence: The Legacy of RD Laing – Part 2
Windhorse Journal Podcast
Welcome to this podcast, which is part 2 of Co-Presence: The Legacy of R.D. Laing. Again, our group of distinguished guests includes Nita Gage, Michael Thompson, Fritjof Capra, and Jeff Fortuna. If you’ve been fortunate to already hear part 1, you know you’re in for another feast of the mind and heart.
info_outlineIn Joanne Greenberg’s piece “In Praise of Not Knowing” she writes that while on the one hand, she would like to know what the future holds, on the other, it would rob her of essential qualities of life.
“Not to know implies the need to learn more of what can be known, and that implies a struggle to grow and change. Not knowing is the call to courage. I admire us because of courage – the courage to wake up, wash up, dress, eat breakfast, and go out, unknowing, into what Alan Dugan, the poet, calls ‘the daily accident’. Knowing everything, we wouldn’t need seat belts, but the biggest victim of knowing would be the loss of our most prized possession: Hope.”
My introduction to Joanne Greenberg was through her book, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. It filled me with hope. A teacher who sat in the reading room at my high school must have noticed how depressed I was (and I was), and one day she recommended the book. I followed this young woman who was struggling so deeply but refused to give up, who risked losing her personal world to try to reconnect with the world we all share, who allowed her therapist into her life, who engaged in curious seeking. She inspired me. I felt her powerful insistence on living, and that led me to consider the possibility of continuing to live myself. I couldn’t make myself believe that I had her drive or courage, but her story made me feel like maybe I could find some of that vitality myself. I didn’t have anyone like her doctor in my life, but the story of their collaboration led me to believe that maybe there was some other doctor out there who could help me. Without knowing what the future held for me, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden gave me the gift of hope.
Some forty-five years later, in preparation for a conversation with Joanne Greenberg, I reread this book that had meant so much to me. I looked in the front cover. The book was very worn; I had read it many, many times. I discovered—much to my embarrassment—that I had taken my high school’s copy from the reading room and never brought it back. I guess the teacher from the reading room recognized the depth of my need.