Windhorse Community Services

Home-Based Recovery of Mental Health, Inc.

Windhorse Journal Entry #054: Taking Care in Pandemic: Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche’s Reflections on Our Mental Priorities

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Chuck Knapp, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, Polly Banergee-Gallagher, and Jack Gipple

Dear Friends,

It’s again our privilege to present another podcast with Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche. This finds him in a conversation with Polly Banerjee Gallagher and Jack Gipple,  primarily focusing on how to work with our minds and relationships in this time of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Rinpoche had been scheduled to record with us long before the various social restrictions came into play, and we found ourselves thinking how fortunate it was that he was doing these teachings at precisely this time—right when we need help with thinking about how to ride this avalanche of novel and threatening experiences. There’s so much potential for fear, confusion, and of closing one’s heart toward others—all of which is exactly what Rinpoche addresses. To say the least, these teachings are as timely as they are accurate. [Read more…]

Windhorse Journal Entry #052: I AM WHAT I DO: A Conversation with Filmmaker Scott Klumb

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Jon Garsen and Scott Klumb

Dear Friends,

It’s a privilege to present this podcast, which displays a rare convergence of creativity with a remarkable recovery path. Scott Klumb, in dialogue with his psychotherapist Jon Garson, offers us a glimpse into his passion and creative process as a filmmaker. We also get to hear about his film, AUTISM: One Man’s Journey, which is his “coming out party” as a person with late-diagnosed autism. Now complete, this powerful film is about to premier in Denver on March 10th at the Sie Film Center, sponsored by the Autism Society of Colorado.

Adding further brilliance to this podcast is the presence of Temple Grandin, Scott’s newly found friend, whom he interviewed for the making of the film. [Read more…]

Windhorse Journal Entry #051: Swimming Lessons

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Dear Listeners,

It’s with great pleasure that we share these illuminating conversations with Joanne Greenberg. Though we’d felt a strong and warm connection with Joanne for many years, it wasn’t until the focus and depth of these recording sessions that we really started to experience her profundity. Interestingly, beyond the perspectives she shared, these far-ranging conversations appear to be taking us on an unexpected journey: one that’s inviting, positive, and affecting our creativity in an unmistakable way. Clearly, beyond what she knows, her life force is playful—and contagious.

Today’s podcast is the first of a three-part series, which we’ve titled, Swimming Lessons. Though our conversations were casual and often humorous in nature, they were set against Joanne’s personal experience of drowning in her mental illness. [Read more…]

Windhorse Journal Entry # 049: Basic Goodness, Tsewa, Basic Sanity: Part 2 of a Conversation on a Deeper Understanding of Trauma

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Dear Listeners,

In this second entry of the two-part podcast on trauma (first entry #27) we, Dave Dunlap and Polly Banerjee Gallagher, along with the moderator, Chuck Knapp, delve into personal examples and experiences of working with trauma. As Dave expressed in his introduction to our first podcast, “the discussion we engaged in captures only a small part of the story. We are not pointing to a single way to treat trauma, or even the idea that trauma is something that can be treated away.” With that understanding we continue our discussion recognizing that trauma is a vast and deep topic that is difficult to articulate cohesively without getting lost in a fog and missing the heart of what we mean. To our wonder, what came out of this discussion was our genuine connection to our shared experiences as human beings. [Read more…]

Journal Entry 047: Finding The Right Relationship

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Chuck Knapp, Elizabeth Mattis Namgyal, Gretchen Kahre

Dear Listeners,

We’re delighted to be sharing the second part of a conversation we had about a year ago with Elizabeth Mattis Namgyal; a spiritual friend of Windhorse Community Services and gifted Buddhist teacher and author. Closely following the publication in 2018 of her second book, The Logic Of Faith, we had posted Part One of this conversation (entry #021), under the title “Taking Faith Apart.” For both podcasts she was joined by Gretchen Kahre, who is a close friend of hers and a senior Windhorse clinician. [Read more…]