Home-Based Recovery of Mental Health, Inc.
The Windhorse Journal’s mission is to inspire compassionate approaches to recovering sanity.
We do this by creating an evolving forum dedicated to exploring contemplative psychotherapy and the creation of therapeutic environments for the wellbeing of all persons involved. We envision this to be a rich dialogue among people with lived experience, family members, psychology professionals, and anyone interested in whole person-mental health and the diverse expressions of human sanity.
Dear Friends,
It has been 8 weeks since we began responding as an organization to the threat of COVID-19, with significant alterations to how we go about our work. At that time, an already-scheduled visit and podcast recording with Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche proved to be auspicious. As a valued spiritual teacher, Rinpoche provided welcome words of inspiration and guidance on working with our worried minds while making practical decisions to ensure safety. (See Windhorse Journal entry #054 – “Taking Care in Pandemic: Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche’s Reflections on our Mental Priorities”.) Indeed, what can be drawn upon is one’s life force—called windhorse (Tibetan: lungta) in Shambhala teachings: the unlimited energy of basic goodness and inherent wakefulness. And it’s at the heart of the following podcast discussion. [Read more…]
Dear Listeners,
We are returning to our brief series of papers and podcasts devoted to the revelatory life of Joanne Greenberg. I hope you have had the time and interest to read her text Entry #050 “Mountain Top Author”, and to listen to her podcast Entry #051 “Swimming Lessons.” Both of these posts have extensive introductions which are worth reading as they convey some of the personal impact of the open exploration which is being with Joanne.
As I listen to this final podcast, I hear a group that has matured through its process of relationship with Joanne. We have clearly grown more comfortable with each other, which helps to create the environment where Joanne and we can really shine. [Read more…]
Dear Friends,
In 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.” [Read more…]
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…]
Dear Friends,
We are pleased to continue to focus on our client Scott Klumb and his life with an autism diagnosis, which is documented in his autobiographical film. Our previous post featured a conversation between Scott and his psychotherapist, Jon Garson, prior to the March 10th release of that film. Scott spoke about how he came to be both filmmaker and subject, boosted by a serendipitous meeting with Temple Grandin, well-known for both her own autism and advocacy for others. Her advice about forging an identity beyond diagnostic labels is manifest in the film.
In this post, Scott’s current Windhorse Team Supervisor, Chuck Knapp, reflects on the growth he has observed in Scott—a result of personal determination and the willingness of a supportive team and family to ride out the bumps with him. [Read more…]
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…]
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…]
Dear Friends,
Today’s Journal entry is the beginning of a series of texts and podcasts of the journey of relationship with Joanne Greenberg. Joanne is now an elder woman in her late 80’s “living on top of the mountain” as she puts it, in Golden, Colorado with her husband Albert, who is also a dear soul. Joanne is the well-known author of I Never Promised You A Rose Garden (1964), which is a semi-fictionalized account of her severe psychotic illness and complete recovery. Joanne has gone on to be a successful fiction author, teacher, and mental health advocate. Years ago, those of us working in the Boulder Windhorse community learned that Joanne was our neighbor, and so we reached out to her. She responded with an open hand and an open door to her home. [Read more…]
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…]
Dear Readers,
In this offering we return to consideration of trauma as a significant mental health issue. In a previous journal entry (#027, posted in March 2019), Windhorse clinicians Dave Dunlap and Polly Banerjee Gallagher engaged in a dialogue about trauma as an inevitable part of what it means to be human. And rather than speak from the safety of their professional roles in that podcast, they offered insights drawn largely from their own personal experiences.
Trauma, in general conversation, is often and rightly recognized for its power to destabilize and even destroy a life. But in this written piece, Dave presents a view of trauma that receives much less attention: its potential for growth. [Read more…]