About Me:
Chris Spicer
My Work:
Pathways Home
I call my work "Pathways Home". It's a holistic framework that I’ve developed and grown into over many years that focuses on, integrates, and “activates” the primary components of this embodied “vehicle” in which we navigate this life. You’ve heard it before: Body, Mind, Heart, and Spirit. It’s an attractive, but confusing concept, until you learn that “the way home” using these tracks means largely abandoning the me-centric way that evolution set up for us as children and into young adulthood – even well into middle age. In its place is a Beyond-Me-centric way that relies more heavily on our physical and intuitive body to shift the “just me” identity to the greater truth and freedom that an all-of-us (or none-of-us) identity delivers.
Besides my own personal life experience, Pathways Home is rooted in a wide array of studies, training, and certification in Core Energetics (somatic psychotherapy), Embodied Relationship Mentoring, and a variety of contemplative/ spiritual practices. In general, the starting point typically uses the somatic and energetic aspects of Core Energetics work as a foundation-laying phase – then gradually shifts to include layers of “spiritual” practice.
Beginning with the body is a particularly effective way of experimenting and opening to expressions of your emotional, cognitive, and life force. In the broader scheme of things, Core Energetics serves to build awareness and contact with energy consciousness, intention, and inspiration. It is an approach that works with the body - movement, touch, breath, and vocal expression - using powerful exercises that sometimes bring focus to, and other times provide perspective on or integration with the body, mind, will, emotions, and spirit.
Core
Energetics
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As human beings, we often live in a state of alienation from one another, wishing it were different. The Embodied Relationships Model, formed as an outgrowth of CORE, is based in the belief that people thrive in accepting, compassionate, and safe environments. I use this process to guide couples in accessing the intelligence of their bodies and shifting their identification with themselves as separate beings, thereby opening to their connection with each other and the world we live in and learning how to be more authentic and empathetic with each other.
Embodied Relationships
Contemplative Practice
I consider contemplative practices as nurturing a dance between “selfing” (“me-centric”) and “un-selfing.” I support you in developing and staying committed to somatic-based practices like meditation, movement, connection with nature, journaling, and other ways to access and deepen the “you” we all know is there underneath our smaller, egoic selves. A particularly effective process I can guide you through is Mondo Zen. It breaks our habitual patterns of emotional reactivity in daily life and opens us to a deeper awareness of our essential self, honing mind-based skills and techniques for greater effectiveness and impact.
Contemplative
Practice
Observe the qualities of
expansion and contraction
in the fingers of your hand.
Surely, after the closing of
the first comes
the opening.
If the fingers were
always closed or
always open,
the owner would be crippled.
Your movement is governed
by these two qualities.
They are necessary to you
as two-wings are
to a bird.
Two Wings, Rumi
A favorite game I play when around people is to imagine the little child that an adult once was. It can be with an acquaintance or complete stranger. Find the innocent, much less defended kid behind that grown-up face. We adults are often fine actors on the everyday stage. To really get a sense of who we really are, we need to remember how we started – at least in this body.
I was a quiet kid. I’m a quiet adult. A “nice guy.” I do love a good party. It’s just I need to know I can bow out when I need to. I’ve always loved to be in nature – hiking, camping, playing in the snow, swimming, paddling, sailing. Not bungy jumping so much.
So it comes as no surprise that relationship has been difficult for me, even tho it took me a long time to. realize that. I got along well with a lot of people (even gathered many fans – at least, those who like quiet people!). I’ve always loved being with groups – school, spiritual communities, retreats or camps. The troubles mostly didn't happen in the beginning of relationships.
But marriage started to wake me up. In fact it was after my second divorce – this one with 2 daughters – that I realized I had to take a deeper look. And so I began the self-reflective journey I have been on since. At the center of that was somehow recognizing that I couldn’t “fix” my problems with just more “smart” thinking. So I began a regular meditation and yoga practice that I am still devoted to today. And I gradually discovered how fear had (and still does) rule my life. The classic fear: the fear of not being enough.
I’m at my best when I’m relaxed, grounded, centered, and connected to my body and the earth. Nothing terribly unique there! My spirit really comes alive in northern New England where for years I’ve traveled many miles on waterways and mountain trails. My soul wakes up and expands me.
I’m at my worst in separation from all that. I forget to recharge, refuel, reconnect and take care of myself. It’s a slippery slope that I don’t always recognize as it’s tipping. When this happens, my inner life becomes dull. I can’t concentrate or think clearly. I tire, I get sick. Being in this state is most difficult when life delivers the “next upset” and escalates the slide.
A key to “growing up” for me has been to recognize this separation and investigate “the forgetting.” In fact, we can’t bypass difficult emotions. As we learn, they serve as important information, and if suppressed, will only go into hiding. And yet … there’s a real skill/art in learning to allow difficult emotions without letting them commandeer the whole ship.
What about you? I would welcome a conversation with you to explore how I can best assist you in identifying your own patterns and finding a new way of being with them.