BACKGROUND & PERSPECTIVE
At a very young age, I began to study a variety of inner disciplines in my quest to find answers to personal questions about human consciousness and evolution, and how to discriminate, refine and reflect what I'd learned back into the world via my actions. This quest lead me through Buddhist philosophies, Eastern religions, Western "new-age" ideologies, a bona fide "spiritual" cult, alternative healing modalities, and extensive studies about how the mind works, in both healthy and impaired states. Along the way, I have experienced both integrity and impeccability from my many teachers and my fellow students, as well as witnessing power abuse, self-absorption, entitlement and loads of self-delusion.
Being a writer ever since childhood, I majored in journalism at Arizona State University, and with my interest in the mind/body relationship, I also received professional certification in Clinical Hypnotherapy and several bodywork methodologies. My commitment to regular meditation brought me through several spiritually-oriented communities, all of which had more constricting rules than I cared to subscribe to. In the latter part of the 1980s, I began journaling and discussing publicly what I'd learned thus far after being a close student of a now-deceased self-proclaimed "enlightened" master who unfortunately fell prey to his own ego, but who left me with a lasting impression about how to behave (as well as how not to behave) if we were indeed authentic in what we claimed to believe were honorable codes of conduct to adhere to. Eventually, as my passion about the subject grew, this evolved into a website and two monthly columns and a blog about what this teacher had once termed "spiritual etiquette" - which I chose to take a step (or five) further. I also began teaching workshops and offered private coaching, and published a journal/workbook for women titled Affirmative Actions: Eyes Open Meditations for Women.
My own inner work drifted back to my childhood attraction to Buddhist philosophies, and I found that the concept of mindfulness fit perfectly within what I'd come to embrace on my own as a way of living with deliberately focused attention as well as compassion, empathy, honor and strength, and was compatible with all religious points of view - or none at all - as it simply reflected a deep sense of humanity. I also saw the value in mindfulness-based approaches to a myriad of life situations, from physical health to psychological matters to increased learning potential, academic and otherwise. During this time I read the compelling book by Jeffrey M. Schwartz, M.D., and Sharon Begley titled The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force about neuroplasticity and mindfulness-based techniques Schwartz used to treat patients with mind/brain afflictions ranging from obsessive-compulsive disorder, physical trauma and stroke, and something within me "clicked" - that this was the direction my life and work was heading: the merging of powerful mind/brain shaping techniques with personal transformation work within the mainstream populace. Having taught meditation skills, self-hypnosis and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) techniques to "alternative-type" men and women for over twenty years, it all made perfect sense to move into a broader arena now that this type of work was becoming more widely accepted and validated within the medical and scientific worlds.
A large percentage of my coaching time has always been spent helping my clients untangle conflict situations and communication issues - both internally, as well as with romantic partners, family members, and within their workplace and community. I possess the ability to look at multiple sides of a conflict with fairness, neutrality, and a desire for mutually-acceptable resolutions that can allow situations of poor communication and conflict to be transformed in a positive manner that can ultimately enrich the lives of all parties involved. I began employing mindfulness-based tools and techniques into my practice, as well as into the centerpiece of my writing and teaching, and was thrilled by the success rate it had with my clients and students, as well as the positive feedback from my readers. This convinced me to focus my attention on what I now call Mindfulness-Based Conflict Mediation and Communication Education™, and incorporate much of the progressive communication-oriented and empowering conflict resolution perspective known as Transformative Conflict Mediation, first described in the breakthrough book, The Promise of Mediation by Robert A. Baruch Bush and Joseph P. Folger, published in 1994, and revised in 2005.
During the last couple months of 2007, I reached an internal turning point. I felt a strong pull to reframe my professional work away from the primarily "spiritually-oriented" demographic and perspective and all its limitations, misconceptions and false notions, and move into a humanitarian-focused, more inclusive approach. The spiritual etiquette website was closed, and the beginnings of this one began to take shape in my mind. I dropped one of the columns I was writing for an online publication, as well as the weekly blog about "spiritual activism" I'd been writing for a social-networking site, and re-titled the column I've been writing for Oracle 20-20 Magazine since 2003 to reflect this new phase of my work.
return to top of page
PROFESSIONAL MEDIATION, MINDFULNESS & NEUROPLASTICITY EDUCATION & TRAINING
I have received professional conflict mediation training from the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation, (ISCT) which is the nation's premier center of expertise on the transformative framework referred to above. The Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation is affiliated with a consortium of distinguished universities, including Hofstra University School of Law, University of North Dakota, Temple University, and James Madison University. My studies and affiliation with the ISCT are ongoing, as well as obtaining additional Alternative Dispute Resolution CLE units/training with respected, progressive leaders in the field of conflict mediation.
I've engaged in decades of study in mindfulness-based meditation and its role in stress reduction, including the models created by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, Professor of Medicine Emeritus and founding director of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Kabat-Zinn is a renowned author who teaches mindfulness meditation as a technique to help people cope with stress, anxiety, depression, pain and illness. Over 200 medical centers and clinics nationwide and abroad now use Kabat-Zinn's Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) model. The Center serves a broad international constituency and resides within the Division of Preventive and Behavioral Medicine in the Department of Medicine at UMass.
Further education in mindfulness and self-directed neuroplasticity includes the groundbreaking work of Dr. Daniel Siegel, author of The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being, who is the associate clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine where he is a Co-Investigator at the Center for Culture, Brain, and Development and is Co-Director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. Dr. Siegel is also the Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute, an educational organization that focuses on how the development of insight, compassion and empathy in individuals, families and communities can be enhanced by examining the interface of human relationships and basic biological processes.
Last but not least:
A huge nod of gratitude must be given to UCLA psychiatrist Dr. Jeffery Schwartz, whose book The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force changed my life when I read it in 2004. His successful approach to bringing mindfulness-based practices to the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder has scientfically and medically proven what I knew intuitely for many years: we can deliberately create new neural pathways in our brains with self-directed neuroplasticity, regardless of our age, and thereby transcend the old, unproductive, (and often destructive to self and others) mental and behavioral patterns that can keep us stuck and miserable in many areas of our lives.
Bringing mindfulness-based practices and self-directed neuroplasticity to the areas of conflict mediation and communication education is the pinnacle of all my education (both academic and self-directed) over the past three-plus decades. To me, this the most exciting playground and laboratory of human potential in existence, and our best hope of changing the world by changing ourselves first, and leading by transparent, impeccable, and contagious example.
return to top of page
I reside in Marin County in Northern California, and am a member of the Association for Dispute Resolution of Northern California. I am available to present workshops and professional in-house trainings in Mindfulness-Based approaches to interpersonal conflict and communication issues throughout the United States and Canada.
I also teach self-directed mediation and Mindfulness-Based self-directed neuroplasticity to help clients and students create new, more productive neural pathways in their brain - particularly in the area of performance, stress management and transcending unproductive, habitual behavioral patterns.
Please contact me for more information via email or by phone: 415-524-8121. |
Thank you for your interest in me and my work in the world. I hope this website helps you to become more aware about how and what you communicate, as well as the way you approach internal and external conflicts, and that you consciously choose to proactively work to transparently Communicate Humanity in all that you say and do, every moment of every day.
- Suzanne Matthiessen
Join Email List
