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- BlogDear Reader: Welcome to my very first blog! This blog represents the next step of faith in a journey I never could have imagined ten years ago, a path full of unexpected turns, rich discoveries and shared connections—personal connections to some of you who might be reading at this very moment, as well as a larger sense of shared practice, kinship, and brotherhood with many of you whom I will never meet. What I now call “Touch Practice” began as an effort to explore and heal my own body. I thought of it as something I created, something invented or made up, just for me. I slowly realized that while it was profoundly healing for me, it also seemed to have tremendous benefit for others, and so it became something for “we” rather than something just for “me.” I began to think of Touch Practice as a form of partnership. Next, I understood that something I imagined I had created or invented myself actually existed before I found it—Touch Practice is more accurately something I discovered, something I became aware of rather than creating. I came to understand that this aspect of touch has probably existed in an infinite variety…
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Touch Practice, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
4Touch Practice has been a fascinating exploration of Great Unknowns for me, and in the course of carrying this practice I have learned many things. There are two areas in particular, however, where what I have learned has completely changed the way I conceive my …
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Safety through separation, safety through connection
Following up on last week’s post—how boundaries work to create safety—here’s a case where “the opposite of a truth is also true.” One of the first things we learn to do to create safety is separate ourselves: we build walls, erect boundaries, withdraw. For those …
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How boundaries keep us safe
In various sorts of body work ranging from clinical, therapeutic massage through even the most erotic types of exchange, an explicit agreement about boundaries—where and how we will and won’t touch or be touched—is one of the ways we create a sense of safety for …
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Follow the Breath
You may have heard the saying that we should never form too firm an impression about someone else without first “walking a mile in their shoes” in order to understand their reality. Well, there’s an even better way to try to get in touch with …
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Clamping Around Emotion
It is common that during the course of Touch Practice work, we experience emotions. Sometimes touching different parts of the body will elicit different emotions, some pleasant and welcome, others difficult and challenging to feel. Emotions normally pass across the energy body the way clouds …
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The Power of Anonymous Service
The spiritual path is chock full of selfish acts. Becoming “self-aware” is perhaps one of the first steps we take on that path. We might practice meditation of some sort, learning how to direct and focus our awareness (what some call “mindfulness“) and becoming aware …
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Touch as a Path to Recovery
I, like many men who recover from childhood sexual abuse, began that process by talking to a professional therapist. It took me until I was almost 40 years old until I was ready to talk about it. But once I got started, I couldn’t stop. …
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Working with Shadow
It’s popular in our culture to think of people in terms of “strengths and weaknesses.” On evaluations of a child’s schoolwork or an employee’s performance, this phrase is often euphemized into “strengths” and “areas for improvement,” but hey, we all know what that code means, …
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A Thank You To Soldiers
It is fair to say that every time I share Touch Practice with another man, it is a life-changing experience for me. It’s not possible to hold someone for an hour and not be deeply touched (pardon the pun) on every level. But some of …
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Out of my Mind: The Limits of Talk Therapy
One of the greatest moments of my life occurred on a Thursday evening when, at the end of a yoga class during the shavasana period, I, quite literally, went out of my mind. That is, I felt my own sense of self fall down out …
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