In the heart of every problem lies its solution. We spend enormous amounts of time and energy searching for answers outside ourselves, when the answers lie within. Heartwork is a simple, direct, powerful, yet gentle tool for opening fully to one’s life. Both a counseling approach and a way of living, Heartwork serves to resolve problems at their core, and to open the “heart of compassion.” Heartwork is a creative process, which teaches one to find fundamental solutions to both everyday problems and the more difficult life questions, transforming "problems" into doorways to compassion, insight and joy.
When I was seven years old, I knew what I wanted to do with my life: help alleviate people’s suffering. When I was thirty-six years old, I came to understand how to do this.
In search of my own liberation, I had practiced Zen for ten years, and had done different kinds of therapy from the time I was eighteen. I saw that meditation practice had the potential to open one’s mind to a larger reality where there was no suffering. However, in one’s day-to-day life, it didn’t seem to carry over. Meditators seemed not to know how to deal with their human emotions. On the other hand, people who did extensive psychotherapy were able to work with their feelings, but had not found true freedom. From a spiritual perspective, it seemed they were simply rearranging the furniture in their jail cell.
I saw the need for a way to open to both the spiritual and mental/emotional aspects of one’s being, and in 1981, I created a way of being called “Heartwork.” Working through one’s psychological issues creates the internal space that allows one to access spiritual awarenesses. Realizing aspects of one’s True Nature makes it much easier to work through one’s mental/ emotional blocks, knowing that they are not who one really is.
My award-winning book, Heartwork: How To Get What You Really, REALLY Want, gives one my orientation and the primary tools for working through one's issues. Both the hardcover and e-book versions can be purchased at my website: www.awakentheheart.org.
I enjoy working with all individuals whose lives are not satisfying in some way. I also do a great deal of relationship work. To get a feel for how I work, you can download my pdf, "Relationship Transformers" at http://www.awakentheheart.org/files/RelationshipTransformers2008.pdf.
I teach "Heartwork" tools to individuals, couples and groups – in person and by phone/Skype -so that they may learn how to work through any issues that separate them from their inherent wholeness and their connection with others and the Universe/God. I do "personal intensives" with individuals, couples, and adult families, and facilitate personal/spiritual growth workshops internationally. More complete biographical information can be found at http://awakentheheart.org/dale-goldstein-lcsw/.
My work has been most deeply influenced by the meditative, psychotherapeutic, and personal growth work I have done, and by my life partners and children, who have insisted I be a whole person.
