We attend to the Body, Mind, Soul, and Spirit in our therapeutic programs. For this purpose, we incorporate the Native American symbol of the Medicine Wheel which is in fact an ancient universal symbol for wholeness, integrity, and balance. The Medicine Wheel is basically a quadrant containing the four directions (North, South, East, and West) and in each direction there are energies, needs, instincts, or tendencies that are considered essential to achieving the experience of completeness, wellbeing, and contentment.
SANCTUARY
We start our journey in the South as we consider this direction to be the foundation to our program. The South (Sanctuary) stands for security, belonging, support, and protection and is the direction of the “Body” and the element of “Earth.” This is our feeling of safety and sense of being at “home” both internally and externally. Besides having a physical place to live, the South is about being in an emotional place of trust, harmony, joy, and playfulness. The exercises we utilize to enhance this direction build trust amongst participants so that the therapeutic group experience is one of safety and support.
Once this foundation is established, we encourage our participants to explore what is missing or getting in the way of them achieving an “inner and outer sanctuary” in their lives and the necessary steps to realize it. We believe that one of the most powerful consequences of addictive patterns is the compromised experience of a safe “sanctuary” due to past trauma or poor attachment to caregivers while growing up.
INDIVIDUATION
Next, we move clockwise to the West (Individuation), which is the representation of “Soul” and the element of “Water.” The West relates to our emotional and psychological processes. We explore how our sense of Self and our uniqueness is constantly being shaped by our past experiences and the potential we all have to change and restructure ourselves. This is the bread and butter of our program as we engage in the process of investigating how our personal history has shaped who we are and what we have the potential to become. We address traumatic events that have caused symptoms such as rage, anxiety, and depression, and by necessity, created blocks and defenses (including addictions) to help us survive. However, these blocks and defenses also keep us stagnated and unfulfilled. Exercises in this direction will encourage participants to recreate their own personal story so that traumas can turn into learning experiences, and these significant events can turn into initiations and opportunities for a more cohesive and harmonious sense of self.
EMPOWERMENT
The next stop is the North (Empowerment), where we engage in the process of assessing our personal “tools” to our present functioning and survival. This is the direction of “Mind” and the element of “Wind” which determines our ability to exercise our power and freedom to live the way we want to live and our capacity to change our present circumstances as aversive as they might seem. The exercises designed to address this direction have to do with exploring our level of satisfaction with our current job or means of livelihood and our “lost” or forgotten dreams and aspirations.
In this process, we seek to rediscover our unrealized self and expose the blocks that have gotten in the way of our realizing our potential in the past . Some of the obstacles that can hinder our development in this direction include:
- Not yet knowing what we feel passionate about or what our hidden talents are
- Not being given access to education,
- Being disempowered by others to exercise our own “calling” in the world,
- Not believing in our ability to take control over our destiny
These issues are fully considered in the therapeutic process to empower participants to discover and develop new tools of survival if the existing ones are no longer working.
INTERDEPENDENCE
The last stage we address in our program is the direction of East (Interdependence), in which we tour overseas to experience our interconnection with each other in the context of participants traveling together while interacting with people of other cultures. This is the direction of “Spirit” and the element of “Fire,” which inform us about our place and purpose as members in this great human community. We believe complete healing cannot occur without extending our hands to those who seem different to us and who may need our support and compassion. In this stage, we give ourselves in the spirit of service and volunteerism to complete our journey.
We have chosen ancient culturally homogenous lands to travel to so that we can enrich ourselves with their cultural heritage in exchange for needed resources more readily available in more heterogeneous cultures such as ours. A percentage of your donations will support ongoing community projects run by the people who will be hosting us on our trip.