Patricia Meadows, MS, RN, RCST, SEP
My Background
My life and work have been inspired, enriched, and informed by many people who have supported me in my own personal healing and life journey, as well as those who have been my teachers, mentors, colleagues, and clients. Over the years, I have pursued specialized training in numerous holistic and integral approaches to healing, recovery, and psychospiritual development, which continue to inform both my personal practice and my work. A major “paradigm shift” occurred in my life and in my work many years ago as a result of training with Anne Wilson Schaef in Living in Process, which continues to be a way of life for me. Living in Process is a process-oriented approach to healing and soul work, which focuses on individual, group, societal, and global recovery, and which complements and is complemented by 12-step recovery work. The Living in Process approach is foundational to my own understanding and life/work, which has evolved out of this process-paradigm and immersion in living in the flow of the soul. After initially training in Healing Touch through the Holistic Nurses Association in the late 80’s, I was drawn to an even more in-depth four-year training in Integral Healing taught by Graciela Damewood. This is an energy-based therapy integrating an Eastern understanding the chakra system and energybody, with Western psychology and synthesizing multiple approaches to energy healing (which I continue to draw upon in my own work).
In the mid-90’s, directed by strong inner guidance, I had the opportunity to study with Stanislav Grof, MD in transpersonal psychology and to train/certify as a practitioner of Holotropic Breathwork. This profound approach to inner exploration, which uses the breath as a doorway to the healing wisdom and the power of non-ordinary states of consciousness, has provided me with an appreciation for the potential of these states for healing,
transformation, and evolution, when used wisely and skillfully. For many years, I practiced and trained in Authentic Movement, which I utilize as a body-oriented psychospiritual practice. I was deeply grateful for the opportunity to work privately with Janet Adler to refine my development in this practice, especially as a witness. I find this form of embodied inquiry to be in support of my primary spiritual practice, which is the Diamond Approach. I am a committed practitioner and teacher of this integral approach to spiritual development and realization, based on the teaching of A. H. Almaas, which uses inquiry and meditation as its cores practices. I am a long-term student in the Ridhwan school, a spiritual work school that teaches this approach and have trained for almost a decade to become a Diamond Approach teacher.
For the past fifteen years, I have continued to deepen my knowledge and skills in the area of trauma healing and resolution, especially related to very early, life-threatening shock and trauma, as well as to early attachment wounding and developmental trauma. This work is informed by my own history, as well as my passion for exploring the process of incarnating—of coming into embodied form, into the world and into human experience and relationship—and the profound affect our imprinting during this process has on our lives and on our deepest development. I have trained with Ray Castellino in Prenatal and Birth Therapy, to learn more precise ways to access and resolve very early shock and trauma imprinting. Simultaneously, I trained/certified in Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, which is one of the primary tools utilized in the prenatal and birth work. This is a very subtle form of bodywork which accesses and supports the client’s own self-regulation and self-healing process and the movement of the “breath of life” or life force — conveyed by the cerebrospinal fluid to all the fluids and tissues of the body. I am a certified practitioner of Somatic Experiencing, Peter Levine’s naturalistic approach to healing all forms of trauma, which is an integral component of the work I offer. I continue to deepen my own personal and professional development through post-advanced trainings and workshops in SE and by assisting with advanced trainings in Somatic Experiencing. Also, I am a certified practitioner of DARE—the Dynamic Attachment Re-pattening Experience (DARE) created by Diane Poole Heller. I have been training with and assisting Diane worldwide since 2008 and am one of the core faculty for DARE. Currently, I teach DARE trainings in the US, Canada and Australia.
My life and understanding are enriched by many deep collegial, personal, and family relationships, which continue to be a source of great curiosity, love, joy, and respect. I am the mother of two adult daughters, Amy and Tricia, and have four grandchildren—Abby, Jacob, Joshua and Ella—who are precious each in their own unique way. I have been in married partnership and lifelong friendship with my husband for almost 45 years. I have experienced the many challenges, transitions and possibilities that committed partnership/relationship can bring when we are willing to let go of familiar forms, beliefs and structures that we have outgrown and to explore relationship as an unfolding process. Last, but not least, I realize that my life/work is informed by spirit and the Great Mystery, which works through me and ignites within me a deep and abiding commitment to personal and collective transformational healing. Through my own personal healing and spiritual work, as well as my support of others in their movement toward wholeness, I am grateful to be participating in the larger evolutionary process unfolding at this unprecedented time in human history. I look forward to exploring possibilities with you for collaboration in this integral work.