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To Janet Goldstein, for encouragement, suggestions, excellent editing, and staying steady with this project, even though it took much longer than expected.

To Billie Fitzpatrick, my “book doctor,” for stellar help at every level—organization, focusing ideas, making better transitions, and encouragement when it seemed like a daunting task.

Special thanks to teacher and friend Stephen Wolinsky, for books, workshops, and conversations on quantum consciousness, advaita vendata, and Buddhism. You “get it” and “are it” more than anyone else I know. I appreciate my endless experiences of dropping into the void as a result of the processes I did in forty-six days of your life-changing workshops. I greatly appreciate your clear and focused feedback on this book, arising from your deep comprehension of Buddhism, along with your unmitigated honesty, availability, friendliness, and great sense of humor.

Thanks in memoriam to Ken Keyes and the Cornucopia community I attended in 1980. This was my introduction to Buddhism with the concept that our suffering is a result of our attachments and, what seemed like a vague concept at the time, that everything is one energy. You set me on a new path.

Heartfelt thanks to the following people who have given interviews, input, guidance, support, friendship, inspiration, and suggestions . . . in no particular order: Laura Davis, Marilyn Beech, Sheila Jaya Lindquist, Helen and Jack Watkins, Shabda Kahn, Sigurd Hoppe, Jackie Kurtz, Zamilla ra, Carol Narrance, Kristie Hager, Pat Bik, Suzie Risho, Lindsey Bailey, Audrey Campbell, Kristina Smucker, Pamela Stoneham, Kate Wenninger, Ed Shope, Jerry Moss, Bruce Barret, Adair Canter, Steven Hesla, Margaret Baldrige, Karen Tacke, Starshine, David James Duncan, and all the people in the writing class, especially Stephanie Walkinshaw and Azita Osanlou, all the friendly people at Weight Watchers, and all the other people who provided inspiration for this book. Thanks also to the brave and courageous clients who have taught me so much and daily affirm the incredible capacity we have for healing.

Introduction:

A Personal Story of Getting Stuck and Unstuck

Over a decade ago I broke free from a settled, secure life in Minneapolis for a financially uncertain existence amid the staggering beauty of the mountains, rivers, and hiking trails of Montana. Feeling agitated by the city with its constant speed and noise, cramped on my forty-foot lot, I hungered for space, starry nights, watching the sun rise, and the cool mountain mornings of summer. I wanted to sit down at night and play the piano at my ease without the creepy feeling of unseen ears lurking around me.

My sister’s sudden death a few years earlier had acutely reminded me of our precious, finite lives. Five years before she died, we had had one of our last special visits after she had driven with me from Minnesota to take possession of my magical octagonal house, perched on ten acres above the Missoula valley in Montana.

I felt at home amid huge old ponderosa pines with a panoramic view of the mountains. I relished watching the sun and the moon rise as the streams of light and shadows in the house traveled north and south through the seasons. At first I was able to balance my time between morning walks, writing, presenting workshops, my psychotherapy practice, playing the piano, and exploring the vast terrain with friends.

But several years later, I increasingly felt squeezed by publication deadlines. Writing, once my creative pleasurable union with the muses, became adulterated by pressure, especially on those beautiful, clear, blue-sky Montana summer days when I longed to be in the mountains rather than staring at them over my computer screen. Three years earlier, I had promised myself I wouldn’t write in July and August, but there I was, doing exactly what I promised myself I wouldn’t do. The familiar symptoms of being stuck emerged.

I started eating too much chocolate and gaining weight as I watched the occasional