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Leslie's Teachers
I bow low in gratitude and true humility before my teachers.
IM would not be here, and it would not be what it is, without them.
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Please learn more about these marvelous people below.
Byron Katie
Byron Katie created the brilliant and life-changing self-inquiry process called The Work.
The Work, for me, is the finest interface, the most genius alchemizing agent, between our unconscious habit of judging (and suffering) and our eternal knowing that we're okay. That it's all okay.
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As Eckhart Tolle says: he shares the "what" of awakening; and Byron Katie's The Work shares the "how".
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Inquiry Meditation developed out of my practice of The Work. Quite simply: IM's bones are so good because they are made of The Work.
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Byron Katie, you are a gift to humanity, and you have been such a gift to me.
Regena Thomashauer
Regena Thomashauer, aka Mama Gena, taught me the practice of "swamping," which takes you into a somatic experience of whatever upset you are experiencing as you add music, movement, and sounding to express, release, and alchemize intense emotion. Swamping remains a regular and critically important practice in its own right for me, and its somatic nature taught me that emotions must be moved through the body to truly be processed. Regena was my first teacher who overtly preached pleasure with and approval of societally unpopular emotions like rage and grief--emotions that often are encountered during IM.
Swamping is just the tip of the iceberg with Mama Gena, though. She taught me the value of pleasure and fun, period. Because of her work, I know that pain alchemy must feel good, as feeling goodness--otherwise known as pleasure--is the point of it all.
Carolyn Elliott
Carolyn Elliott taught me about resonance, the transformative phenomenon that occurs once you genuinely approve of something. Carolyn also taught me about the power of the unconscious and the imagination--and that we as the imaginers have so much power when we use that power consciously. Imagination is very much a part of the IM modality. Carolyn also generously shares teachings from her mentor, Dr. Robert Dee McDonald. IM incorporates elements of Dr. Robert's Conflict Integration exercise, which is his take on parts work.
I also learned and continue to learn from Carolyn on a gnostic level that life is a dream and that I can choose the kind of dream I'm having. Perhaps best of all, I learned from Carolyn that magic is real.
Kyle Cease
I believe the Goddess placed Kyle Cease in my life to be my validator. As Inquiry Meditation began to reveal its shape to me, I would happen upon a Kyle video on Youtube that would validate exactly, to the bone marrow, whatever I was experiencing as the next step for IM. This validating phenomenon gave me so much confidence in what I was seeing. I think we're on a similar frequency, if not the same one. Kyle is a true teacher.
His brilliant phrases regarding triggers, "You are welcome in my body" and "I will be the space for you" are part of the IM protocol and have opened so many IM meditators and me to thoughts, feelings, and patterns we'd otherwise resist and thus suffer over.
