#27 Embracing the Present

Podcast with

By training, Gail Brenner is a licensed Ph.D. psychologist and trauma specialist with almost 30 years of experience offering individual sessions and group workshops. Her work as a therapist and teacher invites people to shed attachment to false identities, return to their essential wholeness, and realize the truth of who they are. In primarily group courses, she holds safe space for people to investigate patterns of early trauma that live in the mind, body, and heart—and are carried through family generations. And she welcomes celebration of the freedom that’s discovered when the attachment to these patterns falls away and there’s space for awakened living in everyday life. Her teaching is practical and accessible to all. She loves meeting with people who have tried everything and are still searching for an end to suffering.

Gail received her B.A. from Carnegie-Mellon University and Ph.D. from Temple University. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Florida and a clinical internship at the Veteran’s Administration Hospital in Palo Alto, CA. She has special expertise working with older adults and their families, bringing clear seeing and compassion to the transitions of aging, death, and dying. As a member of the clinical faculty at University of California, San Francisco, she helped physicians develop communication skills and learn to address psychosocial issues with their patients. She has authored numerous published articles on coping with stress and chronic medical illness. And, for 15 years, she consulted with staff of assisted living and skilled nursing facilities about aging, dementia, and caregiving and gave presentations to the community at large on these topics.

Gail is the author of three books: The End of Self-Help: Discovering Peace and Happiness Right at the Heart of Your Messy, Scary, Brilliant Life, At the Core of Every Heart: Reflections, Insights, and Practices for Waking Up and Living Free, and Suffering Is Optional: A Spiritual Guide to Freedom from Self-Judgment and Feelings of Inadequacy.

As a blogger, she has been featured on CNN, Huffington Post, Zen Habits, MindBodyGreen, Tiny Buddha, Inspire Me Today, and the Undivided Journal. She is on the board of Science and Nonduality (SAND).

Explore Gail’s course for SAND: Deep Trauma Healing

The Moon Cannot Be Stolen

Article by

Sometimes a story can teach much more than entire philosophical treatises

Abrahamic Mysticism: A Shared Heritage

Article by

A history of the weaving of Jewish, Christian and Islamic Mysticism

#62 The Dreamer’s Dream

Podcast with

A simple yet profound conversation on the life and teachings of Éric Baret

Keep A Small Flame Burning

Article by

Using Buddhist teaching to deal with grief during the poly-crisis

#60 Spiritual Warriors

Podcast with

Imminent Buddhist teacher Lama Rod on his new book "The New Saints"

Wholeness & Fragmentation

Video with

The problem with our "civilized" and compartmentalized ways of thinking, which is fragmented.

#57 The Alchemy of Love

Podcast with ,

A captivating conversation into divine and personal love with two modern-day mystics

More Distant than the Stars and Nearer than the Eye

Article by

Exploring the commonness of mystical experience in Sufism and Hindu bhakti-marga

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