This testimonial comes from my longest tenured student, who started working with me in 2013. You can learn more about my sessions here:
You can read more student testimonials for one-on-one work and other spiritual services here:
From Escaping Bad Feelings to Peace
Working with Jim has helped me to change my life.
I’m going into my twelfth year [testimonial written in 2025] of regular sessions, and the internal changes are significant.
When I first found Jim on his online blog, I had no idea what I was about to embark on.
My focus initially was to stop feeling so bad all the time. Getting out of the daily chaos of repressing emotional burdens, suppressing my voice, and overcoming my immaturity was a long winding path.
This mostly stemmed from the effects of childhood abuse and dysfunctional relating with myself and others for so long.
The First Six Years: Healing Abuse and Ego Defense Mechanisms
In the beginning, I had to focus on healing the abuse and neglect that I endured most of my early childhood. This process was slow and grinding, and I often felt frustrated because it took a long time to even feel a bit better.
I recall one moment while talking during a session with Jim when I felt I dropped a huge boulder inside me.
It felt so real.
That one moment helped me to keep going because there was so much repression, suppression, and avoidance of my emotions, pain, and trauma.
I was so used to the unhealthy patterns of numbing myself to deny the unhealthy reality of my life. This time period was riddled with many moments of wanting to quit and feeling defensive when things that are now apparent were pointed out to me.
For example, when I was told that I wasn’t being fully honest or that I wasn’t fully invested in the work to heal, I would explode internally for days. I would spiral into angry and defensive thoughts. It would take me a while to relax and comprehend that what was said is true.
I was drinking alcohol consistently to numb myself. I was so emotionally immature that this was how I thought I could connect with others. It was incredibly lonely. I couldn’t see the co-dependency of my relationships and how I was adding more fuel to my suffering.
I remember the slow unwinding that Jim and I would sit through every second Sunday. It was a chore to make myself go to each session and to try to figure out what to say without saying too much.
I couldn’t let myself fully express what I held tightly inside.
But with persistence and Jim’s kindness and no-nonsense way of holding space, I was eventually able to go deeper and deeper.
Years Seven to Ten: Waves of Anger, Alcoholism, and Parental Wounding
Family patterns were the most present during this next phase of the work.
The inability to express feelings, sweeping traumatic events under the rug, and the inability to give or receive love and affection were the main themes of what I learned from my family. I am so distant from my parents from as far back as I can remember.
But I imagined that I owed them the benefit of the doubt on how poorly they raised me.
I came to understand that this was a coping mechanism to help me to survive my early childhood.
It took a few years longer to understand the depth of this parental wounding.
Dealing with my anger was also a big part. I clearly remember the fear and trauma that I experienced during my childhood and in high school. This pain resided in my body for a long time. The rage and resentment I carried and nurtured from these experiences would erupt almost daily. I didn’t know what to do with these emotions or how to let go, so I suppressed them.
Or I would direct it to others with words or actions. This included saying mean things or ghosting or ignoring people.
There were huge waves of anger that would take over whenever I thought about the abuse in my past. Then feelings of helplessness would wash over me after experiencing anger. It felt so chaotic and disorganized when I was in this pattern.
I was still drinking alcohol, so it didn’t help with my anger at all.
It took me time to change this. Eventually, I understood that being angry and not being able to express it or not knowing how to express it really impacted my self-worth.
I quit drinking alcohol at about year 10 in this work.
It felt like a daunting choice.
I had to realize that alcohol was making the inner work and healing take so much longer.
Plus, I also had to understand that my drinking led to so many of my unhealthy choices and exposed me to many dangerous situations.
Up to this point, I thought it was hard doing inner work.
I needed to learn how to express how I felt with words, let emotions flow, deal with my anger, and accept that my dysfunctional way of living and relating needed to change.
It was important that I make choices to be healthy.
Years Ten to Twelve: Repatterning Thoughts
I was going deeper into my inner layers after a decade of work.
I got to the place where I needed to deal with my old thought patterns. Unwinding the thoughts in my trauma brain was its own level of difficulty.
I realized that much of suffering was caused by myself and my perpetual negative and self-defeating thought patterns.
This seeped into every area of my life. It made my job, friendships, family connections, and especially being alone with myself miserable.
I was always on guard for the next injustice or rejection. The main beliefs in my thought patterns were:
“I wasn’t good enough”,
“I will never be chosen by anyone”,
“I’ve never been anyone worth anything”, and
“Why bother doing anything since I don’t matter?”
It took me months to not feel so bad. I was knee deep in my misery, and I just kept pushing myself to take another inch forward.
This meant that each time my old thoughts looped I would then feel the subsequent emotional and body patterns of rejection. I would imagine rejection from my friends and family.
Therefore, I proactively had to think kinder and supportive thoughts.
I did this repeatedly until the grooves in my brain were slowly replaced by different options for what I could allow myself to think and believe.
Reflecting now on this process, I have greater respect for how powerful the brain is in shaping daily life. It requires internal fortitude and continued humbling of your ego to be able to see the way out of all the knots and hurt inside.
The underlying thread in all of this is Jim’s willingness to sit with me throughout the twelve years. His healthy sense of self, unwavering grasp of the reality of life, firm boundaries, and honesty were the sharp knives that I needed to cut through my defenses.
Jim truly wanted to show me the way out of my ocean of suffering, and he’s been pointing to the shore the whole time.
Year Twelve and More: Peaceful and Healthy
In this timeframe, I was able to leave some old behaviors behind, and I have forgotten how I used to live my life.
I feel so much better.
I am more peaceful.
I make healthier choices.
I speak more.
I understand now that I was never who I thought I was.
And, I have the freedom to keep going.
After almost twelve years, I’m standing in front of what I didn’t know was possible and what was hidden underneath the obvious pain and suffering.
For example, there are even bigger attachments to family, and I avoid speaking up and being honest with others about how I see things or providing feedback. I have a history of being shut down by anger or bullying when I express myself. So, this is a fear I am confronting now.
Through Jim’s continued efforts, he provides different opportunities to help push myself through these inner boundaries and to learn what gaps I have.
Here are some tips on what helped me in working with Jim:
Don’t avoid the suggestions. If you’re advised to journal, then do that. When it’s pointed out to find healthier ways of eating and movement, then do that. If it’s advised that speaking up honestly is valuable, then do that. Through this, I learned not to think that I knew better than what was suggested or pointed out to me. It took effort on my part, and I learned that I could do what was asked of me.
Don’t collapse so easily with ego protests while doing this work. Even with growing evidence that the ego is not always right, the ego continues its defense mechanisms. However, I’ve learned that there are always different choices available. I just never saw them before because I was so used to living out my old patterns.
Think of healing in layers and don’t be discouraged each time another layer and blind spot comes up. This is probably the most important. I found that each time a different thing came up, I had to keep choosing to do the work. It’s easy to get frustrated and quit. It’s easy to get offended and run. It’s difficult at first, but truly spiritual transformation is amazing.
Then it becomes how you are, and you don’t think about it so much. Awareness is the space where things are dropped.
Be honest.
Be truthful with what you say and do.
It cuts through the mess, and it requires you to fully confront where and when you haven’t been fully honest with yourself and others.
You can change now.
Char C.
Canada
2013-ongoing
