Sacred Living

Sacred Living came together as a result of our experiences practicing meditation and yoga, working with clients in the mental heath and addiction fields, and Marilyn’s music-sound therapy education.

We both have benefited from spiritual practices such as meditation, yoga and chanting in our personal lives and we have seen first-hand how our clients have benefitted when we have shared these practices with them.

Counseling is a wonderful tool that often teaches clients about the roots of their psychological distress, works as a model for healthier relationships, and encourages insight, but it has limitations.

People often get stuck in an insight echo chamber. They learn valid lessons about themselves but not much changes. In fact, their focused attention on their “problem” often increases their distress which leads to more focused attention on their “problem.”

Coaching is a wonderful tool. Coaching has the power to motivate people, accentuate their strengths, and place their attention on where they want to be rather than on where they have been,  but coaching too has limitations.

Placing too much attention on the positive can cause people to ignore the parts of their lives that most need their attention and care.

This is where spiritual wisdom comes in.  Combined with practices such as meditation, mindfulness, philosophy, yoga, chanting and others, spiritual wisdom offers us another way to understand ourselves, our lives, and the world around us.

Spiritual wisdom increases our awareness of our habitual patterns and our relationship styles.  It encourages acceptance of ourselves and others.  Awareness and acceptance are two necessary stepping stones on the road to radical change.

Spiritual wisdom has helped human beings organically transform their lives for thousands of years.  Spiritual wisdom is more than inspiring words. Spiritual wisdom is learning to see things as they are without our projections, assumptions, beliefs, hopes and fears.

As our awareness grows two essential changes take place.  First, our understanding of ourselves shifts from one of isolation, fear, and incompleteness to one of connection, inner calm, and wholeness. Second, our negative emotions transform into positive emotions. Anger becomes empathy, loneliness becomes intimacy, and anxiety becomes calmness.

Sacred Living uses wisdom and spiritual practices to transcend our limitations which are often the very limitations we discovered and could not change in counseling and coaching.

If you are ready to try something new, something ancient, whether your goal is personal or spiritual growth, we invite you to try Sacred Living.

– Lou and Marilyn Guadagnino