Finding Michael Picucci & Focalizing Cont'd

I guess it would be safe to say that I had a very intense PTSD experience, triggered for the second time in several decades. My husband had suggested this might be something I was experiencing and when this worst one of my life occurred he brought it up again, so I began to search the internet. I found all kinds of websites that described PTSD which helped me begin to understand the significance of my early life experiences, and how dramatically they had affected me. I called hotlines and went to the bookstores on my quest to learn more. When I came across Peter Levine’s “Waking the Tiger – Healing Trauma,” I felt compelled to buy it and began to read immediately. That’s when the lights started to turn on, giving me greater understanding of what trauma is and how it is created. Whew! It gave me hope of healing from the childhood traumas I had so long endured.

After discovering I had PTSD, trying to find a really good therapist was traumatic in itself. After researching a few national PTSD websites, some places I called sounded great, but the cost was prohibitive. It was a painful and tortuous process that seemed to trigger the already intense energy build-up in my nervous system that I was experiencing.

When I finished Peter Levine’s book I found an interview with him in conversation with Michael Picucci, on the latter’s website. I knew I needed to work with someone excellent, experienced in trauma, and Michael drew me in. When Michael wrote back to me I found someone honest, kind, and compassionate. He was candid in sharing his own life experiences. His willingness to work with me (though I was in Alaska, and he in New York) gave me a sense of relief and hope. Something else happened; I started to feel some inner magic and joy reawaken. Simply put, the intuitive connection I sensed I made with Michael felt good!

In the Focalizing work we did, I came to realize that I had the habit of pushing pain away. (Yet I knew I wanted to clear away as much of the painful energies of trauma as I could. I wanted to feel freer inside myself.) Focalizing with Michael has allowed me to feel and accept my pain without resistance or judgment, and through that experience, the pain has changed, even gone away. As the trauma was diffused, the anxiety that I had experienced as normal in my everyday life has transformed. As I began to use the new internal resources my entire mind and body are more relaxed and I feel a higher degree of self-acceptance, personal intactness, and a daily sense of overall well-being. I find that I am now at a point where I can accept my life experiences and the people in them for what they were and are, and with this I am willing and able to forgive what was and let go. I wasn’t able to do this while I was so intensely charge with trauma in my system.

I have been in New York for about six weeks as I write this and head back to Alaska. I didn’t know what to expect from our work together, but the sessions with Michael have been amazing. There is a creative synergy that is born in each one; I like to think of it as playing in the magic together. Michael is intuitive, respectful, sensitive, and he connects with me as I am in deep process. The impact of the work we are doing is integrating into my being more deeply and organically as the weeks roll by. My reflections on what Michael has shared with me have helped me make new decisions, along with a heightened feeling of acceptance for my own uniqueness.

— Shabd-sangeet Khalsa, Fairbanks, Alaska