It’s June 2025, and two things are now official. First, I have completed my Counseling program from California State University, which means I am now officially a Mental Health Therapist. Second, I have a new book coming out September 1st, entitled Love and Suffering: A Spiritual Guide for Helpers, Healers, and Humans.
These two events are closely connected and reflect the culmination of my past two decades of personal, professional, and spiritual development.
My new M.S. in Counseling is actually my second Master’s Degree, with my first being an M.A. in East-West Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies. Since graduating from that program, I have used what I learned in numerous 200-hour Yoga Teacher Trainings and intimacy coaching sessions, along with my own writings and teachings. Through continuous studies and ongoing spiritual development, I have come to the unique conclusion that love and suffering are two sides of the same coin. They are our ultimate gurus, the secret to a life well-lived, and deeply connected to each other. Uniting them with the practice of compassion results in a life of service and joy.
This is why my spiritual path has led me to a place full of suffering: the office of the Mental Health Clinician, the Marriage and Family Therapist. While a Medical Doctor focuses on alleviating physical pain, the therapist is focused on reducing mental suffering. Nothing brings me more joy, or more purpose, than the privilege of sitting with people to share in their suffering, and to open the heart of compassion.
In the book I wrote this,
In psychopathology class, my professor explained what therapy is all about. Psyche means soul, pathos means suffering, and ology means study. Thus psychopathology is the study of human suffering. The therapy office is like a suffering laboratory, where two souls come together to share in this essential human experience of pain and try to figure a way out.
But people don’t just share their problems in the therapy office, they share their deepest thoughts, emotions, and fears. Clients share things with their therapists that they don’t share with anybody else, even their spouses of decades. Such deep vulnerability and sharing is a precious gift. It also points to a major problem in today’s world. While everyone is suffering in some way, most people suffer in secret. Many are afraid to tell their family, romantic partner, or employer of their suffering out of fear of retribution, or that it will make matters worse. While bottling up our pain is sometimes necessary, it isn’t healthy, which is why having a safe and welcoming space to share is so healing.
I also remember being warned in my program about impostor syndrome and feeling inadequate as a new therapist. But as soon as I started seeing clients, those concerns melted away. I realized two decades of meditation and contemplative practice have prepared my heart and mind to be an open and loving presence that can hold suffering with equanimity.
After countless hours of practice of sitting with my own discomfort—without trying to change it—on the meditation cushion, I was ready to sit with the discomfort of others in the therapist’s chair without trying to change them either. A lifetime of dedicating myself to the cause of love has also greatly helped my skills as a therapist.
The next passage in Love and Suffering goes,
One of the most interesting things about the therapeutic container is that the most important factor for a beneficial therapeutic relationship is love. However, the psychology world is very aversive to the L-word, so instead, they dance around it with terms like “unconditional positive regard” and “building a therapeutic bond.”
Therapists are taught the importance of active listening without judgment, emotional attunement, warmth, curiosity, empathy, acceptance, normalization, and validation. Instead of words like union or intimacy, one textbook on essential skills for therapy said a therapist must successfully “join” with their clients, which is the “sense of connectedness” that arises when the client feels the therapist understands, respects, and cares about them. At first, I thought join was a funny word that conveniently avoids the word love, but then I remembered: If we want to actually love another person, we have to join them.
You do not have to take my word for it. Feel free to see for yourself how compassion can change your life and the world. We can learn this lesson from the Buddha, who taught suffering and the end of suffering, and Christ, who sits bleeding on the Cross, an instrument of torture and suffering. The book explores Gandhi’s practice of nonviolent resistance, satyagraha, and St. John of the Cross’s term, luminous darkness.
From Buddhism to Shamanism to Mysticism, the lessons of Love and Suffering can be found in all the great spiritual and religious traditions of the world, because they are the fundamental forces of spiritual transformation. Love is the path of yes, the via positiva, the kataphatic way that says yes to life and yes to all things and affirms us and who we are and the universe. Suffering is the path of no, the via negativa, the apophatic way that says neti neti: you are not your thoughts nor emotions nor your body, but that which goes beyond. Suffering is the fire of tapas, the living flame of love that purifies us all. Both of these paths are two halves of the same circle. They start and end in the same place, but only through their unification will we be made whole.
I hope you can join me on this journey of profound exploration. The book is published by O-Books, which publishes books that aim to guide those on living a spiritual life. You can pre-order it on Amazon today. In a world of fast-food social media consumption, I firmly believe we can still find the time to turn off our devices and sit with the words of the great masters before us, as we integrate the ancient wisdom teachings to live a better, more loving, and joyful life in the modern world.
I would be so very honored if you pre-ordered the book today to support the cultivation of love and compassion for the suffering of all beings everywhere.
