The School for Living: An Energetic and Psychological
Approach to Better Living

[This interview of Judy Steele was conducted by Alison Kain in 2004, and published
on her Alternative  Insights website; however, that website is no longer online.
This is the interview as originally published; a few facts have been updated.]

Q.  Thank you, Judy, for taking the time to meet with me today!  It's both an honor and
    privilege.  You’re a life coach, transpersonally-oriented counselor, teacher and
    healer.  You have a Master’s in Transpersonal Psychology, you teach the Hawaiian
    wisdom tradition of Huna, and you use a variety of leading-edge techniques -
    including energy medicines and energy psychology - to help people
    make the changes they want more quickly and easily.  That’s a lot of specialties!
    Can you please share with our readers a bit about your professional
    background?  How did you come to be doing all this?

A.  Well, I’ve always been a problem solver.  My father was an inventor.   He invented
    the shirt folding machine and other labor-saving products for laundries, and he
    also invented many other gadgets to help people do things, including a
    dandelion digger, a great letter opener (I still use one of those) and a device that
    helped you put on tire chains.  He had over 50 patents in the United States and
    Canada.  So, solving practical problems was what I grew up with.  Both of my
    parents were efficiency experts, so I learned to get things done in the most
    direct, effective way possible.  That background led me into an earlier career: I
    had a nationally-known business that developed training programs on contract
    for major corporations, to help people to do their jobs more effectively.  That
    work involved analyzing what the difference was – and what was causing the
    difference - between their current performance and what was needed.  

    These days I do a very similar analysis of the gap when I’m working with individual
    clients.   I help the client define their problem and their goal in terms like, “The
    situation now is...”, and, “What I want instead is...”.  This analysis of the gap - the
    difference between what’s wanted and what presently exists - takes a person a
    long way toward achieving their goal, because getting that kind of statement
    specific at a cognitive level also mobilizes their intention at a deeper level.

    Because I spent many years traveling with and interviewing people who did a
    very wide variety of jobs, I learned a great deal about a lot of different kinds of
    jobs and met a lot of different types of people.  I think that background helps me
    to relate to a wide variety of clients now.  

    Also, I have always wanted to understand how everything worked. On one level,
    I’ve always enjoyed factory tours, and on another level I’ve always been a mystic,
    knowing everything and everyone is connected, and wondering how the created
    universe works and what human life is really all about!  So when I was young I      
    entered the convent, but didn’t find my answers, or my Path, there.  Eventually,
    after I left my business career, I turned to transpersonal psychology as a path to
    a broader understanding of “how it all works.”  Of course, we can never
    understand it all, but I feel having a larger context for our lives is essential for
    wise and effective living.


Q.  So how did all of that background lead you into becoming a counselor?

A. When I was a management consultant, I became more and more aware that the
   difficulties my clients were experiencing in the workplace often came out of their own
   personal ways of dealing with the world, and their own beliefs about what was possible for
   them.  Re-engineering their work situation and giving them effective training
   might help a lot, but many people I encountered - often the managers themselves -
   really needed a different kind of help.  In those years, “executive coaching” didn’t
   really exist as a field, but I was doing it around the edges of my other projects.

   I was very successful in the field of training and development.  My company did
   national contracting, I was prominent and popular in professional organizations, I had
   a staff of eighteen people who were very busy, and I was successful financially.  But
   my personal life was a mess. I had actually been depressed since childhood, I had
   many problems with personal relationships, and I was developing worrisome physical
   symptoms.  In my search for healing for myself, I discovered the world of
   homeopathic medicine, as well as flower essences.


Q.  When you say “flower essences,” do you mean aromatherapy - essential oils?

A.  No, I mean the energy medicine that’s called “flower essences” - it’s more like
   homeopathy.  You’re probably familiar with the Bach Flowers from England - those
   were the first flower essences in the modern era, but now there are many more, from
   all over the world.  Both homeopathy and flower essences have been extremely
   helpful to my own emotional healing.


Q.  How would a homeopath treat something like depression for instance?

A.  All right, I can answer that question because I have a lot of training in homeopathy,
    from the British Institute of Homeopathy and the National Center for Homeopathy,
    among others, and I led a homeopathy study group for several years.  I really thought
    I was going to become a professional homeopath, but I finally realized that I just
    wasn’t as interested in the physical symptoms as I was in the mental and emotional
    ones - so my own energy-medicine specialty is the flower essences, which are
    particularly helpful for mental, emotional and spiritual issues.  

    So.  A homeopath does an initial interview, which usually takes about an hour and a
    half.  The homeopath will look at the client’s entire history – emotional, mental,
    spiritual, physical – and all their symptoms.  Then the homeopath will do an analysis
    of those symptoms – maybe right there on the spot, maybe taking some time and
    then calling the patient later – to identify the best remedy to address that person’s
    symptoms.  And if it is a very well chosen remedy, it will address not only the
    physical, but also the emotional, mental and to perhaps some extent the spiritual
    issues that the person is dealing with - with the whole of the being.  

    In homeopathy there is an understanding that every living being - not only humans,
    but also animals and plants - has a vital force.  The vital force distinguishes living
    from non-living beings.  That vital force knows how to help with healing, because it
    knows what “health” is for that being.  In another tradition, we think of it as the
    etheric blueprint.  From the homeopathic point of view there is this idea that our
    vital force knows how to do our health exactly right, but through our conditioning or
    our belief systems or our experiences we have gotten out of whack.  We have
    gotten our system “screwed up” so to speak.  And homeopathy is one way to tap into
    that vital force, or that etheric blueprint, or possibly that person’s life path, and to
    get the system back to optimal functioning.


Q.  How would you briefly describe your transpersonal approach to helping other heal?

A.  The transpersonal context includes all aspects of the person: physical, mental,
    emotional and spiritual.  When I’m working with people, I think in terms of past lives
    as well as in terms of what the person’s physical experience might be right now.  If
    they have a physical illness, it may have a symbolic significance, representing some
    issue in their lives.  And of course, there’s this life’s history, all the way through
    from the time they were growing up: what kinds of childhood and adult experiences
    they’ve had, what kinds of belief systems they’ve acquired, what kinds of work
    experiences and issues they may have.  Now, of course, not all of that will come out
    in the first session, but when people ask me what kinds of issues I work with, I have
    to say, “All of them!”  *laughs*  


Q.  Then how can you describe your own particular unique approach - what’s your
    specialty?

A.  I find that the concept of removing the blockage to the vital force, or removing the
    blockage to the energy flow if you think in terms of chi, ki, prana, mana, removing
    those blockages, describes a huge piece of what I do with people.  The tools I use
    may be energy-psychology techniques like TAT (Tapas Acupressure Technique) or
    DMT (Dynamind—a Huna technique) or energy-medicine techniques like flower
    essences or homeopathy, or I may use energy healing techniques or simply verbal
    reframing…but all the time I’m working to remove blockages and smooth the path to
    their next steps.


Q.  So you’re saying your own experience of needing emotional healing led you to the
    work you’re doing now?

A.  Yes, my own difficult personal journey has definitely informed my sense of what’s
     needed in a coach or counselor.  I was in therapy myself for years, so I consider
     myself an informed consumer in that respect!  I saw many therapists - some very
     non-directive - who listened to me patiently, and helped me to understand a lot, but
     in all those years, only two therapists actually helped me make significant changes.
     In fact, in those years there just wasn’t much available to help people remove
     blockages and achieve energetic shifts.  I was fortunate to find one psychiatrist with
     a more holistic view of the world, and he was very helpful to me. When I recounted a
     mystical experience…and I didn’t know what it was at the time…he recognized it and
     was able to help me build on it.  He also introduced me to people with similar
     interests.  So that was my opening into the world of transpersonal psychology,
     although I don’t think it was called that at the time.  


Q.  Where does one get training in transpersonal psychology?

A.  Transpersonal Psychology is a relatively new field and, to my knowledge, the only
    place you can get a master’s or doctorate degree is in California; you can get a
    bachelor’s in Vermont.  There are three or four schools in California that offer
    transpersonal work; my school is the Institute for Transpersonal Psychology in Palo
    Alto, and it has both a residential and a distance-learning program.


Q.  Does the training help people/counselors understand what spiritual openings are
    and the impact they can have on a person's life?  Does training include how to treat
    spiritual crises in general as well?  Those can be pretty disturbing, and many people
    may falsely believe they  must have gone off the deep end!

A.  Yes, and there’s a small group of transpersonal psychiatrists working to make clear
    to the larger community the profound difference between a psychotic break and a
    spiritual opening.  They got a new category into the DSM-IV (the current psychiatric
    diagnostic handbook) called, “Religious or Spiritual Problem”, and that helps
    clinicians to make that distinction.


Q.  I wonder how many have been misdiagnosed as schizophrenics before
    transpersonal psychology came into being or there was an awareness by
    counselors?

A.  Probably thousands.  There is a group based in California called the Spiritual
    Emergence Network (SEN).  It used to be housed at my school: the Institute for
    Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto.  I don’t know whether it’s still based there,
    but the people at ITP would know where it is.  It’s a network of volunteer
    spiritual-crisis helpers who can be called, and who then can direct the individual to
    a professional who can assist them.  It’s very much needed and not only in
    California.  I think SEN does make referrals nationwide.


Q.  You mentioned that homeopathy and flower essences were very important in your
    own healing.  Are there other modalities that have made a big difference in your own
    life?

A.  I had major depression for many, many years, and it wasn’t any psychiatrist or
    counselor who took me out of it; it was homeopathy, flower essences, and a
    therapeutic approach called Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP).  I was taking
    intensive training in NLP skills, and during a break in a workshop, another
    participant led me through a mental strategy change (an NLP technique) that
    stopped my depression instantly!  Since then I have also learned a number of other
    quick-change approaches that have been very helpful to my clients and to me.  Two
    that I use frequently are TAT (Tapas Acupressure Technique) and Dynamind, which is
    a Huna technique.  These are in the category of what is now called “energy
    psychology.”  I also direct healing energy with my intention and my hands; I have
    training in Reiki, Healing Touch, Therapeutic Touch, and the ARCH technique from
    Hawaii.


Q.  How do you approach a client session?

A.  My own approach is that I come to a client session with all my experience and tools in
    kit bag, but what I do is I sit with the person and say, “Alison, what’s up for you
    today?”  I may never have met you, but what I am looking for is what can be
    addressed today that can be helpful to this person now and will make a difference in
    their life overall.  And so, in the course of working with whatever the issue is, I
    learn a great deal about the person and I also get intuitive hits about what’s going
    on which help me to choose what to do next.  I may never see that person again –
    or I may – but even with people with whom I’ve worked for years, my approach is
    always, “All right, what are we dealing with today?” because, whatever it is, it is
    going to lead to something really important.  It always does.  


Q.  Have you encountered many people in your practice who know they want help but
    are unclear as to exactly what’s up?  That unidentifiable feeling that something is
    wrong, but don’t know what it is and may offer only ‘I am not sleeping?’ etc.  

A.  Oh yes, very frequently.  And clients have told me very frequently how amazed they
    are at how I seem to be able to go right to the core of the issue.  That seems to be a
    key part of what I do.

   That reminds me of a story.  I was working some years ago in a counseling center on
    the East Coast and a man came to me because he had recently lost his mother and
    he felt he was an orphan, so he had grief issues.  But one of the first things that
    came out was that he was not sleeping, and was waking up with night time
    flashbacks.  So I asked “What’s been going on in your life?  Is there anything you
    can think of that may contribute to your not sleeping?”  He said, “Well, I really don’t
    know but when I wake up at night - and I keep waking up at night, every night - I
    keep seeing images of the time I spent in Oklahoma City last month helping with the
    clean-up after the bombing.”

    So he had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  But just naming that doesn’t make
    it go away - ask any war veteran.  He probably didn’t think counseling could help
    with his sleep problem.  He just knew that he was grieving his mother, and feeling a
    little lost in the world.  But in fact he was also grieving all those people, and
    especially all the children, who had been killed at Oklahoma City.  His unconscious
    mind was full of the psychic debris from close-up experience with the aftermath of
    that tragedy, and it was keeping him awake at night.  But again, insight is fine but it
    doesn’t make the problem go away.  When his unconscious is keeping him awake
    and causing flashbacks, we have to do something that gets to the unconscious
    mind. So I gave him a flower essence combination.  And by the way, this is not a man
    who came asking for flower remedies!  He’d been a fireman and a rescue person
    and was very macho, so flowers weren’t really his thing.  *laughs*  But I said, “It won’t
    hurt you.  You might as well try it.”   And he acknowledged that he didn’t know what
    else to do, and that the various kinds of self-medication he was doing were not
    solving his problem.  

    So I made up a flower essence combination to clear out all the unconscious debris
    and also to clear out any shock and trauma, and also to address the grief.  With
    flower essences you take them several times a day over a week or two, or a month
    or more, depending upon the situation.  And when I saw him the next week he said,
    “You know, I really am sleeping better, but I can’t really believe it had anything to do
    with those flower things, but it is better.”  By the end of two weeks, his sleep
    problem was gone and he was feeling much better and sleeping just fine.  He
    commented, “I wish I could get this stuff in 55 gallon drums so I could give it to all
    the rescue and emergency workers I know.  It ought to be available in fire houses!”
    *chuckles*


Q.  I cannot fathom the unimaginable horrors that rescue and emergency workers must
    encounter nearly every day of their working lives.  Do you have any thoughts on, or
    knowledge of, how many cope with stress like that?

A.  In fact there’s a very high rate of substance abuse among emergency workers - that’s
    their usual form of self-medication.  The point here though is that in this man
    something was healed at a deep level in the unconscious.  This case makes it pretty
    clear that these remedies can be remarkably effective, and that they are not
    placebo.  Flower essences work for plants and animals and babies, too, so they’re
    likely not placebo!  *smiles*  In any case, this was a full grown man who found that
    the essences had made a huge difference for him.   I wish I did have a way to make
    and distribute 55 gallon drums of that combination - although essence combinations
    are usually made to fit an individual situation, this is one that could help a lot of
    people!


Q.  I have heard about using kinesthetic responses (sometimes known as muscle
    testing) for finding for the appropriate essences.  Do you use this particular method?

A.  I work with a wide range of people and many people are open to kinesthetic testing.
    In fact, some people can just sweep their hands across the bottles to determine
    which essences will work best for them, but most of the time I am choosing for the
    client based on my knowledge of the essences and my own intuitive testing.  The
    Universe also sometimes just offers timely messages.  One time I was working with
    a colleague who was an acupuncturist, and I had almost completed making a
    combination for him.   I offered him a choice of which stickers to place on his bottle
    (I use stickers for fun and for motivation, and to help clients identify which bottle is
    which).   He had selected some star stickers, and one of the stars fell to the floor
    and stuck there.  We were having trouble getting it up and we were laughing about
    that and then I got it:  the additional essence he needed was “Shooting Star”!
    *laughing*  So there’s a wide variety of ways to select the appropriate essence or
    combination, but I do occasionally use muscle testing, yes.  It just depends on the
    person and the setting.  


Q.  I think most people aren't familiar with, or don’t know much about, the Bach Flowers
     or the flower essences.  Can you tell us a little more about them, please?

A.  By the way, it’s not just Bach flower essences.  People may know of the Bach Rescue
    Remedy, and they may think of the essences as Bach Flowers, but that’s just the first
    set that was developed in the modern era.  Dr. Bach discovered his essences in
    England (actually Wales) in the 1930’s, and they were the only ones for a long time.
    Then the field exploded in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.  There were a couple of
    Bach flower practitioners that I think simultaneously came up with the idea of
    creating essences themselves.  Richard Katz of the Flower Essence Society was the
    first to do that in the U.S.  He was living in California, and he noticed that he had all
    this wild mustard growing near him of the same type that the Bach Mustard essence
    was made from.  He thought, “I wonder if I could make it?” He developed a Mustard
    essence and tried it on his clients, and it worked just fine!  A big breakthrough!  And
    he realized that he didn’t need to redo all the Bach Essences, but that there were
    flowers right there in California that must have healing qualities that were unknown
    until then.

    His discovery, and his association with Patricia Kaminski (who says she came initially
    just to wash his bottles) eventually resulted in the Flower Essence Society and
    Flower Essence Services, in Nevada City CA.  Their well-known book, The Flower
    Essence Repertory, lists 133 of their essences as well as all the Bach Essences.
    And there also are all the Australian Bush Essences.  Ian White started at about the
    same time as Richard Katz, but in Australia, discovering and developing a line of
    essences.  Steve Johnson in Alaska began near the same time doing the same
    thing.  And there are many others. I have personally studied with Richard Katz and
    Patricia Kaminski in Nevada City, and also with Steve Johnson in Homer, AK.  I’ve
    also studied with Ouapiti Robintree, maker of the Hummingbird Remedies, and with
    Andreas Korte, maker of the Amazonian Orchid essences.  I also like Ken Carlson’s
    “Star Mana” essence line, from Kauai where I studied Huna, and I’ve learned from
    him as well.  

    Flower essences are somewhat similar to homeopathy, but they operate on different
    principles.  With flower essences, it is the healing energy pattern of the flower that’s
    carried in the water - it’s not physical “flower juice.”  Homeopathy also works with
    the energy patterns of the substances, but flower essences are made much more
    directly and simply; there is no potentizing or succession as there is in homeopathy.


Q.  I am curious about potential allergic reactions to flower essences as well as possible
    adverse interactions to medications?  In using flower essences is there a set
    standard of number of visits for therapy needed when dealing with certain
    circumstances – like depression, for example?  

A. There simply are no allergic reactions with flower essences because they are not
     biochemical.  They operate at an energy level so there just can’t be any biochemical
     problems or interactions between them and pharmaceuticals or herbal medicines.
     In fact, there are essences that are quite helpful to address environmental
     sensitivity - which means environmental sensitivity in all its dimensions.  The
     essences are usually preserved in brandy, though, and some people are sensitive
     to that, so in those cases, we use different preservatives.

     Now with regard to frequency of visits for essence therapy:  as with any kind of
     therapeutic work, it all depends on the issues and the particular client’s needs.
     And whatever their issue, I would probably be doing not only flower essences, but
     also “talk” counseling and energy psychology techniques.  

     They might have a time-limited need: perhaps preparing for an examination or for
     giving a speech, or they were upset after a near-miss car accident.  In that case,
     there might be only one session or just a few needed.  If they were preparing for
     public speaking, I might work with them to clear out the debris of whatever was
     impeding their ability to just speak freely - to allow them to speak from their
     heart.  And I would also send them away with a flower essence combination that
     would support that healing shift.  

    On the other hand, we might be working on something that’s a major issue for them,
    and it might be rooted in traumatic childhood (or adult) experiences.  In that kind of
     case, we’d be working together for a much longer time, and I’d be bringing to the
    work all my techniques and understandings, including many different flower
    essence combinations over time.
    
    The person comes with their issue, whatever that may be, at whatever level, and I
    work with them on that issue in that session.  When I’m working with a person over a
    long period of time, we work with whatever comes up along the way.  And, of course,
    we are doing deep healing all the way through.  Whatever that issue is, we’re going
    down to the base of it if possible.


Q.  So would that make it much like the onion theory?  One layer at a time?

A.  Well, it’s not necessarily that sequential.  Whatever we do is going to help.  It’s
    sometimes like this side of the onion, then the other side of the onion, or sometimes
    it comes from the core of the onion first.  Even when you feel like you’ve really
    gotten something, there are different applications of it that you may not have
    incorporated at that point.  Anyone who has been doing their own healing work or
    helping others for a long period of time knows that it doesn’t all get done instantly.
   

Q.  And sometimes it doesn't always remain "done", true?

A.  That’s true because we think we have it, but there are some aspects of it, maybe at
    other levels, that we don’t yet.  Each individual piece we do is important, though,
    because even if we hit a road block, once we get through the road block, the work
    we’ve done before is going to come back in and form the support for what we do
    next.  


Q.  I can't help but notice that you have a lot of degrees and certifications in varied
    fields.  Very impressive!  I also notice that many that of your certifications are very
    complimentary to one another and most are related in some way to either energy
    therapies or psychology.  In your estimation, how do these all fit within your
    chosen/given Path?  I am also curious about the progression of your Path? Can you
    please share a bit about that with our readers?

A.  You asked me about the sequence of the progression of my Path and career.  Well, I
    suppose my Path began in late childhood, with my attraction to the mystical side of
    Christianity, and then entering the convent when I was just 19.  But I left the convent
    after a little more than a year, and in a few years I had left the Church.  Then there
    was a long period when I was focused on my career, in which I was traveling a lot,
    and also taking care of my children - not easy for a single parent.  And eventually I
    reached that point where I knew I needed help, and mainstream approaches weren’t
    helping much.  
    
    So I started with homeopathy; that was my first entry into the alternative world. Then
    the flower essences were extremely helpful and that psychiatrist, who had a
    transpersonal perspective, was also very helpful.  I became aware of a whole world
    of growth and healing through him and his associates.  I met more people who did
    various kinds of teaching and healing.  And I did more training in psychological
    techniques and healing techniques.  My focus was shifting then from the business
    world into the individual healing world because what I learned was that, as people
    get better personally, their effectiveness in the business world gets better, so if you
    want to get down to what’s most fundamental you help the individual people and the
    individual managers and you get not only better lives for them, but also the entire
    organization…if the organization is what you’re concerned about.  


Q.  Could the “entire organization” feasibly be also considered the whole of humanity?

A.  Yes, all of humanity is indeed a larger system that’s affected by our individual growth
    and healing.  We know on a metaphysical level that any healing we do on an
    individual level affects the rest of the world.  


Q.  Can you please continue on with your story regarding the progress of your Path?

A.  So I just accumulated techniques.  I’ve had training in Neuro-Linguistic Programming
    (NLP) (Trainer Level), Healing Touch (Level II), Reiki (3rd degree), and lots of other
    techniques.  I got the Master’s in Transpersonal Psychology because I felt I needed
    an overview of the field.   It turned out to be an overview in terms of eastern
    spirituality, and that was very useful…a lot of Buddhist and Sufi philosophy, as well
    as Jungian and some Native American and other native traditions.  
    
    But as it turned out my own Path is the Hawaiian path of Huna.  Huna is the Hawaiian
    tradition of healing and living.  One reason that I really love Huna is that it is so      
    practical.  It is about living more happily and effectively.  There isn’t a great big
    theology, in fact there is no theology - although there’s a lot of myth that explains
    the tradition.  It isn’t about dogma.  It is about what works and what has been found
    to work through at least thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years, of culture
    in the Polynesian world.  It’s a very practical, grounded way of operating.  It’s “Hey,
    think about it this way, or do it this way, and you’re going to get better results.”  And
    the Aloha principle is the basis of everything.


Q.  How did you find/discover Huna ?

A.  What actually happened is that I was sitting at my computer one day and got an email
    from a close friend of mine in Connecticut.  She said, “You know, I don’t usually
    have this kind of experience, but I got a message for you.”  And the message was
    essentially that it would be appropriate to the development of my Path and my role in
    life for me to go to Hawaii.  Well, that was a surprise!  So I had to figure out what I
    was to do in Hawaii.  And as it turns out, two weeks later I was on Kauai in a
    workshop with Serge Kahili King studying Huna.  And I knew instantly in that
    workshop that this was right for me.  I was thinking, “Oh wow, this makes so much
    sense!”  Of course I had all that other background as well, which was certainly
    useful, but Huna put things together in a way that I felt was so natural and so
    practical…it felt so right, as if I’d come home.  Probably I’d been there before, long
    ago…  I already knew in that first workshop that I was going to be going through all
    of the steps required to become ordained as an alaka’i, which is a leader in that
    tradition.  I was ordained as an alaka’i on my birthday in 2002.


Q.  What are the seven main principles of Huna, please?

A.   They are:  
                    1. The World Is What You Think It Is.
                    2. There are No Limits.
                    3. Energy Flows Where Attention Goes.
                    4. Now Is The Moment Of Power.
                    5. To Love Is To Be Happy With (Someone or Something).
                    6. All Power Comes From Within.
                    7. Effectiveness Is The Measure Of Truth.


Q.  What is Huna exactly?  What is the premise of Huna?

A.  The Huna tradition includes many healing approaches and techniques, some of which
    are brief and some of which take days.  I specialize in the brief ones, especially
    Dynamind.  Dynamind is a Huna-based technique developed just a few years ago by
    Serge King.  It incorporates intention, attention, words, touch, images, breathing
    and action - and those are essential components in the Huna tradition that make a
    huge difference in the effectiveness of the work - in a simple, brief change
    technique that can be applied to anything from physical illness to personal attitude
    or behavior change.  I was a participant in Serge’s very first Dynamind workshop on
    Kauai, and I’ve been using it ever since, with myself and with many, many clients.
    This was another, “Oh yes, of course!” for me.  And so I went through accumulating
    and writing up all the cases he requires and I became one of the first certified
    Dynamind practitioners in the world.  


Q.  How did Serge King develop/discover Dynamind?  

A.  He created it on the basis on the healing components in the Hawaiian healing
    tradition, plus his own background: he has a doctorate in psychology and an
    encyclopedic knowledge of healing approaches around the world.  He did a lot of
    testing and revisions on it as he was developing it, to make sure that it works in the
    easiest and most effective way possible.  He now has a Dynamind book ready for
    publication (I actually already have it), but it’s not yet available to the public.  


Q.  How do people contact you, and if you’re willing to share them, what are your rates?

A.  I see clients at the SSI Building in close-in St. Louis Park MN
    (Minneapolis metro area, near 394 and 100).  The address is 6311 Wayzata Blvd, #310,
    and my office phone number is 612-590-3193.  My e-mail address is:
    judy.steele@earthlink.net.  I have two websites: www.schoolforliving.org (the more
    comprehensive one) and www.holisticnetwork.org/JudySteele .

    My standard rate is $85.00 per hour, including whatever kind of work I do with the
    client in that hour.  I also do phone work with clients who live too far away for in-person
    work.  If I make up an essence combination for someone outside a session, based on the
    issues they tell me about (perhaps by e-mail), that’s $75.00 because it takes me about
    an hour to do the research and intuitive checking and to prepare it.  Refilling an existing
    combination is $15.00, plus shipping.

    I also have a small “store”: I stock the Healing Herbs (Bach) and Flower Essence Services
    (FES) essences and other products, as well as many Alaskan and other essences, for retail
    sale.


Q.  Are you accepting new clients? Students?

A.  Yes, I’m happy to accept new clients and students.  They can contact me at
judy.steele@earthlink.net  or 612-590-3193.

Q.  You have a very interesting logo.  Can you please share with our readers what it
     represents?

A.  Thank you.  The leaves from the Hawaiian plant
     symbolically mean "enlightenment" and inside
     the fruit of the plant are the seeds which create
     a 7-pointed star.  There are seven main principles
     in Huna.  The circle around the star represents the
     interconnectedness of us all.                       


Q.  I also know you spend quite a bit of time volunteering at Pathways.  Anything you'd
     like to add about that particular endeavor or volunteerism in general?

A.  When I first came to Minneapolis, I needed to get to know people and I wanted to
    find a way of connecting and doing something useful even before my practice took off
    here.  I had a busy practice on the East Coast for years, with three offices, one of which
    was in a holistic health center that I co-founded.  Then here I was in Minneapolis, and
    I didn’t know more than two people in the beginning.  Starting over is hard and takes
    time.  So, I thought, “I want to be working now!” and one way I could do it was at
    Pathways Minneapolis, which is a free alternative health crisis center for people with
    serious illness.  Pathways has been a wonderful experience for me from the beginning.  
    It’s a marvelous clinic setting, and I learn from all of my experiences there.  Because
    everyone there is working with really serious challenges,  people are perhaps more
    motivated and more open as a result.   I really appreciate being there.  For me, it
    isn’t really about volunteerism in general, it’s about Pathways in particular.
    Interestingly, I knew before I left Maryland that I would be doing work in a place like
    Pathways - though at that time I didn’t know Pathways existed.  There it is - the Path.
    

Q.  In your life and professional experience is there any wisdom you'd wish to share?
    Any advice for our readers?

A.  You asked me for words of wisdom.  I think I might suggest the first Huna principle.
    “The world is what you think it is.”   If we think of that idea very directly in terms of
    our own experience, we may realize that however we have characterized ourselves,
    whatever problems we may feel we have, there is a way for that to change if we
    change our thinking, and if we get the necessary energy focused behind that
    change.  In the Dynamind technique we say, “The problem is x. This can change.
    What I want instead is y.”  If we just think of life that way, then we have the choice to
    keep whatever we may have in our life or to change it.   We may not currently know
    how to change it, but just doing that framing makes a huge difference: “This is what
    I've got”, “This can change,” and then, “This is how I want it different.”  The change
    we want may just be for this pain to go away, or this stress to go away, or if we’re
    really confused, what we really want may be clarity about what we want.  But
    understanding that we have a choice to have something be different in our lives
    and that we have the ability to make that change happen (perhaps with help) is
    empowering.  


Q.  Isn't it also all about us all taking responsibility for our own evolution?

A.  Absolutely, and one of the biggest shifts that we have to make is to understand that
    we are not victims.  We can change.  


Q.  Have you noticed any trends or shifts in traditional healing as far as any expansion
    beyond one dogmatic view or label, in your opinion?

A.  I think there’s movement in that direction, yes.  I probably do a broader synthesis
    than most, but that just happens to be my Path.  I was just out in Phoenix at the
    Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology Conference and most of the
    people there are licensed psychologists or psychiatrists, but they have learned
    energy psychology techniques (like TAT, EFT, and Dynamind) and are adding them to
    their practices.  There are those of us who come at it from the alternative healing
    perspective and for whom these are just additional techniques, and then there
    are those who are coming at it from the mainstream and these kinds of techniques
    may be really new.  We meet in the middle and we get along really well.