Julie Henderson,
PhD
Julie Henderson was born in Dallas, Texas
(USA), in 1941. Her family on both sides has produced a fine
mix of artists and scientists for several generations. Her father
was an actor and engineer; her mother, an actress, college professor,
and somatic psychotherapist. Julie says playfully that she feels
this left her no option but to find a way of making a living
that combined gnosis and scientia,
direct knowing and analysis, art and science.
As
early influences, she cites her parents' complete confidence
in her capacity to learn anything she put her mind to, including
chemistry, horseback riding, belly-dancing, and cooking. This
was followed in her college years by a voracious investigation
of a number of sciences, theater, languages, and various psychotherapies.
Ultimately, she settled on an interest in being happy.
In the West, her most influential teachers
in this area have been Milton H. Erickson, M.D. (indirect communication
and altered states), George Thomson, Ph.D. (redecision therapy
and the real possibility of change), Richard Bell (networking
and lateral shifts), Tony Richardson, M.D. (medical somatics),
and Kathy L. Kain (the premise of form as aware), and Robyn Lee
Speyer (clarity and courage within an understanding of psychodynamics).
From 1975, the influence of her Tibetan
teachers has been all-pervasive, though often non-obvious to
the point of being apparently invisible. They have taught her
through one-on-one instruction, transmission, and the learning
through appropriate situational provocation that the Tibetans
call nyongtri. Their teachings have transformed
the meaning of everything else she has learned. Her main "root"
teachers are Kundun Gyalwang Drukpa, the Vairocana Tulku, Chagdud
Tulku, and Gyalsay Tulku. Her lineage is Ka-Nying.
She calls what she teaches Zapchen
(at the suggestion of Gyalsay Tulku Rinpoche), from a highly
ambiguous Tibetan word that allows for the positive impact of
startling behavior. Her work includes mind-training, energetics,
bodywork, and story-telling, like Erickson and her Tibetan teachers.
The form of teaching is indirect and non-obvious. All subjects
of instruction are subsumed in a direct movement towards primary
well-being, which includes clarity, compassion and potency.
Julie warns against making any assumptions
about what she does before you have a personal experience of
it. She lives in the countryside near Napa, California, with
a big yellow dog and two cats.
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