Bio & Background
TLDR
Background:
I’ve always been curious about life, and pretty chronically ill-at-ease. I had insecure attachment to the point of C-PTSD. I also had ADHD, Social Anxiety, and significant bouts of depression.
Interventions:
I did about 7,000 hours of meditation over a period of years. I even became a full time meditation teacher. Also, I did a lot of psycho-therapy (1500 hours or so). All that helped; but didn’t fix things entirely. I still struggled. Then, I found out about Attachment Theory and recognized my own insecure attachment. I got trained in Ideal Parent Figure Protocol (IPF), Schema Therapy, Coherence Therapy, and the Dynamic-Maturational Model of Attachment (DMM). I, also, got facilitated in these modalities. In the process I developed a set of meditations that combined all that which I call ‘Attachment Repair Meditation Modality.”
Outcomes:
I am at greater ease, happier, enjoy connecting with others more.
Offering/Conclusions:
I draw from all those modalities now and guided people in these meditations to help them heal their attachment wounds.
I offer coaching/attachment repair guided meditation and teach guided meditation, group courses online.
If you are interested in booking a free discovery call for one-on-one work click the link at the end of the page.
Main Article:
As far back as I can remember I always wanted to understand life and suffer less.
Discovering Therapy:
I started going to weekly psychotherapy at the age of 17. Immediately I got obsessive about it. I thought ” finally I found a way to become happier!” I kept going to therapy once or twice weekly for the next 8 years. It helped. But after all that time I was still neurotic, ill-at-ease with others, socially awkward, and still pretty confused about life.
Discovering Meditation:
After graduating from university with a degree in finance, I moved to Santiago, Chile to start work life. I soon found myself quite miserable, adrift, and not interested in business. So, returned to the United States and in January of 2005, I went back to university to study psychology with the intention to become a psychotherapist. There was a psychology class by the name of “Meditation, Biofeedback, and Self-Regulation”. I signed up. It was taught by one of the Early Transcendental Meditation adepts, Dr. Edward Taub.
By the end of the first week of class I knew that meditation would be the central focus of my life.
So, since then, I’ve had a daily meditation practice, largely in the Buddhist tradition. I’ve practiced Zen, Advaita Vedanta self-inquiry, concentration practices, Vipassana/Insight, Tibetan Deity Yoga, open awareness practices, and heart practices like Loving Kindness, Devotional practices, and Tong Len.
However, even after 300 days on meditation retreat and an average of 90 mins a day of at-home meditation for 15 years, I still didn’t feel truly settled and at ease. I had access to deeper meditative states and insights. But, still there was a discomfort with life. Something was missing.
In December of 2019, I went to participate for three weeks in the Winter Kyol Che Zen meditation retreat at the Providence Rhode Island Kwan Um Zen Center. It didn’t go well. I was stressed going in. I wasn’t sleeping much. Then on retreat things got worse. My mental health really started to deteriorate. I started feeling ‘very weird’. I left the retreat 3 days in. It was the first time I had left a retreat.
I had a crisis of faith in meditation. I had done so much of it. But, I still felt so troubled. For the first time in 14 years, I stopped meditating. I felt adrift in life.
Discovering Attachment Theory:
On January the 1st of 2020 a friend and fellow meditator, mentioned attachment theory, Ideal Parent Figure Protocol (IPF), and the possibility of repairing early attachment conditioning.
Very quickly I recognized myself in his description of insecure attachment. It explained so much.
So, I started studying attachment theory in January 2020, and doing Dan Brown’s Ideal Parent Figure Protocol (IPF).
Studying attachment theory, and practicing IPF were my principle interest during all of 2020. I also took part in a supervision group with Dan Brown for IPF facilitators and therapists for 8 months.
In 2021 I got interested in Schema Therapy (a modality with a strong attachment and experiential focus) and did two one year schema therapy trainings in tandem (Wainer Psicologia and Asociación Latinoamericana de Terapia de Esquemas).
All this made a big difference.
I now actually enjoy connecting with others. In the past I would want to be close with others. But it was mainly because I noticed that I would get miserable when I was alone. There had been little joy being around others. I was ambivalent and anxious. In the past, anxiously, I’d think twice about calling a friend or co-worker. That doesn’t arise anymore.
Moreover, a much greater ease in life started to develop. In the past, I would mood-alter with trying to always accomplish more and more. Otherwise, I’d get depressed and feel lost. At times I still work a bit too much. But the edges are way softer.
I am less negative, less angry. I feel like I understand my own and others’ mental states better. Connecting with others feels natural.
Another change has been my ADHD. I have struggled with ADHD my whole life. It was so hard to follow through on tasks. I’d procrastinate on most anything that involved reading or writing. That’s changed. The work I used to put off now gets done. I now generally feel like I can go after the things I want.
Life has gotten a lot easier.
Now for my work, I teach group classes, and retreats and facilitate people one on one. I do this with both traditional meditation~ and attachment repair. Please feel free to check out our online events, downloadable courses, sign up for our newsletter where we announce upcoming course or sign up for a free, introductory one-on-one attachment repair facilitation.
Interviews with Cedric:
EveryDay WellBeing with Brett Kokoruda
The Journey of Wholeness with Amy Choate and Janese Adair
Reach Truth with Tasshin Fogleman