Soulful Therapy with Israel “Rulik” Perla, PhD, MFT
People come to therapy for a variety of reasons
Often they have tried various kinds of solutions and asked others for help. My role as a therapist is to be a change agent committed to serving your needs. Anything of value that you can find here will be in the context of our working relationship. I will be gently relentless in collaborating with you on finding a new path.
The source of healing
I want to know what brings a smile to your face as you realize that your life is waiting to be lived. Smiles might seem a remote option at this time, or even completely forgotten. You might be in pain and you hope for change. You might even think that there is something wrong with you. There is a part in you which knows the task at hand and exactly why it is here. It knows how to be alive and how to share that being with others. I am curious about that part.
New understanding through body and soul
A client recently told me: “I finally understood that in order to live the spiritual life I am so longing for, I need a healthy body and a thriving soul.” The most rewarding aspect of my work, is the privilege to witness the emergence of such new understanding that leads to change. Soul and spirit get often confused, especially when ideals and ideas overrule healthy intuition, and connections to earth, nature, friends and community. The body needs to be first of all accepted. A manly or womanly body, a small or big one, a gentle or fierce one, a strong or delicate one. Then, when respected and cared for, it can live and serve the whole.
Soulful therapy and real lasting change
On the path to real change, our separate parts need to be known, accepted and then brought together. The soul needs to be affirmed again and again, until it lets go and can simply BE.
Israel “Rulik” Perla, PhD, MFT
I have said that the soul
is not more than the body,
And I have said that the body
is not more than the soul;
And nothing, not God,
is greater to one than one’s self is,
And whoever walks
a furlong without sympathy,
walks to his own funeral,
dressed in his shroud.
Walt Whitman
You
Our Sessions
Me
Resources: Poems and Articles
Lost | by David Wagoner
Lost Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside youAre not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,Must ask permission to know it and be known.The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,I have made this place around you.If...
Dancing at the Still Point | by Marion Woodman
Dancing at the Still Point What do we dowhen everything rational says,Let go!and everything emotional says,I cannot!We can swing back and forthbetween opposites indefinitely.Better to standon the stillpointat the center. Marion WoodmanA note from Rulik Dancing at the...
Of the Terrible Doubt
Of the Terrible Doubt Of the terrible doubt of appearances,Of the uncertainty after all, that we may be deluded,That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all…~Walt Whitman~ The majority of people are yearning for more intimacy and affection in their...