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I'd like to tell you about myself and my background. First, some credentials:
Psychology and spirituality. I started becoming aware of the inner workings of the mind during childhood, as my father was (and is) a psychiatrist. For most of college, my major was psychology. I later switched to computer science, with a focus on artificial intelligence (probably the closest thing to consciousness studies that was available to me in the world of engineering). Working in the fast-paced world of Silicon Valley in the late 90s, I was drawn to the practice of Nonviolent Communication - partly as a way to get some compassionate human connection, and partly because I was drawn to its underlying spirituality. For me, Nonviolent Communication was a bridge into the world of mysticism. I soon got very curious about meditation and started reading learning all I could about mystical spirituality, exploring several mystical traditions. I found that I felt most at home with the ideas of philosopher Ken Wilber, who seeks to integrate the worlds of science and spirituality. I currently lead an "integral lifestyle", including daily practices for developing and healing body, heart, mind, and spirit. I do lots of reading and ongoing learning about psychology and mysticism - my influences include Ken Wilber (Integral), Marshall Rosenberg (Nonviolent Communication), Robert Kegan (developmental psychology), David Deida, Harville Hendrix (Imago), Jack Kornfield, Brad Blanton (Radical Honesty) and Michael Brown (The Presence Process). Life-serving systems and sustainability. Over the last decade, I have been becoming aware of what may be some serious problems (or opportunities for improvement, depending on how you look at it) in our world's social and economic systems - including problems related to environmental and economic sustainability. I believe solving these problems will be increasingly important for the well-being of everyone on the planet, and solving them will require much healing and growth in our collective consciousness, in our relationships, and in the systems we participate in. I have been trying to take responsibility for exploring how I consciously and unconsciously participate in these problems, and I have been making changes in my own life to create more integrity between my actions and my values (for example: my car runs on vegetable oil). I would like to see us healing or turning away from systems that support greed, domination and empire, creating and turning toward systems that support mutuality and a focus on serving all life. My influences in these areas include David Korten and Marshall Rosenberg. Leadership. All my life, I have enjoyed designing organizations and systems that help people combine and coordinate their life energy. I believe we can accomplish much more when we are coordinated than when we are separate - the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts. I have also enjoyed working within organizations, coordinating groups of people to help them accomplish their goals in harmony. I enjoy leading by helping create organizational vision: ideas and plans that inspire people. These themes have played out throughout my life. As a child, I enjoyed designing and improving games for friends to play. As a young adult in my first job out of school, I moved from individual contributor to project leader to manager roles within a few years. After leaving the corporate world, I took on several leadership roles in both a charter elementary school and a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization. (For more details, see my consulting page.) Creativity. I see life as a creative experience - the thread of creativity weaves through every section of this page. In particular, creating art and music has been important to me throughout my life. As a child I was fascinated with cameras - I got involved with photography at an early age. (You can see some of my most recent work on my photography page.) In the realm of music, I took piano lessons for years as a child, then learned to play the guitar as a teenager and started writing and recording songs. As I worked in high tech, I spent many hours recording and mixing songs, dreaming of sometime making a living through this creative work. These days I still enjoy playing the guitar and jamming with friends for fun and to create community. I am also fascinated with the idea of using music to support spiritual opening and personal growth, as I believe music can be a carrier on which we can transmit our states of consciousness. Engineering and Technology. I have always loved understanding how things work and building things to support people's well-being. As a teenager I taught myself how to write computer software. This skill has been serving me through my first career in high tech, into the present day where I am using my technical skills to create a system that links people worldwide who want to create a more life-serving world. Here is my personal code of ethics. |
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Jacob Gotwals, Ph.D. |