Faces of CredibleMind: Ari Goldfield
CredibleMind Blog by Ari Goldfield, M.A. J.D. | View Original Blog
Welcome to our new series, “Faces of CredibleMind.” Over the next few weeks, we will share interviews with our content contributors. You can learn about who they are, what inspires them, and their self-care practices. This includes actionable tips and practices you can do to positively affect your wellbeing. First, in this series, we are featuring Ari Goldfield, M.A. J.D., a licensed psychotherapist. He is a blog writer for CredibleMind, covering topics such as meditation, election stress, and more. Learn more about his passions below.
1. Who’s inspired you in the field of mental health and spiritual growth?
My Buddhist teacher, Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso. I spent twelve years with him. He taught me that rather than being frightened by my experience, I could open to it, and it would actually reveal itself as workable. In the field of psychology: John Bowlby and Heinz Kohut, who emphasize the importance of love and nurturing; and Carl Rogers, who encourages us to look on individuals (including ourselves) with unconditional positive regard, and to not let up in my efforts to know my own experience and be empathic with that of others.
2. What do you do as a personal practice to enhance your wellbeing?
Meandering in nature with the living, giving trees, plants and animals reconnects me with openness and being. Cultivating loving warmth in meditation keeps my heart open and giving to myself and others. On a daily basis, I know I feel better when I am able to view everyone I interact with as a subject — meaning a human being with the full range of emotions, difficulties, and strengths that being human entails; a person with dignity who is worthy of respect.
And being with the people I love, especially my wife and 6-year-old son, enhances my wellbeing most of all.
3. What resources in your field do you recommend? What resources are you using right now?
To understand trauma, its origins, and what to do about it, I highly recommend: The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk. And as a guide to improve your communication and relationships, there’s nothing better than Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg.
For my own personal psychological and spiritual work, I’m in a phase where I’m primarily using my own journaling. I find journaling really helps me to understand and connect with myself, and lay a path for how I want to proceed in my life. I recommend it!
4. Is there anything else you’d like our users to know about you?
I really enjoy offering people counseling and meditation guidance in one-on-one sessions and in small groups. I’m grateful for the benefit I’ve received from therapy and meditation training in my own life, and being of service in these ways — in meaningful relationship with people — brings me joy.
5. How can people learn more about you?
People can learn more about me by going to the following websites:
Ari has written a number of blogs for CredibleMind including his most recent: Two Steps for Soothing Your 2020 Election Anxiety. For more of Ari’s work, visit his CredibleMind page.
