The following are common topics, concerns, and frequently asked questions (FAQ) that people have about working in a session as well as general topics. Below I’ve offered some insights to prepare you for this inner work Hopefully, you’ve already read my “About Me” and “Sessions” sections. If not, please check them out after reading this FAQ.
How can I start working with you?
Sign up for my newsletter and send me an email with 2 to 3 paragraphs about yourself.
What ways can I work with you?
I offer:
- One-on-one sessions
- Community gatherings
- Classes
- In-person work for those that I know, and other options.
What Does a One-On-One Session Entail?
I offer a variety of sessions, depending on the student.
These include:
- Inner work sessions
- Re-imagining your life after ego sessions
- Realizing spiritual freedom and choice sessions
- Relaxation sessions, and more.
Sessions are driven by what is meaningful to you!
The more honest you are, the better the session. We talk about whatever needs to be talked about. You can bring questions that you may have, but oftentimes, they become less important once the session starts and the ego lets go of its need to fill itself with information as a form of safety.
In general, I ask you to trust the process. It’s not trusting me so much as what we’re joining together to create in the moment.
At times, you may feel very comfortable or very uncomfortable, but this is a sign of what you are already carrying inside of you.
I will often bring your attention to your discomfort so that you can unearth what your unconscious ego is doing That’s part of how dissolving the ego works. We inquire into your intellectual, emotional, and physical reactions to see where these unconscious ego programs originate. The short answer on that: mostly your childhood.
For a regular student, we build up a flow as you do the work.
The first several sessions typically involve learning about coming back to awareness, breathing, and other basic tools.
What May I Feel in a Session?
Everyone feels differently in these one-on-one sessions. It depends on what attachments we end up working on. I would point you towards my “Testimonials” post for thoughts from past and current students.
Because difficult topics may come up, a session can be intense; many people initially feel uncomfortable. The discomfort can range widely, although increased body heat and sweating seem to be fairly common. Communicating what you are feeling is crucial so that we can investigate what is arising together.
As we combine our attention to a particular source of discomfort, things often move. This may increase the discomfort, but when an attachment releases, there tends to be the movement of several feelings and sensations as things come out. Often the student comes to rest in a sense of expansiveness and relaxation after a big release. At which point, these sessions often feel very comfortable, connected, and loving (loving in the more pleasurable sense, but ultimately, the whole session is an expression of love).
Some sessions can also feel comfortable and loving in general. If a student needs to learn about true love for example, the connection can be extremely warm.
That said, each session is brand new. Each session is an embracing of the present moment and the teacher and student as they are in that moment. So the experiences tend to vary.
How Long Is a Session?
Typically, the session is 1 hour.
What Timeslots Do You Have Available?
My sessions are held at 9 am, 11 am, 1 pm, 4 pm, and occasionally 6 pm Pacific Standard Time.
How Long Have You Been Teaching?
I’ve been teaching since October 2010. I’ve been blogging a little longer.
How Does the Session Take Place?
I do my sessions via video conferencing tools for people not local to Central Oregon.
What Kinds of In-person Sessions Do You Do?
I can do a lot more with students in-person, but they need to be meaningful. In-person sessions can carry a $25 travel-time fee and other relevant fees. Here are some examples:
- Jogging session
- Weight Lifting Session (plus $26 gym fee)
- Cooking session
- Learning the bikeways
- Walking session (Pilot Butte, Shevlin Park, Riley Ranch, Sawyer Park, and other places)
- Thrifting and conscious capitalism session
- Bouldering Session (plus $26 gym fee)
For Video Sessions, Does It Matter Where I Am?
Generally speaking, it’s important to be in safe space where you feel like you can be open and vulnerable. Having a session with me while you’re at work or in a cafe with WiFi isn’t the most conducive place to going into to deep sacred places.
Children and pets need to well-attended to by others so you can focus fully. The unconscious ego is always looking for a reason to be distracted. No ego actually wants to die.
How Long Until I Am Spiritually Free?
This cannot be measured. In general, years of dedication and work are necessary to break through people’s attachments to their minds, egos, bodies, and emotions. It doesn’t have to go that way, but that generally is the case.
Those who have a spiritual awakening are initially pushed faster towards spiritual freedom. But few continue that trajectory even as the initial years of intensity die down. In short, I can only help as much as a student truly wants spiritual freedom.
The annoying answer is that you already ARE FREE. What we’re discussing are the practices that you do to REALIZE this truth.
How Long Do You Typically Work with Students?
It has ranged from one session to regular sessions for more than 12 years.
Do You Help Resolve Trauma?
A lot of healing does happen in my sessions, but I strongly encourage any one with trauma such as war trauma, sexual abuse, physical abuse, serious neglect, narcissistic abuse, abandonment, and other traumas to work with a trained professional. The spiritual work I offer is not a resolution to trauma.
Spirituality should not be used as a bypass to one’s trauma.
Using a Spiritual Teacher as a Therapist
What Will Inner Work Get Me?
This is a problematic question because it comes from the ego. The ego always wants to get something. On the broadest level, you are embracing your freedom, but that involves a lot of letting go. So at times, you may feel like you’re losing stuff, not “getting” anything, per se.
Are You Adding or Subtracting Ego?
Consequently, working with me requires a new mindset where you aren’t focused on what you’ll get, achieve, fix, or improve. Instead, it’s a focus on how to simply be you.
I can offer any number of tools and suggestions to meet you where you are. However, that may not be what your ego wants or expects.
For those in awakening specifically, it’s deeply soothing to find someone who understands what you’re going through.
However, it’s deeply frustrating to have someone show you all the inner work you have to do.
Ultimately, inner work takes people through healing old wounds, realizing that they are not limited by attachments (aka realizing enlightenment/spiritual freedom), and then more intentionally transforming yourself to re-align with reality.
What Are Repatterning and Transformation?
You can only do what you know to do. You have lived with ego reactions and practiced those all your life. As you realize that you don’t have to keep doing them, then you need to create new patterns.
Repatterning requires curiosity, openness, slowness, dedication, a willingness to fail repeatedly, and other traits.
I teach these and other essential conscious traits to you.
How Often Do You Do Sessions With a Student?
For those who are making a long-term commitment with me, I typically work on a biweekly basis with a student, i.e. every two weeks. I also do weekly and monthly periodicities.
You can read more about the importance of regular sessions here:
The Importance of Regular One-on-one Sessions
Do You Work With People Who Aren’t Ready to Make Long-Term Commitments?
Absolutely. I do single sessions with people all the time. However, I encourage people to see the spiritual path as a long-term commitment, not necessarily to me or any specific teacher, but to themselves.
The overview part of this One-on-one page explains what can happen over the long-term.
How Do I Know I’m Progressing?
Let’s start with what stops progress:
Defensiveness, fear, pride, and shame slow, halt, or reverse progress.
Not doing the work or half-assing the work impedes progress.
Typically, people have more realizations, feel more like themselves, feel more grounded, feel more peaceful, and other things show me that they’re progressing.
7 Signs of Spiritual Progress (and 7 Signs that Are Not Progress)
How Much Does it Cost?
My recommended investment is $250 USD/hour video call session. For an in-person walking session, it is $275 USD. For a seated, indoors session, it is $325 due to space rental.
If you want to offer a different amount, please email me.
When Should I Pay?
Please only pay AFTER we have agreed upon a day and time for our session. DO NOT pay money for a session before discussing whether we are working together and before we have finalized a time to meet.
Once we have finalized a time to meet, then you can pay any time before the session.
Shouldn’t Spirituality Services Be Free?
Spiritual teachers have always had reciprocity and support from their communities. In other times, food, clothing, and shelter was all provided. Tithing and donations have long been a custom to support spiritual teachers, and hence, I’ve created a flexible system that honors that the way Western Society offers most of its reciprocity is through money.
Do You Ever Not Work With Someone Who Wants a Session?
Yes. I am interested in best supporting people. Sometimes that means they need support in from a different practitioner in a different discipline.
What’s Your Refund Policy?
All ebooks sales and session payments are final. This includes community gatherings, in-person gatherings, and other services.
I am happy to entertain requests for refunds and most likely would provide a refund when kindly requested for one. By and large, I am not interested in money as much as helping other people. The refund policy is part of setting an appropriate boundary for those who may be upset that they didn’t get what they thought they needed from a service.
Oftentimes the most important lessons we receive on our spiritual paths are the uncomfortable ones. So for the sake of general policy, I don’t do refunds.
Can I Reach Out to You if I Have a Spiritual Emergency?
Occasionally, I hear the term spiritual emergency, but more often than not, it is simply the ego having a big tantrum. I won’t say that it is fun, but I encourage you to keep breathing and relaxing into whatever is coming up. I can schedule sessions on short notice for those of my regular students, but I am not set up for this kind of impromptu work.
Suicide and Spiritual Emergencies
Other Important Topics and Questions for Working with a Spiritual Teacher
Preparing for a Session
Generally speaking, all you need to do is to relax and be yourself. If meditation and other practices beforehand help you center and ground, I recommend that you do them. I advise against adding in mind-altering drugs or substances. Many people believe that drugs like marijuana make them “more spiritual,” but instead, they add another layer of illusion on top everything else. A body clean of substances is the most open and receptive vessel to the deeper spiritual truths that are within you.
For more thoughts on how to prepare, please read this blog post from my students:
Student Perspectives on Working With Jim Tolles
Getting Angry With the Teacher and Falling in Love With the Teacher
This topic is two sides of the same coin. In one aspect, the teacher is hitting on a story the student doesn’t like. In the other aspect, the teacher is connecting with a story that the student does like.
In these instances, it is important to remember that the student is projecting themselves on the teacher. In the instance of being angry, they’re projecting their upset feelings onto the teacher. In the other, they’re projecting their lust onto the teacher.
Additionally, as a teacher, there is only one way to truly teach…with love. Because so many people don’t understand love, when they connect deeply with me, they may confuse wanting a sexual-romantic relationship with the feeling they are experiencing. A lot of work is around helping the heart to mature and the mind to open up to different forms of love. This deep love with a teacher is actually a gift because it’s helping the student to tune into the vastness of his or her own love.
For more about this sacred relationship, you can read this blog post:
The Spiritual Teacher and Spiritual Student Relationship
Post-Session Self-Care
After a session, things may move internally. That can mean lots of stirred up emotions. It can feel really good for awhile, or it may get really messy and confusing for awhile. It’s important in especially the 2 to 3 days after a session to be really mindful of your self-care (meditation, coming back to awareness, journaling, breathwork, yoga, or whatever you are doing for yourself). Not being mindful can break the momentum of the inner work that you are doing, and it can make life more uncomfortable.
As I often remind people, things are likely to get messier before they get clearer in this ego dissolving process.
Becoming My Friend
Because of the deep connections that often arise in this work, one off-shoot is that people try to categorize me as a friend, a soul brother, or some other term. Another aspect of this work is to help you understand the nature of deep connection within you. When someone feels deeply connected with me, I encourage them to see that as simply discovering how much love they already have within themselves. It is also an opportunity to investigate and release attachments around DESIRE.
This work should be considered to be strictly as a student and teacher relationship, and any attempts to fit me into other parts of your life no matter how well meaning are unlikely to be shared by me.
Self-Sabotaging the Work
Because self-sabotage is so common in this work, I wrote a whole blog just about this topic. It is important to learn how to go into difficult moments, especially in sessions with me. By leaning into discomfort, many students have released big issues and come into deeper levels of love and spaciousness than they’ve ever known before.
For more on self-sabotage, you can read this:
Sabotaging the Healing Process and Running When It Gets Tough
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