Waking Up

My counseling work is designed to help people awaken – not to tell people how to dream a better or different dream.

In the process of awakening, many people report that they feel discomfort as old thought patterns, beliefs and stories come up for renewal.  However, those same people also recount that unlike what has happened in the past, there is now little or no suffering added to their experience.  It is on this shaky new ground, where such suffering, struggling, striving, seeking and searching stops, that the mind tends to be quiet. In the presence of simply feeling whatever arises, the mind does not have a job anymore.  So, as feelings arise, from the most blissful to the most depressing, I ask people to simply feel fully with an open heart. 

Greeting Life with An Open Heart

Greeting life with an open heart affords a wonderful opportunity to remove the focus off of what we are projecting onto life.  We fall into the very freedom that we were once searching for when we redirect our projective energy inward.  By being attentive to arising emotions and by delving below those surface feelings, our passion for self-inquiry grows.  When we choose to look inwards, and open up to what our heart has to say, it becomes self evident that the thoughts and feelings that arise in any given moment have nothing to do with whom we really are.  How can we be defined by any state that is just passing through – however pleasant or unpleasant these states may seem to be?  To directly experience the stillness of pure unfiltered awareness is truly liberating.  This sublime and transformative state of being is ever present and available for us all!

What Works

I work with both individuals and couples to assist them to awaken to what is working and not working in their relationship with themselves and others.  My focus is on the realization that when we open our hearts to the truth of what is happening (what we are creating), we have an opportunity to change it.  In these profound moments of awareness, the dialogue of the mind (the tape that runs twenty-four hours a day - seven days a week) stops controlling our lives.  By challenging our inner dialogue and beliefs with the light of awareness, we dissolve the thoughts, the dramas, and the viewpoints that cause our suffering.  To meet our own dramas head on requires courage – and as spiritual counselor I suggest exercises designed to help free clients of the often very disparaging and severely limiting thought patterns that rule their lives, that have come to define who they believe themselves to be.

The focus of my counseling work is to give full attention to the present; how to give attention to behaviors, to reactions to situations, moods, thoughts, emotions, fears, and desires as they occur.  It is clear to me that as we learn to be present enough to watch all those things, compassionately and without judgment, we can then dissolve limiting beliefs, viewpoints and dramas through the power of clear presence.  From this powerful place of presence and acceptance, we make clear, effective and profoundly positive changes in our lives. Our mind stops looking to the past for identity or to the future for fulfillment. It simply stops and is quiet.

Please consider having private sessions via the telephone from the privacy of your own home.  It is an extremely effective way to change your life without having to travel anywhere and enables me to work with people from all over the world.  Frequently people ask me if telephone sessions are as effective as those done in person. In my experience, they can be just as effective and sometimes even more effective - there may even be fewer distractions to deal with.  Rather than needing to drive through traffic, through varying weather conditions, or rush to get to appointments on time, many clients are able to speak with me without any added stress.

 Love Relationships

On a very fundamental level love relationships hold the possibility of discovering oneself manifest in a different form.  So, there is a great potential to fully accept who your partner really is just as you would accept that same truth about yourself.  However, a fundamental pitfall with being in an intimate relationship with another is that most people are looking for their partner to fulfill their need for love, at the expense of looking within for it.  By that, I mean that we tend to lose ourselves to a story of how and what a relationship should look like and be – instead of opening to what the relationship actually is in the moment.  Miracles can happen when both partners are committed to stepping out of old patterns of shame and blame and take responsibility for their part in the drama of the relationship.

When working with couples, I strongly recommend that the three of us work together, and that we also meet separately from time to time to delve into personal issues that inevitably arise.  I need for each member of the relationship to be clear that this is not couples therapy as much as it is a way to find the freedom of who you both are at the core essence of your being.  Each partner is responsible for their own actions and reactions, and we are not in the business of identifying one partner as right or wrong.  Instead, together we work to augment communication skills based on a clear understanding of how each partner perpetuates limiting beliefs.  The emphasis is not on what your partner is doing or not doing or saying or not saying.  It is the responsibility of each partner to use his or her personal integrity to appropriately respond to whatever arises in the relationship.  I ask that each partner do so without any attachment to what has happened in the past, to not act out of fear or a need to control the outcome, and to release all expectations about what to do next.

Participation

How often we meet depends on you and your schedule, your financial circumstances and your level of commitment to the process.  I do, however, feel that it is highly beneficial for those who come to me for counseling to commit to at least two – one-hour long sessions in person or by phone each month.  I give out homework and ask that people e-mail me that homework before the start of the next session.  I am happy to discuss any unusual situations with you.

Payments

My hourly (non cash) fee for in office or telephone apprentice sessions is $70.  When three sessions are paid for at once, the total payment is $200. Paypal or cash payments are accepted, and are due in advance of telephone sessions or at the time of the in office visit.  I do not accept checks as payment for spiritual counseling  sessions.  Please click here to make a paypal payment.

If you need additional information about my Spiritual Counseling work, or to schedule and appointment, please don’t hesitate to email me by clicking here or call me at 860-633-3487.

Spiritual Counseling Testimonials

I have searched most of my adult life for truth, readying countless books and studying with a variety of teachers.  It was only after meeting and studying with Keshav that I experienced a true glimpse of the vast potential that permeates all.  His approaches are multilayered with an emphasis on direct experience and the practices he has introduced me to are practical and simple and at the same time deep, ancient, and heart connected.  He has brought me face to face with myself where no one else could.  I can truly say that he has changed my life forever and I am deeply touched by the unconditional love and commitment he holds for everyone who comes to him for healing and self exploration.  Keshav’s work is transformational!!  I recommend his work to anyone who is ready to shift from a paradigm of fear to love and wants to walk in the way of peace.  If you are ready for the next step, Keshav holds the energy to start your journey.  Just be ready for an incredible transformational experience on many levels!!

Martha Moore 

In the eleven years I have known Keshav, I am consistently amazed and impressed with his clarity as well as the breadth and depth of his wisdom in both Spiritual Counseling and healing sessions.  He is dedicated equally to his own continuing healing and growth and to the growth and healing of his clients/students/apprentices.

Liz Skolnick

I have been transforming from the tutelage of Dr. Howe for over ten tears now... his guidance is boundless.  He is the real deal.

PJ Punderson

Keshav is a gifted teacher and counselor.  In sessions he combines humor, wisdom and compassion with a no–nonsense approach while relentlessly guiding his clients back to the truth of who they really are.  He is part teacher, part physician, part counselor, part story teller–all mixed with an equal amount of unconditional love.

In the almost two years of studying with this beautiful man, I have felt complete safety in revealing to him whatever it is I am thinking or feeling, enabling me to progress quickly.  I have experienced a profound transformation.  He has led me on a magical journey and taught me how to open up my heart and to experience peace in the most unlikely places.  I highly recommend Keshav as a counselor, teacher and healer.

Betty Allen

We all come to find Keshav Howe because of different circumstances in our lives.  For me, I was experiencing a loss of my passion, purpose, love and compassion for myself and for others.  I felt my life had become fragmented.  Even though I had been studying on my own many works of various spiritual masters, things just weren’t clicking for me.  I even worked with a psychiatrist but still couldn’t get past the insanity of doing the same things over and over again and getting the same result... emptiness, unhappiness, frustration, anger, self-pity, boredom, depression, etc.  I was just existing day by day going through the motions like a robot.

It wasn’t until I began my work with Keshav some 2 or 3 years ago that my passion for life and sense of purpose were restored.  With gentleness, compassion and humor almost beyond belief Keshav has assisted me in peeling the layers of the “onion” to gradually learn how to find the love in me and assist me in overcoming my fears.  It is a process, a journey that I am taking one step at a time.  It has been filled with love, compassion, and awe.  Life has taken on a new meaning for me and I now am able to look at all of the challenges that come my way as opportunities to grow and develop and even see the Divine in me.  I am now able to reframe these challenges and choose to either be in heaven with them or go to hell.  I am finally learning what Freedom really is.

Diane Donato

Keshav’s focused and relentless (yet gentle) guidance has led me into and through very dark and frightening places.  In two years, I have experienced profound healing and transformation.  I am eternally grateful.

Anny Carr

I have been working with Keshav Howe for over 4 years now.  Before that I had been reading and praying and looking for the way to define my spirituality.  I researched many different “New Age options” and even tried to go back to my Catholic origins.  It was not until I stumbled upon Keshav Howe that my life began to take on meaning and purpose.  I am of the opinion that he is a very gifted spiritual teacher and healer.  He has a unique perspective in his dealing with each client and apprentice.  He also gets to the heart of the matter as to where you are in your process and leads you down the path to discover your true self.  He has a knack of opening your eyes to where the true work needs to be done.  And he will continue to serve you by patiently helping you to remove the blocks in your own time.  As I can attest, sometimes his honesty is unwelcome because the very things that we need to look at are the things that we are running from.  But it always comes from a place of patience, love and respect.  And if we are not ready to go to that difficult place, he will wait.  He has a very eclectic and impressive background of teachers and traditional education and it all comes together to form a most impressive experience of teaching and healing.  He tries to help you lighten your load of life through a wonderful and fun type of curriculum.  His sense of humor is quick and to the point but it serves it’s purpose, too.  Spiritual work should be fun and not always solemn and serious.  Please be assured that when he needs to take a serious tone with something he can just as competently counsel people from that place.  I have truly enjoyed my time with Keshav as my teacher and healer.  I sincerely wish to continue my education and training with him.

Paula Reynolds