J. Michael Stogner
Spiritual Counseling
Philosophy & Resume
J. Michael is a trained, certified, and experienced facilitator with an extensive background in spirituality and offers his services as a Spiritual Counselor. He utilizes the various arts of mindfulness, meditation, inner exploration, storytelling, poetry, and dialogue to unveil each person's spiritual path.
Philosophy
I believe there are as many paths to God as rays of the sun. Within each of us is a connection to the divine which we frequently neither acknowledge nor utilize in the pursuit of our happiness and completion. Yet it is there and very real, if we can but learn to access it. Once that connection is made and accepted as the real world, all manner of amazing things start to happen. Miracles occur, love and oneness is experienced in a way never thought possible, and the material world as we perceive it becomes far less important or needed. I know, that given the right tools, we are capable of reaching the level of awareness where our entire life changes in the most wonderful of ways and miracles become commonplace. I have gone there and I continue to do so at every opportunity. I seek now to share these blessings with my brothers and sisters as a calling to service to our Beloved Creator. My service to you will be to assist in your own inner search of the realm of spiritual awareness and to find the spiritual life that is right for, and meant for, you. In my heart of hearts, I am a poet. So let me put it this way:
Light Decided
Fear leaves
Where love is invited
Pain fades
From heart unrequited
Darkness retreats
From light decided
Resume
As inherently difficult as it may be to quantify or qualify spiritual expertise, I will use my frail words to attempt to do just exactly that. I will do so in the form of a resume to convey to you my journey that you may determine if you wish for us to share a bit of time in the quest for yours.
- Lifelong student of the mind and spirit
- Daily meditation/prayer practice for over thirty years
- Longtime student of a wide variety of religions and spiritual practices
- Hundreds of spiritual books of all varieties read and reread
- Daily student and teacher of A Course in Miracles for over twenty years
- Accomplished writer and poet with nine volumes of mystical/spiritual poetry, a novella, and several published articles on spiritual topics
- An experienced group leader and certified facilitator
- Seminar Program Director for a large spiritual organization
I have somehow survived and grown from the multiple tragedies of the death of a mother, a father, an uncle who was as a second father, and my seventeen year old son. Though unemployed at the age of sixty, I moved beyond dejection to a place of unconditional confidence and faith. I have perilously survived booze, drugs, and depression. I healed my anger prior to it consuming me and learned forgiveness in place of hate and revenge, enhancing both my spiritual character and being.
As my life has become my best teacher, I have discovered the most remarkable and usable tools to assist in the spiritual journey. They are mindfulness and meditation, the ancient craft of storytelling and its more youthful progeny, poetry. I offer, as part of my service to you, these most wonderful utensils to play upon your mind with wonder and mystery, then to be deciphered by the filter of your own destiny. There is no more effective, or enjoyable, way to discover your Higher Self than by virtue of silence, ode or tale. If you agree, I will bring to bear these as well as my own spiritual experiences and knowledge to help you find your spiritual path, purpose, and happiness.