Secular Spirituality Life Coaching

Secular Spirituality is spirituality that doesn’t involve a God or religion. It is a nature-based spirituality. Spirituality does not require some supreme being out there, watching over us and giving us our blessings. Based in non-theistic religious naturalism, spirituality is about cultivating inner-peace, personal growth, and, if you are lucky, enlightenment. Religious naturalism really isn’t a religion per se. It posits that nature is all there is. There is nothing beyond nature. For example, you can be thankful for your blessings without needing some big guy (or gal) in the sky to be thankful to. You can read more about Secular Spirituality in my blog post here. My spirituality is grounded in science and, primarily, Zen Buddhism—with a dash of Native American spirituality thrown in for flavor. That is just my path. What is yours?

In Secular Spirituality Life Coaching, I will work with you to find and walk your own path. I bring to the table not only a lot of additionally a lot of science. And it is not just ‘book-learning’. We are talking about hands-on, living-it experience. Zen, Native American, and science.

Additionally, I have a deep knowledge and understanding of Christianity. Born and raised in the ‘hell-fire and damnation’ Texas Bible Belt, and 32 years as an active Episcopalian. I have a year of study each in the New Testament, Old Testament, Church History, and Contemporary Theology in Master’s level coursework, plus works by Barabara Armstrong, Matthew Fox, Paul Tillich, and numerous others.

Most of my coaching services are via phone or Internet (e.g, Zoom).

To schedule a free 15-minutes, introductory phone/Zoom interview, text me at (864) 508-0781. Add, ‘Spirituality’ at the start and be sure to include your name. We will set up a time to get together.

Regular session fees are $50 for a half-hour (30 min MOL) session and $100 for an hour (60 min MOL) session. These prices can change. Clicking on the links will allow you to make the payment through PayPal. Charges will show as to Mustang Medicine Works, LLC, my company. Thanks.

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Chop water, carry wood is a blog by Darrell G. Yardley, PhD, LPC, focusing on wide variety of topics on spirituality and science, Zen Buddhism, secular religious naturalism, Native American spirituality, and science (psychology, evolution, genetics, neurobiology, chaos theory). Defining spirituality as a combination of the cultivation of inner-peace and personal growth.

Promoting simplicity, mindfulness, self-sufficiency, self-reliance, self-actualization, inner-peace, personal growth, and eco-responsibility. My credo is: reduce, repair, repurpose, recycle, and compost. I will take up a range of topics including gardening, bicycling, and whatever topics are on my mind.

Having just finished my second book, The Guru on the Mountain, which shortly will be available on Amazon.com, I am working toward another with a working title, Buddha on a Bike, about my increased interest and involvement in bicycling, the adventures thereon, and relevant to the above topics.

The blog’s title is a wordplay based on an old Zen proverb: “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”

What does it mean? There are several layers of meaning to this old, pithy saying. One one level it means that the world does not change when we become “enlightened”. We still must do the work we need to do from moment to moment. The world doesn’t change, but we do, or rather, our perspective and response to the world changes. After enlightenment, the world is still just, the world. It just is. At another level, it is telling us to be fully present in each moment, i.e. to be mindful, no matter what our task.

It is about living your regular life, but from a different perspective and understanding. A spiritual life does not require that we shave our heads, live in the desert, give up all possessions, etc. We can live our regular life, only different; with mindfulness, less attachment, letting go into each moment, then letting it go into the next, realizing that all is impermanent. Being more relaxed, less uptight, realizing that nothing is permanent, everything changes. Less judgmental.

My wordplay is that you can’t of course, chop water, not unless of course it is its solid form of ice. So, my wordplay is a paradox built upon the Zen paradox, known as koans. Koans are Zen word puzzles that are directed to helping students (that be all of us) to obtain enlightenment.

Hopefully my words will help you in this endeavor in your own journey. If not, at least maybe a little enjoyment. Gassho