Aligning Head and Heart

“One of the first exercises we do is a value inventory. We look at automatic thoughts, traits, and behaviors while I ask probing questions,” he says. “More often than not, clients recognize their identity is one created between the ages of 6 and 18. Often it was an identity needed to cope with a difficult situation.”

Part of the reason clients meet with him is the opportunity to discover that it is OK to shed that old self. That holding onto it is can cause more emotional distress, physical harm, or illness than the person can handle.

“Their body or heart is asking for something new,” he says. “I’m there to help them listen.”

That old self is thanked for the protection it provided and then released. Then a new identity can take form.

Nelson was a football player. When the seasons finally ended, he realized, more than football player, he was fighter. Despite his success with that outward identity, it took a toll on his health.

“When you find an outlet to alleviate some suffering, it defines you,” he says. “But it often comes with a cost.”

That cost for him? Psoriasis. At age 10 the patches began to appear on his shoulders. It would flare up during times of stress and subside during periods of calm. During his days in tech, it covered his entire upper body.

He watched family and friends struggle in similar ways.

Witnessing others live in and out of jail or escaping through drugs and alcohol, which led to debilitating addictions and self-destruction.

Most profoundly, his brother Chris’ struggle became a defining moment. Chris let go of his old identities and adopted new ones—he had gotten married and had become a new father. All things were looking up, but Chris’ health was still catching up. For him, the final release of old identities, repressed pain, and resentment took the form of cancer.

Nelson’s brother didn’t survive it.

That profound loss combined with living with psoriasis for more than 20 years and his life at a career crossroads motivated Nelson to summon his fight one more time.

He was determined to defeat psoriasis.

He failed.

Nelson wanted to heal himself and poured every ounce of willpower into the fight, but he failed.

He adjusted his diet, giving up wheat, dairy, and meat. He also gave up alcohol. The psoriasis remained.

Frustrated that cleaner food didn’t bring clear outcomes, he tried fitness. He entered many races, including the grueling Sea to Summit where he swam 1.5 miles, biked 92 miles, and scaled 6,288-foot Mt. Washington. Still, the psoriasis persisted.

Now Nelson was annoyed.

“I had put my head down, worked hard, and fought,” he says.  “It was a technique that worked in the past. So I ratcheted up the pressure on myself and kept asking, ‘Why can’t things be perfect?’”

He thought meditation could help, so he tried it out. But meditation led him to something a little bit deeper—something more unknown and uncomfortable.

“I was so used to pushing thoughts and emotions away, rather than embracing them,” he says.

He considered his childhood, near-death experience, and brother’s death.

As Nelson explored the ancient practice, he began a self-journey.

Like all people new to meditation, he’d sit, but 10 minutes after he was done, the stress would eventually return.

But he was listening to his body and wanted to listen better.

“All I knew was high stress,” he says. “I performed well with it and pushed toward it. So I had to learn to slow my mind and actions and to enjoy the process of healing by not forcing it, but surrendering to it.”

Rather than see psoriasis as an obstacle to overcome or an illness that needed to be beaten, he saw it as part of him … a part that was evolving.

“I found my authentic direction and began a mindfulness practice where I acknowledged feelings, learned to express emotions, and then released those feelings,” he says.

In his practice, he learned to find peace with himself, his past, and his illness. It took five years.

Today, the psoriasis is gone except for an occasional although isolated flare-up.

“Psoriasis, I often joke, has been my greatest teacher,” he says.

While meditating, he realized his journey could serve as a curriculum to others. But he wanted to back it up with education.

Nelson is a certified life coach and a meditation and mindfulness teacher. He is enrolled in a 100-week, 1,400-hour meditation program that requires two hours of meditation a day, with no days off for three years.

He also is a student of Phra Bhavanawachirawidesa V. (Mongkol Kuakool, pictured left), master monk at Wat Nawamintararachutis Buddhist Temple in Raynham, Mass.

While you might think monk and Buddhist temple means no frills, the building is palatial and shimmers in the daylight.

He has been coming to public meditation there for years. His first visit helped him learn to alter his pace.

He had seen a free public meditation advertised, so he showed up. The door was locked, so he sat. When a monk came to the door, Nelson explained he was there for public meditation. The monk said he would get the master. Nelson, who had other commitments that day, thought he might as well get started and sat in meditation for 20 minutes.

A different monk then opened the door. Nelson explained again the situation, and the second monk invited him in and said he’d get the master. Nelson sat for another 30 minutes in silent meditation.

Then the master entered the room and sat next to Nelson. Together they sat for another 30 minutes.

Ninety minutes into his public meditation, he needed to leave. Sensing this, the master stood. Nelson stood too. Together they began a walking meditation for another 30 minutes. At the end of it, they sat again for 30.

Nelson now really had to go, but the monk invited him back for evening chanting. Rather than appear rude, Nelson accepted, knowing that he had to rearrange his evening now in addition to his afternoon.

“That day pushed me to understand better what I was doing,” he says. “I couldn’t just show up and close my eyes for a certain amount of time and think I was practicing meditation.”

Today his visits demand more from him but take less time. It is a practice. He sits and breathes. He walks. He needs this time too to alleviate suffering. He takes in so much from clients that meditation is one way to release it.

Nelson is an intrinsic leader and a guiding hand,” Leauth says. “He doesn’t give you answers, but helps you think and do the work. He helped to reignite in me some things that lay dormant and provided some tools that helped me move forward.

Where does motivation originate? Nelson asks the team at TripAdvisor.

Maybe it comes from guilt, shame, fear of failure, fear of success, or regret. Often those lurk behind motivation. All are little fun and can cause lots of pain.

He then lays out a continuum for motivation that ranges from amotivation, the stuff you have no intention of doing, like cleaning off your desk, to intrinsic motivation, the stuff you see as an enjoyable reward.

Nelson wants the team to see how the source for motivation ties to success. More importantly, how all goals lead back to a state of being—that knowing how you want to feel will determine if you can attain that goal.

He moves the team to a worksheet that begins with the end in mind—a feeling—and uses a reasonable timeline and benchmarks to reach it.

While it’s harder to dive into personal questions and states of being with the group, Nelson challenges employees’ thinking or presents a new way of considering the path forward.

With his private clients, the path is often physical and metaphorical. At Blue Hills Reservation, Nelson meets a client for a hike. The ground is damp, making the fallen pine needles rich with scent.

Nelson and Chris Leauth (above, left) don backpacks and hats. They pick up their conversation quickly. Leauth reached out to him during an employment transition. Nelson helped him put pen to paper as a partner and mentor and work through some changes.

“Nelson is an intrinsic leader and a guiding hand,” Leauth says. “He doesn’t give you answers, but helps you think and do the work. He helped to reignite in me some things that lay dormant and provided some tools that helped me move forward. I feel a peace with myself and am able to listen and hear, which help me recognize and receive, two skills that come from mindfulness.”

Nelson nods as Leauth speaks. They then continue to move deeper into the reservation, a sacred location of the Massachusett Indian tribe for over 10,000 years. The spiritual sanctuary is now set in the heart of Boston, and its surrounding cities are bustling with development and innovation.

Seems the perfect metaphor—the spiritual mountain at the center of evolution, a backdrop for many commuters, some of whom will step into the wilderness and waken to the sights, sounds, smells, and deepening silence.