Close-Up Talk Radio spotlights Presence Therapist James Westly

Phoenix, AZ – The iconic phrase first uttered by French philosopher René Descartes: “I think, therefore I am.” With five simple words, Descartes placed man’s sense of identity firmly in the mind and forever altered the direction of human history.

We tend to believe our mind – that voice in our head when we’re thinking – is who we really are, but how often does that voice produce anything useful? Society has trained us to multitask our thoughts away from the present moment, so we dwell on the past, hope for the future and treat today as something to get through. But the past and future only exist in your mind.

James Westly is a licensed psychotherapist and the author of My Journey to Now Plus Tools for the Seeker: A Spiritual Memoir, the remarkable story of his pursuit of higher consciousness.

“You are not your mind. Your mind is something you have, a tool,” explains Westly. “It’s probably the most powerful tool we know of in the universe, but we don’t use it correctly. Ask anyone who has created anything: the mind is the obstacle.”

Westly says he completely withdrew from society at the age of 35 to study higher consciousness at the Gurdjieff Ouspensky Center in Northern California. Years later he would mainstream his spiritual practice, earning a master’s degree in counseling from the University of Phoenix.

As a therapist, Westley teaches his clients how to stop thought and focus their mind fully into the present moment through a very powerful concentration meditation that demonstrates your mind is not who you are.

“I call my approach to therapy Presence Therapy,” says Westly. “I’ve used the tools of higher consciousness to develop healing modalities and I can heal all the things you would come to a therapist for. I’m on a mission to help people awaken."