The Practice of

Psychological Self-Awareness

A 7 Week online course with Dr. A. Paul (Bodhi)

unlocking the door to the secrets of inner transformational work

illuminating the psyche through the marriage of contemplative wisdom and modern psychology

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Who is this course for?

This course is designed for individuals who are committed to deepening their self-awareness, inner healing, and personal transformation. Whether you are on a journey of self-discovery, seeking greater emotional resilience, or looking to integrate mindfulness and psychology into your daily life, this course provides a structured yet flexible path to profound inner growth. It is ideal for those who are drawn to both modern psychological insights and contemplative wisdom traditions and want to bridge the two in a practical and meaningful way.

If you are someone who values introspection, personal development, and holistic well-being, this course will offer you both the theoretical understanding and hands-on tools to cultivate lasting change. Whether you are new to self-exploration or have already engaged in mindfulness, therapy, or self-inquiry practices, the course meets you where you are and provides exercises, guided practices, and reflective frameworks to support your unique journey. Coaches, healers, therapists, or individuals in helping professions may also find this course enriching, as it offers an integrative approach that can be applied both personally and professionally.

Ultimately, this course is for anyone ready to take an honest and compassionate look within—to explore the depths of their mind, emotions, and patterns—and to engage in practices that foster self-awareness, healing, and authentic transformation. If you are ready to embark on this journey, you will find a supportive and insightful path that encourages real and lasting inner change.

The term “holistic,” as it is used in this context, connotes a view of the human being that is multidimensional—not just consisting of the physical body or cognitive apparatus, but also of psyche/soul and spirit.

Holistic inner work takes all of these into account. It recognizes that there are unique bodies of wisdom that have developed in various disciplines (e.g., psychology, neuroscience, the wisdom traditions of the world, philosophy, sociology, etc.). It uses an interdisciplinary approach and draws on multiple disciplines to illuminate and optimally address these different dimensions and facets of the whole human being. 

Optimal, in this context, means that these different areas of the psyche (i.e., the human being) can develop, unfold, and move in more or less evolutionary ways. The heart, when unfolding in an optimized way moves or tends in the direction of greater openness, love, sensitivity, compassion, and the like. The mind, when optimized tends towards greater illumination, understanding, penetrative insight, clarity, and wisdom. These directions of movement are innate to those different areas (not haphazard) and express more fully the highest aspirations and values of these areas of the human being. 

These developments tend carry with them certain qualitative or experiential markers. As mentioned above, one such marker is the sense of a greater opening. Another that of greater illumination. Another is that of greater harmony (both internally, and even seemingly with outer world). These developments are also often distinguishable and recognizable by greater levels of self-organizing complexity and inclusivity.

I’ve heard the well-known spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle talk about this in a beautifully succinct manner. The way he sees it, our own inner evolution is really the evolution of the universe towards greater consciousness. He draws an analogy to the first flowers to have ever appeared on the planet, at first a small number, but as time went on, more and more. He likens those human beings engaged in any practice that increases consciousness as being the first expressions (or flowers) as part of a larger process of the flowering of a new kind of consciousness. 

A holistic approach would just add nuance to that and say that we can also evolve in our range, depth, and possibility of relatedness, capacity for living a human life in the world, collective-civilizational development, as well as in others ways.

Yes, the approach used here is interdisciplinary, cross-tradition, and integrative. It draws on various different schools of psychotherapy, and also different areas of psychology, such as human development, personality, social psychology, biopsychology, relational psychology and therapy, existential psychology, somatic psychology, and many more, 

It also draws on the insight and practices of various wisdom traditions, such as various kinds of meditation, recognition and understanding of deeper levels of human experience, numerous contemplations designed to bring out and foster different innate wisdoms, and practices to support a general process of purification, a deep understanding and means of addressing the more subtle aspects of the ego-self, doorways of transcendences, etc.

I call this approach WisdomPsych, which provides it’s unique mapping of the human psyche, including social and ontological dimensions.

This course acts as the foundation for a holistic approach to psychospiritual inner work. It draws on the vast treasure trove of insight and practice from contemporary psychology, but also recognizes that there is much more to human nature and potential than conventional psychology recognizes. This broader and deeper understanding of human nature has, however, long been recognized and supported by the various wisdom traditions of the world. 

In the approach we use here, we combine the newer and highly nuanced theoretical understanding and technology of modern psychology with the method and practices of the wisdom traditions, where each can mutually compliment and empower the other. The wisdom traditions are sourced in the deepest levels and wisest aspects of human nature and can therefore inform and guide the new wealth of knowledge and practice that modern disciplines of the last century provide. 

The larger program of which this course functions as the foundation is the Discovery Process Program. The foundation for all of the methodology that is included in that program depends on a certain knowledge and set of skills, namely, psychological self-awareness. What is meant by “psychological self-awareness” here, however, is unique to the approach we’re using—a distinguishing feature being its acting as a pathway to deeper psychospiritual processes and realizations. 

And that speaks directly to the question, “Why this course?” “Spiritual,” in this context, means many things. One meaning is that which is of “ultimate concern” to human beings. What is of ultimate concern to one individual may appear to sound different than what is of ultimate concern to another. However, as we dig deeper into the psyche we begin to uncover a universal sub-structure or anatomy of the psyche, and this deeper anatomy directly reflects the deepest values, aspirations, and longings of the human being. 

That is to say, though there may be differences in what individuals appear to value on the surface, if we see deeper, we see that we are all valuing similar things on a more fundamental level by virtue of being a human being. An obvious example is that human beings tend to value happiness and health and dislike suffering. In fact, happiness and suffering are themselves indicators and reflections of what human beings value, and we can further see that there are similar governing laws or principles (physical, psychological, and otherwise) that appear to hold, even across the seemingly most diverse set of individuals. 

We can also see that these governing laws or principles hold true for many universal aspects of the human life and psyche (e.g., touching upon areas of human relationship, existential themes of life and death, one’s degree of inner peace, freedom, aliveness, self-knowledge, and many, many more areas

By having a sufficiently detailed and comprehensive understanding of this substructure of the psyche, as well as tried-and-true practices that support optimal health, balance, and development in these different areas or domains of the psyche, we are in a much better position to live a meaningful life in harmony with our deepest values and aspirations.

The entranceway, used by this approach, involves acquiring the basic knowledge pertaining to, and skill in, entering and opening up the process of inner work. As one meditation master succinctly put it, “If you want to understand the mind [and gain inner freedom thereby], you need to watch the mind.” That is precisely what this course supports its participants to do, however, in this case, greatly aided and empowered by the sophisticated science of modern psychology.

In order to unlock the hidden riches and potentialities of our inner life and being, we must turn toward this inner life. This course will help the participant do that, unfolding in 7 weeks of lessons, contained within four primary modules. 

The first module, Introduction to Inner Work, provides a larger overview of the meaning and significance of this newer form and approach to living as meaningful and wise a life as possible, via a contemporary pathway that draws upon and leverages the most recent advances in humanity’s relevant knowledge on this topic, as well as taking into account the complexities of living in today’s world.

The second module, Immersive Mindfulness, a specialized form of metacognitive awareness, introduces students to the science of the first person and the skill of turning toward, being with, and illuminating inner experience and experiencing in an optimized way.

A third module, Psychological Organization of Experience, draws from both psychology and various wisdom traditions to provide an understanding of the underlying anatomy of one’s personal psychology and how this understanding enables one to begin to enter into and work with one’s own psychology to foster its healing, wellness, and positive development. 

The fourth module, Revelatory-Transformative Inquiry, rounds out the course by providing the participants with a set of principles, methods, and practices to support the dynamic opening of experience in a way that it begins to move, unfold, and divulge its transformative and liberating revelations.

Framing it in terms of “benefits” or “deliverables” is quite understandable. And, we can talk in those terms, as, yes, indeed, there are myriad benefits.

However, it would be a slight misnomer to talk in those terms, as part of what is transforming is the very mentality or paradigm from which one orients and operates. From the perspective I’m speaking, that is part of what transformation amounts to, a kind of “Copernican shift of the psyche,” as it has been aptly put it. That is to say, if all goes well, and the inner work is doing what it is supposed to do, there is an ever-increasing diminishment of an ego-based operating system. So, there is less and less of a self-focused (self-agenda driven) base of operations, as paradoxical as that sounds.

You’ve probably heard it said that “if we can get out of the way,” that’s “when the magic happens.” So, though it wouldn’t be correct to speak in terms of gains and such, one could say, that that may be a fruit of sincere engagement with any form of inner work, especially approaches which are informed by and sourced in contemplative wisdom. 

From such a perspective, that is what is more likely the truer fulfillment of our deeper aspirations, whether we are conscious of that at the moment or not.

But, to return to the question, and put it in terms most people can relate to, engagement with this form of inner work is tantamount to the engagement with, activation, and nurturing of an inner process of healing, growth, inner actualization of one’s latent potentialities, deepening of one’s intimacy with others and oneself, and even ego-transcendence.

Here is also a list of 50+ commonly sited benefits.

In terms of the approach to learning and pedagogy, the word that comes to mind is “temenos,” which is the ancient Greek term used to denote the enclosure of a sacred temple: a context, vessel or container in which inner spiritual transformation could take place.

In the modern language of learning and pedagogy, one may describe inner work as a kind of transformative education. This is itself a very broad and involved topic, but I could say a few words to give a sense of it. It carries resonance with the original latin root educare of our current English word education, which means to “bring out” and “nourish.” For us it signifies the “drawing out, nourishing, and developing of the innate good qualities in humankind.” 

Transformative education, the way it’s understood here, also emphasizes “whole-person” education (often addressing neglected aspects of the human in our modern materialistic and externally oriented world), as well as transformative experience (not just knowledge acquisition, but gaining access to the interior, lived, experiential meaning of the themes engaged with, and being transformed through that). 

The primary means whereby one gains access to the interior meaning and transformative power of a give topic under exploration is through a combination of study-and-practice. Study-and-practice has been a tried-and-true method utilized in many of the wisdom traditions in the world, especially in the East, and  has come to us with the testimony of millennia. 

So, to give but one example, if the theme under discussion pertains to a type of relating with another person which involves entering into a shared subjective experience, a shared intersubjective field, the participants would learn about the nature of this kind of relating and then engage in practices designed to support having a lived experience of it.

What Students Say

What You’ll Learn

Module 1: Introduction to Inner Work

Module 1: Introduction to Inner Work

Description:

This module will provide the student with introduction to psychospiritual inner work, situating it in the larger context of humanity’s quest for wisdom and the highest and most meaning life. We give special attention to the significant contributions of both modern psychology and the wisdom traditions to this endeavor, especially how both can complement, enrich, and enhance the contributions of the other.

You’ll learn about . . .

+ How wisdom has been understood throughout the ages . . . (e.g., varieties or subtypes of wisdom, components of wisdom, capacities of wisdom, processes often involved, commonly employed methodologies, supports, and practices, the development of wisdom, various areas of application, and commonly cited fruits or outcomes of engagement with wisdom study and practice).

+ Different branches of psychology (e.g., human development, personality, psychotherapy, cognitive science, etc.) and how they can contribute to the endeavor of living a fulfilling, wise, and meaningful life, as well as specific branches which have given special attention to this.

+ The significance of using a holistic-integrative model for inner work.

+ How WisdomPsych blends both wisdom studies and psychology to support the goals of inner work.

+ The wider social benefits and possible applications of inner work for the world at large.

Module 2 (Part 1)-The Role of Experiencing and Mindfulness in Inner Work

Description:

In part one of this module we’ll look at the foundational role that experiential awareness and experiencing plays in psychospiritual inner work, and particularly in WisdomPsych and the Discovery Process Program. It’s value and utility are now widely recognized in modern psychology and psychotherapy, cognitive science research, and even neuroscience, often under the popularized heading of mindfulness. Its role in the wisdom traditions has long been known, for the wisdom traditions have primarily been first-person approaches, making them masters of this territory, having insights into the nature of mind (and skills, tools, and methods of working with the mind) still far exceeding that of modern psychology. Combining these two source areas, we hope to show, greatly empower the effectiveness and aims of each.

You’ll learn about . . .

+ The history of how experience and experiencing has been understood in select wisdom traditions as well as how this knowledge has been utilized to foster the aims of these traditions.

+ How metacognitive awareness is an indispensable tool in the development of psychological self-awareness, and hence acts as a foundation upon which later capacities and processes can occur.

+ The various ways that mindfulness is understood and applied in contemporary psychology, psychotherapy, and inner transformational work.

+ How experience is understood in consciousness studies, philosophy of mind, phenomenology and existential philosophy and psychology.

Module 2 (Part 2): Immersive Mindfulness & Broader Applications

Description:

In the first part of the module, we learned about how mindfulness and experience is understood in select wisdom traditions, contemporary studies, and some of the implications and applications thereof.
In this module the student will learn about a specialized form of experiencing and mindfulness developed and used by WisdomPsych which it calls Immersive Mindfulness. It is different than other forms of mindfulness in that, though it shares the aim of disidentification from and witnessing the contents of experience, it paradoxically then seeks to more deeply enter into the heart of it. Additionally, at times there may the deliberate applying of methods to work with experience to amplify it, relax defenses to it, access or highlight different facets and dimensions of it, support its unfolding, among other aims. Finally, we broaden the scope to extend mindfulness to the larger project of living a conscious and meaningful life, in a similar spirit to various contemplative wisdom traditions, philosophical schools and systems (both East and West), existential psychology, and the like.

You’ll learn about . . .

+ About metacognitive awareness, its different facets, its importance in inner work, and methods for supporting and developing this capacity.

+ About the “Conducive Attitudinal Stance,” which highlights the significance of how we relate to our experience, examining different possibilities, and specifically identifying and supporting those which are optimizing.

+ What is meant by “immersion” in this context, how it contributes unique elements to mindfulness such as bringing in an understanding of non-ordinary states of consciousness, somatic psychology, trauma, resourcing, and other knowledge to allow layers and facets of experience to be accessed and opened to, deepened, and unfolded.

+ Additional contributions of immersive mindfulness such as its fostering a “sensitization to the psychological features of experience” which greatly enhances the effectiveness of experiential, transformational inner work.

+ Mindfulness extended to and blended with existential themes, dimensions of experience other than ordinary waking consciousness, the sphere of action, intuition, as well as interpersonal, social, and ecological arenas.

Module 3 (Part 1): Maps of the Human Psyche & Personality

Description:

There is scarcely any other area where the contributions of modern psychology to inner work shine as brightly than its highly detailed, well-researched, and ever-increasing wealth of knowledge in understanding the organization and mechanics of individual human psychology. For millennia humanity has taken serious interest in decoding the mysteries of human nature, but it has only been in the last hundred years or so with the advent of the science of psychology and related disciplines that we have a clearer picture as to how individual human psychology is shaped, develops, of what is it is composed, as well as the discovery of numerous meditating and interacting variables in that process, how and why human being suffer, insights as to how healing may occur, and myriad methods and points of intervention to support inner transformation, wellness, healing, and growth. Combine that with the deeper understanding from the wisdom traditions on nature of mind, the ego-self and its transcendence, and one is left with a left with a powerhouse of knowledge not previously available in human history. This first part of Module 3 provides the student with various perspectives and maps of the human psyche as well as their applications for one’s individual inner work.

You’ll learn about . . .

+ About different perspectives and maps on the what the nature and structure of the human being is conceived to be from both modern psychology as well as from various wisdom traditions.

+ About how these different bodies of knowledge show the different “farther reaches” of possibility for a fuller, rounded human development, its various capacities and potentialities.

+ A detailed understanding of the components of human personality from different schools of psychology as well as from different wisdom traditions.

+ The implications of understanding human personality and psychology for interpersonal relationships and society, particularly with an eye as to how challenges and disharmonies occur and what various therapies suggest about how to exit such patterns.

+ Examining the deeper core of the ego (its structure and dynamics) as well as the question of self or identity, how these are viewed from psychology and wisdom traditions, how these complement each other to provide a fuller picture, and the implications of this understanding for inner work.

Module 3 (Part 2): Personality/Character Change & Transformation

Description:

When great men and women are asked how they were able to be or accomplish what they have, they will often say it is because they have been “standing on the shoulders of giants.” Indeed, in this program that is what we seek to do, to benefit from the accumulated wisdom of humanity. We need to rediscover all the discoveries that have come before, for often an individual or groups of individuals spanning hundreds or even thousands of years were necessary to discover and learn certain things about the human psyche, how it is structured, what it is good for it and what is not, what works and doesn’t work. These were likely hard-won insights. But we, in the modern day, have been gifted with the amazing fortune of inheriting and benefiting from these. Our task is but to distill this wisdom in a way that its liberating and transforming essence can be imparted, and that is precisely what Part 2 of this module seeks to do.

You’ll learn about . . .

+ How the various insights from the wisdom traditions and modern psychology translate into an intricate understanding of the nature and varieties of human suffering, as well as what can be done about this, what we could call the nature and wisdom of healing.

+ About the different views on nature of change and transformation, from both the perspective of select wisdom traditions and psychologies, what it is that changes, and supporting and facilitative conditions for change.

+ About the “farther reaches of human nature,” what the wisdom traditions and psychology see as the pinnacle of the development of what is possible for a human life. 

+ About the various processes involved in character change and counsel from both psychology and the wisdom traditions as to how these processes can be recognized and navigated.

+ About specific methodologies, supports, and practices and tools advocated for and used by different traditions and psychologies.

Module 4 (Part 1): Introspective Self-Exploration & Inquiry

Description:

At the heart of psychological self-awareness is one’s own direct self-discovery and transformative experience. Self-knowledge in the context of inner work is first-hand knowledge, knowledge by direct acquaintance, and therein lies its power. Part 1 of this Module introduces one to a specialized form of self-exploration, combining the insights and practices of contemplative wisdom, phenomenology, psychodynamic, depth, existential, humanistic, somatic, experiential, and process-oriented psychologies, as well as those of transpersonal psychology and a modern-day inner work school.

You’ll learn about . . .

+ About the various levels and types of inquiry and their respective applications and functions, spanning deeply philosophical, practical, and existential reflection and self-examination to internal depth psychological exploration to open-ended intuitive-organic inquiry to meditative-contemplation to trans-conceptual openness.

+ About a specialized form of inquiry used in this program and approach, the art of deeper listening, participatory ontology, different modes of knowing, healing awareness, and the role of expression.

+ About the significance of (e.g., clarifying what is of greatest importance and significance in one’s life, following one’s unique path, greater self-understanding, support and facilitation of inner healing, illumination and understanding of internal, interpersonal, and social psychological dynamics, etc.) and mechanics of (e.g., revelatory-transformation) this form of inquiry. 

+ About some of the primary obstacles to inquiry at its different levels and types (e.g., various kinds of distraction, tendencies towards being governed and run by unconscious conditioned patterns, psychological complexes, traumas, and defenses, complex human motivational challenges, cognitive biases and limiting beliefs, inherited and unquestioned worldviews, social psychological factors, etc.).

+ About the optimal motivations and orienting attitudes (e.g., integrity, courage, open-mindedness, autonomy, etc.) for engaging with this type of inquiry, as well as the role and forms of inner and outer guidance in inquiry.

Module 4 (Part 2): Methods, Supports, & Practices of Inquiry

Description:

Having established an understanding of the nature of inquiry in the first part of the module, we now proceed to delve into the actual practice, supplying the student with numerous elements of guidance, methodology and practice to support their inquiry journey.

You’ll learn about . . .

+ Ways of entering into the process of inquiry, ways of stimulating or activating inquiry when needed, and learning about states of consciousness conducive to organic inquiry.

+ Means of explicating tacit knowledge, the use of discrimination and discernment, attuning to inner guidance and connecting with intuitive knowing, and how to flow with and allow for the deepening of the process once it begins.Various supports for inquiry (e.g., questions, prompts, active imagination, methods from somatic, process-oriented, and experiential psychotherapies, journaling, working with a partner, as well as others).

+ Important key processes commonly involved in inquiry (e.g., courage and the facing of fears, uncovering and working with resistances and defenses, dealing with various forms of non-self-acceptance, the importance of having an emotional know-how and vocabulary, supplementary work that may be needed to deal with relational and other forms of trauma, releasing fixations, the role and significance of meaning and insight, the meta-processing and integration of experience and learning, etc.)

+ Uncovering and working with limiting beliefs, as well as how inquiry can extend and penetrate to the deeper levels of ego and identity, nature of mind, and ontological territories (first-person explorations of the nature of reality).

About

Paul

Dr. A. Paul (Bodhi) holds a doctorate in clinical psychology and transpersonal psychology, is a licensed clinical psychologist from the San Francisco Bay Area of California, and has over 20 years of experience in the field. Over that time he has functioned in the roles psychotherapist (including working with couples), as an adjunct professor of psychology, and clinical supervisor. He has taught numerous courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels including Psychology Applied to Life, Theories and Systems of Counseling, Personality, Human Development and Culture, Human Sexuality, Biopsychology, Abnormal Psychology, Transpersonal Psychology, Research Methods, Critical Thinking in Psychology, and more. His research and explorations have led him to develop a integrative, transdisciplinary, transcultural, transhistorical model including social, individual, and ontological dimensions. He is the founder and director the Center of Wisdom Psychology (CWP) which will act as a vehicle to disseminate the knowledge and practices of that perspective.

What You’ll Receive

Seven 60-minute Weekly Audio Course Sessions with Dr. Paul:

Seven 60-minute Weekly Audio Course Sessions with Dr. Paul:

These dynamic weekly teaching sessions are the heart of our course experience. Each week, Paul will take us on another journey into the Practice of Psychological Self-Awareness, combining talks, guided meditation and supplementary Q&A videos. These sessions are deeply experiential, so please make sure you’re in a place where you can give your full attention to the material. Course session audios will be made available once every 7 days starting at the time of purchase.

Seven Weekly Personal Consultation & Coaching Calls

As part of this transformative journey into psychological self-awareness participants will receive a dedicated weekly consultation and coaching call throughout the duration of the course. These live sessions provide an invaluable opportunity to deepen your understanding of the course material, gain personalized guidance, and receive direct support tailored to your unique self-inquiry process. Whether you’re working through introspective exercises, seeking to understand your personality dynamics, or cultivating mindfulness practices, these calls ensure that you stay engaged, supported, and aligned with your goals. The interactive format fosters a sense of accountability, connection, and continuous growth, making each week a stepping stone toward greater self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and meaningful transformation.

Weekly Module Overview Videos

In these Module Overview videos, Dr. Paul will introduce the core themes of each module and highlight key principles and insights for getting the most out of the weekly module. These 5-10 minute videos will be available each week on the Online Learning Portal.

Three Guided Exercise Audios Each Week

For each Module, you’ll receive three guided exercises to listen to throughout the week. Created by Dr. Paul exclusively for this course, these audios will support your practice by reinforcing the inner orientation and practices introduced in each week’s module. Many students have found that Paul’s direct guidance and instruction have been useful for their own learning, guiding them into a deepening of their own Psychological Self-Awareness.

Three Written and/or Reflection Practice Exercises

For each week of the course, students will receive three written and/or reflection practices (e.g., in written and/or action exercises) each week, providing a structured pathway to deeper self-awareness and personal growth. These exercises are crafted to guide participants in exploring their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, helping them connect more authentically with themselves. As students engage in these weekly reflections, they will not only gain clarity on their inner experiences but also develop tools for emotional healing, self-discovery, and lasting transformation.

Weekly Written Practice Guides

Each week, you’ll receive a written practice guide reinforcing the core practice elements and inner orientation we’re learning in that week’s module. We recommend reading through this short guide before you practice on your own to help you re-establish the key inner orientation of the practices we’re exploring. These practice guides will also include “experiential inquiry” practices you can work with as you go through your daily life.

Weekly Downloadable Q&A Sessions with Paul:

Whether you’re new to inner work or a longtime practitioner, questions may arise when engaging with the Psychological Self-Awareness practices. To support your learning experience, we’re pleased to offer supplementary pre-recorded, Q&A sessions discussing various aspects and nuances of theory and practice to support your learning, process, and practice throughout the course. 

Being added to a community practice group list

For those interested, you’ll also have the opportunity to be added to a list of people who are interested in participating in a WisdomPsych practice community.

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