Dorothy May

Born in 1930, I grew up on the Northwest side of the city of Chicago. I received a doctorate in psychology from Northwestern University, Evanston in 1977 and a master of arts degree from Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago in 1974.

I have served as community advisor and supervising teacher/

psychologist and for many years, taught at local colleges and universities.

Among my credits are:

* A video on UTube with Mark Schaeffer about brain integration therapy;

* profiles on Linked In and Psychology Today;

* a bit under Oasis Center for Healing in Hinsdale;

* mention of collaborative work with Sharon West of Be Still and Breathe on itunes, CDbaby and cduniverse; three other published works on Amazon.com. Titles are on my website, Dancing Light drdorothymay.com.

* I also wrote a short comment on Third Age under Aging and Attitude.

As a Clinical and Psychospiritual Psychologist, my professional expertise has for 30 years centered around psychological, spiritual and creative development with a specialization in Codependency addictions and Older Adults. I have a private practice in Darien on the wetlands, where I live, practice my own personal/spiritual development and write. I am single, have two grown children and live with Joque, my black "Halloween" cat who amuses and comforts me.

These are the facts of my life. To understand what happened, we must go back in time to look at the poetry of my life.

I am a traditional non-traditionalist, a late bloomer, in the world of creative dreams. I never even had any dreams. I believed the lies of my family, my church and my society. It was history. I didn't even know that I had herstory to finish and to write.

I married young to a good Catholic boy - but once we adopted a baby boy and began having children, the dreams that marriage and children would be the crowning glory of my life, did not manifest. Instead, although I was in love with my husband and my children and they were the light of my life, there was another, even stronger light glowing deep within my heart and soul. To be sure, it was a dim glow, hardly recognizable to me and totally invisible to others. It was the light of my emergent soul.

In my early thirties, it took a nervous breakdown for my soul to break through to my consciousness. That breakdown was for me an existential crisis through which I finally awoke to myself and to my choices. What was I to do? If I followed the rules of my small world, I was to stay at home, take care of my husband and raise children who would take care of us in our old age. I couldn't do it.

I searched for the answers in the organized religion in which I grew up. I searched for answers in conversations with my friends. I searched libraries full of books whose authors, mostly male, never told me that, as a woman, I could fulfill any purpose other than to be a submissive wife and a mother who thought of no one but her children. Selfish though it seemed to me, I just couldn't do it.

My society, meanwhile, was grappling with assassinations in quick

succession, of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy. Desegregation was happening and the civil rights movement was on. Baby boomers were coming of age into an unpopular civil war in Vietnam which they protested in a civil revolution that shook us to our depths.

I didn't know what was happening. I only knew I must continue my search, despite strong disapproval from my church, family, friends and neighbors. I had started junior college at age 20, took one course and left to marry. It should be enough for me. Why wasn't it enough for me? I asked myself.

As I continued, I found that I was the only person, woman, I knew who went to the community college for 20 years. I didn't know it then, but I was searching for my own identity, my own authenticity, my own God. I kept going to school along with returning Vietnam veterans who also returned to their education. I kept going. I didn't know what else to do!

Jump Start to 1977, when I finished my PhD in clinical psychology. There I was, age forty-five, with a PhD that I didn't know what to do with. I had always thought that a doctorate was for young men, who then entered the academic world of teaching and publishing. Women stayed home and raised perfect children.

Jump to 1987 when I bought my first condo. I was now in my late 50's and had just begun to date after my widowhood. Previously, I had only known "boys" not "men." Wow! I quickly learned the difference.

Life moved me on and by 1990, at the age of sixty, I had climbed my first mountain, walked on fire, and had had several "melt-downs." For me, the late bloomer, life really began at sixty. My first published book was in 1994, when I was sixty-four. I wrote about what I knew: Codependency and Reiki Healing. Life moved me along in ways I had never imagined and certainly never planned.

Jump to 2012. My children are grown. I have two grandchildren who fulfill the urge for generativity in my heart and soul. I have finished my 4th book and collaborated in producing a transformational meditative CD. I didn't know, when I began my inner travels in the timespace in which I found myself, that writing my Memoir would take twelve years. I didn't know that I would be eighty-one before I finished it. I didn't know that I would recover from fourth- stage cancer and chronic heart failure. I don't know what happened to that time. It was filled with such psychological and spiritual heartache and immense joy that I can hardly contain myself, even now. I only know that, in a life filled with one thing after another, I have made meaning of the fragments of memory and have woven them into a cohesive story. This is my story so far.

My previous publications in the healing arts include:

A COMPACT DISC

Be Still and Breathe. is a transformational meditation that combines the music of Sharon West and the imagery of Dorothy May. Dr. Dorothy May is a Clinical Psychologist and a published author. The imagery used in this work has been developed by Dorothy from over more than 30 years working with hundreds of people. Sharon West, music composer, is the creator of four highly acclaimed instrumental CDs, containing many works which have broken into the Top 20 on New Age Radio, and a collaborative Holiday CD. On CD 1, the music and guided imagery combine to provide a unique experience that facilitates deep and lasting change wherein your heart is fed and your soul sings its own song. It heals, soothes and comforts as we are drawn into our physical body while our mind is engaged with new concepts, and our emotions are pleased with vivid imagery. This experience is presented in a spiritual context that transforms our state of consciousness like a concordance of harmonious melody. The second CD contains all the background music inspired by the guided imagery meditations on CD 1 and can be used for quieter meditation, relaxation and healing on its own. Each CD is 68 minutes long. We invite you to share in the delight that this work has given us. We lovingly share this manna with all who desire change and growth in their lives, as well as those seeking general relaxation and healing. It is ideal for everyone from novices to long-time meditators, and excellent for yoga, tai chi, spas/massage and helping to fall asleep.

This CD is available from Amazon.com for an amazingly low price.

It is also available through Dustydreamsmusic.com.

BOOKS AVAILABLE THROUGH AMAZON.COM

Archetypal Reiki Book and Cards. A healing framework using Spiritual Archetypes

or Ideals such as purity, harmony, truth, love and others found in the Reiki System of natural healing. Archetypal Reiki is a book and card set that includes 28 cards falling into four categories. Each addresses a different aspect of healing: awakening; the path of truth; initiation and purification; empowerment. The book explains the principles of Reiki healing and sets out guidelines for using the cards including: a selection of healing rituals; a wide array of meditations; ways to lay out the cards to access Reiki energy. Let the Archetypal Reiki set guide you to an intuitive awareness of the self-empowering steps you can take along your healing path. 2000.

PowerLoss, SoulLoss. A basic treatment of codependency and the ways in which it robs you of your soul power. Years ago, Dr. May began her personal quest for meaning to her life experience. When codependency was identified, she knew that the ideas generated by the discovery applied to her own life as well as to the thousands of clients and students she was seeing. What she had thought was an idiosyncratic problem was in truth a societal/cultural problem. The research for this book came out of her classes, lectures, workshops and practice, but the heart of the book lies in her own personal quest. 1994.

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