Locus of Healing

11/29/2025

“Put yourself in the way of beauty.”
—John O’Donohue
The fall colors plus the angle of the autumn light are breathtaking. At this point in November, mostly only yellow leaves remain. It feels good to savor each part of the year.

11/28/2025

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) wrote in Neo-Latin about psycho-spiritual principles he observed within his own system.
One term he writes about that has driven translators crazy trying to understand what he means is “affectio veri.” Literally translated it is affection for truth or the desire for truth. In Opening the Inner World, we made the connection of this term with curiosity. Translator and co-author Jonathan writes, “We realized that substituting words like longing worked, because in his framework, he’ll use the word ‘love’ when you’re talking about a higher level, and then he’ll use the word ‘affection’ when referencing a lower level, but they’re one of a kind. . . . You love something you have, but you long for something you don’t have, it’s something that pulls you forward. . . .
Chelsea: It reminds me of the pairing of ‘being’ and ‘manifestation’ which Swedenborg makes. There’s the eternal love for truth that just IS, but then in the flow of time, how that unfolds is that you have this affection for it, this drive for seeing what’s going on, with that love inside, or a longing to get to that love.”
Excerpted from Opening the Inner World, pp149-151.
What this means in experience: spiritual longing is a sign of something that already exists within a higher level of yourself, your inner self that is connected to the divine. Responding to this longing leads us on our journey.
This longing shows up in relationships when we let our curiosity lead, when we’re willing to learn what’s true for the other person. When we do, we’re supporting one another in connecting to the divine love inside all of us.

Opening the Inner World, by Chelsea Odhner, Robert Falconer, and Jonathan Rose, is available in paperback and ebook now (link in bio) and will be available in audiobook form in early 2026!

11/27/2025

Save the date! On January 24th, 2026, we’re hosting a Circle Calendar-Making workshop! This will be both a chance to envision your year and express it on a circle calendar, giving you a touchstone to return to throughout the year. The circle calendar maps the lunar and solar year, creating a unique cycle and rhythm. You will learn to tune into the eight turning points of the year and have a personalized anchor for your journey.
Message us if you want to be notified when registration details come out!

11/26/2025

What We’re Learning!
This book has become an ongoing resource for me in my healing journey. I’ve learned so many good practices from it that have helped me through tough times. Several that I come back to again and again. It emphasizes the role that our intuition plays in healing trauma. This idea that beneath, above, or within our sense of ourselves that we’ve developed, we have our whole self, unbroken, with all the wisdom and love and guidance we need for making it through and recovering our authenticity. How we access that inner confidence and connection, as emphasized in the book, is primarily “right-brained” and somatically-oriented. We’ve never actually lost connection, but we feel isolated and lost. The return journey is shorter than we think it could be. Through breath and intuitive drawing, meditation and embodied practices, we remember.
Check out The Transformation by James Gordon, founder of the Center for Mind-Body Medicine.
Cmbm.org

11/25/2025

Labyrinth build progress!! We’ve had the wonderful support and collaboration of Golden-Thread Labyrinth to create a labyrinth in the front yard of Locus of Healing. Alan came out a couple times to paint the lines so we could dig them. The seasons passed and the leaves fell and we hadn’t made the progress I had been dreaming of. So we picked a build day and thankfully the weather and our energy aligned to successfully finish the digging and a first layer of stones! The before picture is from when I noticed how the leaves were getting caught in the one rut we had dug. Seeing its outline helped spur my motivation. We now have a walkable labyrinth!! We’ll be scheduling a community blessing ceremony, so stay tuned for that, and in the future we look forward to hosting labyrinth workshops too! There will be more progress updates a time goes on, but for now I’m feeling very grateful and accomplished for reaching this point. If you’re ever walking down Edge Hill, you are welcome to take some time for contemplation and walk the labyrinth!

11/24/2025

For this installment of our Shout Outs! We want to celebrate the Resilience Resource Center in Huntingdon Valley, PA. The RRC is a community-centered organization that supports fostering resilience in marginalized communities through its programs. They offer a number of weekly and special events, as well as 1:1 support through mental health counseling and career skills training, support groups, and educational programs. They are a non-profit which enables them to offer these forms of support free or low cost. We are grateful to have such a great organization close by!
Visit resiliencerc.org to learn more!

11/23/2025

Hey everyone! Chelsea here. Introducing myself to our Locus of Healing social media accounts. These pics are from the Inflow retreat I got to facilitate this past August. It was a phenomenal experience and we’re planning more like it in 2026! I love to combine Swedenborg’s insights with IFS to offer people a transformative way to connect with their wholeness and authenticity.
In the coming days/weeks I’m excited to share about workshop plans we’re developing as well as our other offerings.
Follow us on Instagram and Facebook to get updates! (Maybe we’ll get an email list set up eventually...) If you’re interested in 1:1 work, visit locusofhealing.com to set up a free consultation.

11/22/2025

When parts make space you can embody more Self-energy. It is counterintuitive, but the more parts unblend, the closer and more connected they'll feel to you. They feel less alone. But making that step takes courage. Parts are often willing to make space when asked from a place of compassion and respect. And if they’re not willing, they have their reasons, which is worth being curious about. If you want to try an unblending meditation, I recommend IFS practitioner Bahia Miller’s “IFS Unblending Meditation” on Insight Timer. I hope you feel grounded and calm and in touch with your wholeness. You matter and you are not in this alone.

If you want to explore IFS therapy for yourself, go to locusofhealing.com to set up a free consultation.

11/21/2025

Opening the Inner World is a new book by Chelsea Odhner, Robert Falconer, and Jonathan Rose (May 2025) that explores spiritual healing from the vantage points of Internal Family Systems and Emanuel Swedenborg’s thought, based on recorded conversations between the authors. Swedenborg was an 18th century Swedish mystic and scientist who had extensive spiritual experiences and published his observations in Latin. All of his published works have been translated into English. For a very accessible translation, explore the New Century Edition.
Dick Schwartz, founder of IFS, said of Opening the Inner World: “for those interested in the spiritual side of IFS, Swedenborg points to worlds we have yet to explore.”
Here’s an excerpt from Opening the Inner World about curiosity and trust:

"Swedenborg associates a lot of good qualities that occur when you have trust in providence, and I think curiosity would fall within that. Trust in divine providence is a core piece. Swedenborg has a lot to say about how trust is core to our spiritual awakening or enlightenment. . . . If a part is feeling curious, that's Self-energy being in that part. So if you turn that around, if we are ever having curiosity, there's this trust in this larger divine picture, even if it's on a subconscious level."

How do trust and curiosity factor into your relationships?

See the link in bio to order Opening the Inner World!

11/20/2025

Things We Love About Glenside! 💖
We’ve been in Glenside for over ten years. But it was just in February of 2024 that we moved to our home where we are creating and building Locus of Healing. Our sense of connection to this town keeps growing and growing. We’ll be highlighting the people and places and spaces that we love about Glenside in this series of posts. It’s an endless list! To start us off, we want to introduce you to Potluck Findings on Glenside Ave. Run by Joe, his humor is throughout on all the tags! There’s always something cool you’ll want to go home with! For example, this beautiful cherry wood table we bought and shortened to be a floor table in our developing workshop space. We love this spot in Glenside!

11/19/2025

In person (or virtual) therapy in Glenside, PA!
Have you heard of Internal Family Systems? Maybe you have the experience of having said something like this: “A part of me really wants X, but another part of me wants Y.” Or, “A part of me is excited to do ____, but another part of me is really afraid.” Internal Family Systems is a therapeutic model that recognizes and makes space for the different parts each of us have inside. By bringing curiosity and compassion to these different facets of our experience, it is possible to alleviate the tension between seemingly opposed impulses, and unburden ourselves from the often difficult and painful beliefs that hold us back from living life to its fullest in the present moment. If parts of you are curious and willing to try a radically different way of relating to yourself and your experience, I invite you to work with me using this transformative approach. —Johanan

Offering Internal Family Systems based therapy, coaching, and bodywork. We are here to journey with you as you discover your inner locus of healing.

11/18/2025

Meet Johanan! Over the course of his career in the physical sciences, he found that the part of his job he loved most was getting to mentor grad students trying to navigate the often intensely stressful world of graduate level research. This led him to complete a master’s degree in counseling psychology.
Now a licensed associate professional counselor, he sees clients in person in Glenside, PA at Locus of Healing or virtually.
He has availability for individual and relationship counseling. Go to locusofhealing.com to schedule a free consultation!