Susan Thesenga
Susan co-founded Sevenoaks Retreat Center (www.sevenoaksretreat.org), a sacred place in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. For many years she was a teacher and leader of the Pathwork, a contemporary psychological/spiritual discipline and she wrote a comprehensive book about this work titled The Undefended Self, which is used as a textbook in many healing schools. She and her husband introduced the Pathwork to Brazil, and she has taught throughout Brazil and the U.S. At the height of her work as a spiritual teacher, she was confronted with the greatest challenge of her life: the extreme drug addiction of her beloved adopted daughter Pamela. How she and Pam met that challenge, and discovered the greatest spiritual secret any of us ever finds, is detailed in their memoir, Love Unbroken: from Addiction to Redemption. A major and surprising tool in their recovery and continuing spiritual opening was their work with the sacred psychoactive drink ayahuasca in Brazil.
