Raido is the name of a rune (Elder-Futhark) which means ‘journey on the path of integration’. At the end of my Foundation Year of study in the person-centred approach (in 1995-6), a fellow participant had chosen a rune stone for everyone in the group; this was the one she chose for me. I was looking for a name having just been through a divorce and I instantly knew that was it. Clare means clear, bright, shining. I also have a Sanskrit name – Satya Roopa – given to me by Gyan Dharma when I had asked for one. I wanted this name to mark a shift in consciousness that came about as a result of working as the editor of his book ‘Centred In The Now: In conversation with Gyan Dharma’. It means ‘Embodied Truth’.

I have very much had the approach of throwing myself into life and learning from it. Life is my teacher. I have been though, walked through, considerable torment, attachments, wanting people to be in a particular way, disappointment, horror, terror, fear, fury, powerlessness, anguish, painful disillusionment, loneliness, shock, confusion, anxiety, fighting, procrastinating, various manifestations of neediness and self-importance. I have spent much time in states of functional freeze, hyperarousal, and fawning compliance. Gradually, gradually, and sometimes in chunks of letting go, I more and more arrived in steadiness and deepening contentment, and then suddenly peace and pervading sense of okay-ness which is persisting no matter what is happening. I know everything is exactly as it should be in every moment and I do my best to meet what is happening in this level of existence in love and awareness the very best I can.