JD Stahl, emerging poet, teacher, and life coach, found time and opportunity during the COVID pandemic’s forced time away from a 40-hour work week to create several tools to assist others toward self-discovery and the recovery of their best selves in challenging circumstances. The first is a video podcast series found on YouTube. A recent popular episode is: Karmic Relationships: https://youtu.be/RKjSFtvGels
Stahl has experienced his own “trouble and pain,” but, has risen time and again from dark places into the light of a spiritual awakening and offers his story as an example to inspire resilience and hope in others.
He has plumbed the depths of despair over many years to analyze the causes in himself that took him there, and in his recovery now offers perspectives and suggestions to others who struggle to heal and who long to discover and re-create their best selves.
The intention of his podcast is to provide a space free of judgment to unravel issues that are troublesome and to understand one’s suffering and one’s place in the world—a space he himself required during his own quest for truth.
COVID has offered yet another challenge to him and millions of others in the loss of employment in a job he loved as Treatment Advocate for Recovery Centers of America. His message of hope is in dire need by many in this moment. He wants to help others reframe their circumstances toward greater mental health with the healthful, helpful ways he has used his time and this circumstance.
He introduced the podcast on July 17, 2020. Each episode that runs 5-10 minutes, features reflections on topics he often addressed in his work as treatment advocate or as a facilitator for the weekly “Recover and Discover” group meetings he held in Boyertown, PA, for several years before the COVID pandemic forced the closure of his meeting rooms.
Initial topics include “What Is a Spiritual Awakening,” “Expectations,” “Power, Authority, and Love,” “Other People’s Projections,” “Ego Traps,” and “Bias and Judgment.”
The podcast includes some poetry along with commentary about it and interactions among friends he shared via Facebook over many years.
Stahl also used his unemployment time to publish 2 books of his poetry—poetry that he created over many years that reflects his struggles and also his enlightenment: Fragments of Time: the Dark and Fragments of Time: the Light.
Fragments of Time: the Light highlights the positive, energizing, and motivating perspectives acquired through periods of heroic challenge. In this book, there is infinite power derived from archetypal stories woven throughout history. These pure emotions of heroism, love, and prophecy ignite the warrior spirit in all of us. These pieces of poetry have been written as they were channeled from a source of divinity above us and within us—a voice of love and light language that is guiding us towards the best version of ourselves, patiently awaiting the end of our time. “Purity of receipt” is a principal that guides each of us to embody the most undiluted form of emotion within us, allowing us to earn the highest possible honor: divinity.
Fragments of Time: the Dark tempers the overall saga with the bittersweet struggles—the minor notes—that create a symphonic story of flawed perfection. Plagued by the insecurities of humanity and gained through losses, darkness creates the essential balance necessary for light to reach all the way to heaven. Through acknowledgement of our own shadows, we are able to find our true selves. Loss, anger, despair, heartache, and fear are all emotions, waiting to be purely acquired with just as much fervor as the feelings we have coveted. As we negotiate our own personal realities, each realization of futility carves out a space within us to be filled with divinity. Our own warrior spirit battles the darker parts within us; we are the spoils of our own spiritual war. In order to feel godly, we must first face the battle with our own demons.
JD is also offering tutoring for students at the Studio B space
JD Stahl, a native of Berks County, has a degree in Marketing from the University of Pittsburgh, a Master’s Degree in Education from Temple University, and certifications in clinical psychology and addiction studies from Immaculata University. JD facilitated the gifted program and taught business and computer classes for Boyertown Area School District before adding his efforts to the recovery industry. Contact: JD Stahl, [email protected], 610-914-6569
