How did you find the Diamond Approach?
My initial introduction to the Diamond Approach came through a book that literally fell off the shelf as I waited to meet a friend. There it was, the love of the truth, the words jumping off the page and into my heart. Those words resonated like a tuning fork, like a whispered wish. When I called the number on the book cover, I was politely informed that only local groups existed. Hungry for the teaching, I devoured every tape and book until the arrival of a life-changing letter inviting me to join a newly forming retreat format. That was back in 1993.
When you first started, what was your greatest challenge?
After attending my first retreat, I knew that my destiny was to become a teacher. Ordination, however, meant the loss of cherished idealizations, the willingness to stand in my own authority, integrate essential power, and trust inner guidance.
What has kept you engaged with the Diamond Approach teachings?
My relationship with this path is a passionate, sometimes thorny, and sometimes exquisite love affair. Times of doubt have inevitably led to deeper understanding and commitment. I feel the ancient lineage, and the profound roots supporting all of us as we traverse the path of thorns and roses, embracing all of it in the alchemical container of the teaching.
To those drawn to this work I would say this:
It is not a decision your mind can make by weighing and measuring. Come closer, and if your heart is awakened as a flower, kissed by sunlight, unfolds its petals, then take another step. Risk losing all that is not real, to become a body of truth, the unique expression of which is you.
It does not ‘save’ one from life’s challenges. Indeed it confronts us with that which begs to be understood and transformed. A moment I recall from a recent private session revealed the following: “I” am all of manifestation, and from this vantage point came the words: Behold, my Glory. And so it is.
Leah Chyten was ordained as a Diamond Approach teacher in 2007. She is concurrently a psychotherapist, novelist, and mother. Leah resides in Portland, Maine, and frequents the ocean for beauty and inspiration. Leah teaches in: New York City, New York; Portland, Maine; Connecticut; and the newly forming Diamond Approach Amherst group in Amherst, Massachusetts.