Bio
Bruce Pardoe’s personal healing journey with complex trauma led him to develop the radically gentle Heart Fluency method for engaging emotional wounds and afflictive patterns as portals to our essential well-being and happiness. Heart Fluency combines neuroscience and the unconditional nourishment of a healing awareness in an uplifting, heart-centered approach.
For more than 40 years Bruce has been navigating and facilitating the path of inner healing. After spending over two years on silent retreat he became a meditation teacher in the Vipassana tradition of Buddhism. He has completed Spirit Rock’s Meditation Center’s 2 year Community Dharma Leader training and has studied extensively in Asia in the traditions of Tibetan Buddhism and Advaita. Bruce has also trained in Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement and Hakomi’s body-centered psychotherapy.
In 2007 Bruce began developing and sharing Heart Fluency. Through trainings, workshops and sessions, he has helped hundreds of coaches, therapists, leaders and conscious individuals resolve their deepest inner wounds and then bring that to their clients, families and communities. Emphasizing gentleness, freshness and joy, Heart Fluency connects practitioners in an obvious, embodied manner to the ever present nourishing qualities of awareness itself. This creates a profoundly resilient orientation to life, revealing bliss and peace.
Heart Fluency’s Genesis: Bruce’s Story
I feel so blessed that through my healing journey with deep trauma I discovered Heart Fluency and that it has now touched so many lives.
But I wasn’t always feeling so blessed…
My meditation journey started with long retreats in the Buddhist tradition of Vipassana at what are now the global flagship meditation centers of Spirit Rock and IMS (Insight Meditation Society) started by my teachers Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein and where Tara Brach and other luminaries were trained. The insights and shifts came readily and I was loving it.
Shortly after attending a 2 month retreat, I went on another for 3 months. About halfway through, primal terror and panic attacks started arising. My heart would palpitate, my breathing would become erratic and uncontrollable and I’d feel distressed energy rushing from my pelvis up through my head. Fearful thoughts would spin uncontrollably.
It was like I had become a periscope scanning the horizon for threats 24/7.
I’d uncovered trauma, but there was no event or memory it was related to. And it was clear that this wasn’t some dark night of the soul or awakening energy. Between episodes my mind and body stayed in an anxious, hypervigilant state waiting for the next round. It was like I had become a periscope scanning the horizon for threats 24/7. I could never relax. Sleep was rare. My amazing teacher, Joseph Goldstein, was monitoring and advising me, but as the retreat continued it only got worse.
Leaving that retreat I was heartbroken but determined to heal so I tried every modality imaginable in great depth from tapping to EMDR, to talk therapy, to cleanses, to somatic experiencing, even neurofeedback and shamans. After tens of thousands of dollars and years of my life I was desperate.
My love for long retreats had not abated. Even though they continued to be excruciating, I felt that a breakthrough would happen. But I was at yet another retreat and the trauma was arising stronger than ever. It wasn’t getting better – it was worse.
On one cloudy afternoon, my system had had enough. I walked out in the middle of a sitting period totally disgusted with my lot in life, utterly hopeless and defeated. Just then the sun came out from behind a cloud and lit up my chest area. I put a hand on my chest, and heard a voice inside say “I know the healing lies in my heart”.
In that moment, Heart Fluency’s simple steps just appeared. As I used them I felt true progress for the first time. To my delight when I came home and started sharing Heart Fluency, others were having similar results and my trauma and sciatica soon fully healed.
I wake up feeling nothing above my shoulders but air.
Now I’m leading trainings and helping people move through those deep wounds from childhood – even abuse, torture, rape & war. I wake up feeling nothing above my shoulders but air. That periscope has dropped. Retreats are delicious. I feel connected with a deep sense of trust and wonder which leads to joy and playfulness. May my journey be of service to yours.