Denise Gallagher

Interning Teacher

Welcome Message

Greetings! Thank you for finding me here.

A little about myself, I have been called a “warrior of the heart” and as times goes on, I accept this as true. I embrace the archetype of the wounded healer-artist.  I am unflinching about encountering and holding all that life presents as Divine, though of course at first, it presents as everything but!

I first encountered Waking Down, now Trillium Awakening, in early 2002 and had my Second Birth confirmed that year. Truly, my core wound found me living in relationship with terror from (among other things) having been in a serious car crash at age 3. My awakening shifted this profoundly and has allowed me to viscerally know the container of Being that holds all.

I started on the spiritual path in my teens, began meditating at age 21 and have lived in the TM community in Fairfield, Iowa since 1988. I have spent time with many spiritual teachers, notably Mother Meera and the Advaitic teachers who came here in the 90’s. Truly, the stuff of life has always been my portal and guru.

My professional life has been in the area of service through work in healthcare. I have over 4 decades experience in hospitals and clinics, most of which as an Occupational Therapist. I spent my early years working in psychiatric units. Since ’99, I have worked exclusively in physical rehab, where I developed a specialty in chronic pain. I have had an interest since the early 70’s in the mind-body connection, mostly since I held a lot of tension from early trauma. This led me to receive and then train as a body-centered psychotherapist via Unergi, a spin off from Rubenfeld Synergy (a combo of Alexander, Feldenkrais table work with Gestalt). I then went on to study Craniosacral and Myofascial Release, including somato-emotional unwinding. I am also trained in the use of sound for healing via Tom Kenyon. I am pleased to now have a private practice where I can go deeper with clients and incorporate all of this in a space of deep listening.

The other juice in my life that truly informs my approach as a Trillium Awakening teacher is that I am a practicing photographer/short-film maker, a Swing and 5 Rhythm dancer, and a choir and blues singer.  I experience all of life as a creative act and know it intimately as a catalyst for awakening.

My essential nature is devotional and it finds an outlet in my Trillium Awakening work as well as my participation in the local Liberal Catholic Church, where I am a choir member and take part in the woman’s Holy Order of Sophia. We celebrate a Divine Feminine ritual monthly.

Besides being an intrepid adventurer of the inner world, I love to explore the outer world. I have traveled twice around the world, most of it on my own, since 2013. Travel has deeply nurtured a trust in my intuition and my capacity to balance my inner feminine and inner masculine.  I travel often without knowing what or where I will go, listening rather to impulses of Being. This experience of trust in Being has forever etched a deep knowing that I can be safe anywhere. Also in 2016, I volunteered 6 weeks in a Syrian refugee camp and the lessons there are innumerable.

It would be my profound honor as a Trillium Awakening teacher to assist you in going deeper into what is true for you, to gently uncover what life is bringing you to see how this too, can be a vehicle for your awakening.