Albert Einstein is widely attributed with having said, "The height of insanity is continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different result."  By that definition most of us are insane, repeating patterns of thought and behavior that we think is right, or we feel comfortable with, that our mothers taught us... and desperately hoping for a different result.  Ravi Walsh's Paradigm Shifts Life Coaching and Healing helps clients to change those patterns by seeing reality in different ways.

"The reason our lives look the way they do is because we firmly believe with absolute conviction that that's the way it has to be," Walsh says.  "Until we don't.  That's the challenge of my work, to show people that that intangible belief is directly influencing tangible experiences they are having in their life."

Walsh mixes what he calls a unique blend of the most advanced understanding of spirituality and quantum physics to explain how we change and interact with our experiences, and what influence our perception has in our experiences.  He notes that no two people perceive the same events in the same way, and that one of the tenets of quantum physics is that the act of observing physical processes actually influences the result.

"That's what we're talking about," Walsh says.  "People who are leaving behind trying to change the outer world in order to change their insides, and just turning to changing their insides.  When that happens, when you set that tension, you recognize patterns and change them and notice outcomes as a result."

But Walsh is quick to note that while this sounds very cerebral, you don't have to be an 'egghead' to benefit from life coaching.  He has worked with a variety of people from all walks of life including fishermen, housewives, ministers, teachers, and CEOs.  He uses the work of Byron Katie, symbolic tracking and Shamballa meditation in helping clients realize their paradigm shifts.

A paradigm is a set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that a community agrees upon as a way of viewing reality.  Walsh gets clients to challenge their paradigms, and to track the resulting changes that result from approaching life from a different viewpoint.  Tracking the results is important because it is a tangible way of seeing how shifting patterns of perception and behavior help his clients begin to achieve results in their lives that they really want.

Originally from the Cleveland area, Walsh grew up and went to college in Towson, Maryland near Baltimore.  He studied psychology and worked in that field for seven years in a day hospital with a multi-disciplinary approach.  He worked with a team of social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists. 

He wanted a more holistic approach, and didn't want to deal with insurance companies that increasingly influence diagnosis, treatment, and pay, so he decided to study massage.  He moved to Maine where he was a licensed masseur in a Chiropractic office.  At the same time he launched a meditative yoga practice. 

As clients talked to him while on his massage table he started to put together his various interests.  Yoga began influencing his work, and before long he had a coaching practice.  He continued this in the Chiropractor's office and began a private practice that soon began to grow.  Before moving to Ithaca with his three children last year he spent some time practicing in California.  Because he offers both face to face and telephone sessions he serves clients as far afield as Washington State, California, Virginia, and Maine.

Soon after he moved to Ithaca CranioSacral Therapist Elaine Surowick saw his flyer at the County library and called to encourage him to join a local chapter of BNI, an international business networking group.  Walsh credits the group with jump-starting his practice here.  He has also taught stress management through paradigm shifting classes at Cornell, as well as consulting with CEOs and teams within companies.

His clients' successes range from business to personal, and even influence health issues.  After Walsh worked with a team at a large hospital, the CEO noticed their revenues rose as a result.  He brought Walsh into the facility to work with other teams.  More recently he worked with a teacher with extreme neurological issues including dizziness,  fainting, and extreme fatigue.  After working with Walsh he says she had a huge paradigm shift.  "Now she is back at her job, walking, hiking, and there is such a depth to her," he says.  "She's fine.  She's mostly symptom free."


A typical session is an hour long.  Walsh starts with an intention, then tracks events back to that intention.  "That's what I teach people, how to track things back to their intention, and begin to perceive events through the eyes of your intention," he says.

That measurable part is, perhaps, the key element to avoiding Einstein's definition of insanity.  The result is similar to the business concept of SMART goals that says that you should set goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely.  In both approaches you focus on what you want to achieve while tracking the results to make sure your approach is realisticly achieving the result you want.

"You should learn to control your own mind," Walsh says.  "That's what we're talking about -- people who are leaving behind trying to change the outer world in order to change their insides, and just turning to changing their insides.  When that happens, when you set that tension, you recognize patterns and change them and notice outcomes as a result."

Walsh says he loves learning and seeing his clients continue to learn to see their patterns and step out of their judgment of themselves.  He also loves working with CEOs, because he sees the results and methods reaching their employees, and changing the culture of their companies in productive ways.

"I don't know where someone is going to go," he says.  "I don't know when their paradigm shift is going to happen.  I just plug them into the equation and see how they start running it.  It's always exciting to see the shift that someone does make."

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