Brian was born in Utica, New York in 1949. He grew up in a lower-middle class neighborhood, next to the oldest state hospital, for psychiatric care, in the United States. His father worked as a carpenter and his mother was a secretary.
Brian, gifted with dyslexia, found academics challenging and struggled with the traditional subjects of general education. Consequently, he studied tool-making and graduated from high school by the skin of his teeth in 1967. He then entered the tool-making industry. Due to the adverse environmental conditions of working in a machine shop, he developed a lung illness and was forced to change his profession.
With his high school training no longer relevant for employment, Brian secured a position as a psychiatric attendant at Utica State Hospital working on various wards, e.g. geriatrics, medical surgical, admissions and violent services. Initially he was hired as a psychiatric attendant. After four years of service on the wards, he was promoted to a Staff Development Specialist. Alongside his responsibilities as a Staff Development Specialist, Brian also completed a two year degree program in Social Work at his local community college, graduating top of his class. He spent approximately 8 years in the education and training department developing and teaching on various topics e.g. communication skills, reality therapy, moving and lifting objects and people correctly, how to deal with violence humanely, normalization, to mention but a few.
Brian was transformed by a violent crime in 1981. After sustaining a severe head injury he was treated by, the then standard, western medicine practices. After exhausting these methods, he still believed his condition could be further improved. He felt that it was necessary to search and implement alternative methods of healing – alongside western medicine practices – to improve his mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. He studied comparative religion, macrobiotics, various meditation practices, anthroposophy, acupressure, massage, medical qigong, and pranic healing.
Over the years Brian has shared his experience and healing skill sets with many people in order to encourage them on their own healing path – all while he was focused on parenting his five children. He now gives a lecture to service care providers called The Gift: Choosing Compassion Consciously for your Health and Well Being. Find out more about the lecture here.
For more info you can e-mail Brian: brianglod@gmail.com.