By Diane Chrestman, LCSW, DCEP, Author of Zenergy Mindfulness: The Intersection of Buddhist and Energy Psychology for Mental Health and Wellness. Website www.authentic-life.net.

Meditation and mindfulness are two mental health treatment modalities that fall under the umbrella of Buddhist Psychology. But there are many more. Buddhism could be re-designated from a world religion to a theory of psychology. Core teachings of Buddhism helps us understand and alleviate suffering. Sounds like psychology to me!! Buddhist psychology assimilates easily into psychotherapy to help clients have insights regarding maladaptive emotional, cognitive and behavioral patterns, and how to respond to these conditions more skillfully to reduce our pain and suffering.

I evolved into a Buddhist Psychotherapist through the years because I find that Buddhist teachings are easy to understand and provide effective treatment planning. The insights into the nature of a human being, with our ever changing, and often irrational thoughts and feelings is relatable. Our irrational minds and emotions may not be easy to fix, but at least we have understanding and wisdom about said irrational minds and emotions.

As we develop insights about our problems we learn how to respond in an adaptive manner as opposed to maladaptive manner.   I also appreciate Buddhist psychology because it expresses our experiences through the lens of a human being as opposed to a lens of clinical diagnosis and pathology.  There is a place for the clinical lens. The brain is an organ after all and while there is still much uncharted territory, scientific research is helping us to understand the field of psychology with greater precision. However, when a client comes to therapy, at least in my practice, most of the time it is because life has become unmanageable. These clients benefit, in my opinion, more from the insights of Buddhist psychology than a diagnosis from the DSM-V, and the treatment modalities that follow. Buddhist informed interventions might be entirely the wrong approach for the client who is so ill that they require stabilization from a mental health emergency clinic. A more clinical approach, such as psychotropic medication might very well be more effective treatment option in life or death circumstances.

A very important aspect of the clinical process is the treatment plan, which defines how a client can begin making small changes to emotional, behavioral and cognitive patterns in order to reach the treatment goals. Change begins by cultivating different responses in real time, in the real world, and very importantly, when those real-world triggers (think demanding boss, critical partner, unreliable friends) arise in our mind and heart.

I have used many Buddhist teachings to assist clients. Some of the teachings that are easily translated into a treatment plan include:

Right Action– Instead ofengaging in conditioned maladaptive thinking, behavioral or emotional patterns, investigate different behavioral patterns that support beneficial outcomes. Does the action you are considering supports wisdom, understanding, peace, and flexibility?  If the action creates more suffering, ignorance, rigidness or is immoral, perhaps change course.  A treatment plan may include one minor change that can be made the next time life seems unmanageable and we are triggered into repeating maladaptive responses. Instead of those old patterns, ask what is the right action? What encourages and cultivates a sense of peace and well-being in your heart and mind and in your environment.  Right action could start with something as simple as changing an aspect of non-verbal communication such as the tone of your voice to sound less aggressive or sitting up taller to convey more assertiveness.

Right Effort –Maladaptive emotional, thinking and behavioral patterns have usually been habituated for years with thoughts and actions. There is a web of neural connections that support the habits that are hurting you. Those connections can be broken, but it does take time and effort. What is the right effort to change a habit? This depends on many factors such as your personality, your motivation, and your support systems. An element that is contained in any growth process is an ability to tolerate discomfort. When an urge arises, we must stay with the discomfort as opposed to run from it. This is right effort. Our attachment to maladaptive patterns is very often supported by the ego. The more we think and believe “I am this or that”, “I deserve/don’t deserve this or that”, “I can’t this or that”, the ego is evolved. The ego is sneaky and cunning and often cultivates maladaptive patterns in a way that is unconscious to the conscious mind. That is one benefit one may realize from meditation. They begin to see these subtle manifestations of the ego and how it shapes our deepest sense of self.  

The Nature of Impermanence – Everything is impermanent including our thoughts, emotions, health, beauty, job, position, reputation and relationships. Sometimes the nature of impermanence results in sudden, life changing experiences.  At other times conditions are changing at an imperceptible slow pace. My personal favorite is to see the impermeant nature of my likes and dislikes. My likes become dislikes and my dislikes become likes. What we like and dislike constantly conditions states of clinging and longing or frustration/anger/aversion. How can we apply the insight of impermanence benefit mental health? The awareness of impermanence helps clients to learn to tolerate discomfort. Unhealthy behavioral, emotional or cognitive responses are driven by likes and dislikes. We desire something because we like it. If we can see the urge as an impermanent condition of “liking”, we distance ourselves from the urge, and the habituation becomes less intense.

Ego– Buddhist Psychology and Western Psychology view the ego very differently. In Western psychotherapy the therapist strives to identify and change aspects of the client’s ego or sense of self. The therapist assists the client to sculpt the egoic sense of self to adopt healthy self-concepts. In Buddhist Psychology, the task is more aligned with an attempt to annihilate the ego. The premise is when there is no longer ego, there is no longer suffering. That is because our ego is the fountain from which clinging and aversion flows. If we can stop the constant flow of clinging and aversion, we are free from suffering. This is not to say we will not have preferences. We recognize our preferences but distance ourselves from the perception that our preferences are conditions for our joy and peace.

Be in peace, Diane

By Stephen Chong, M.Ed., author, speaker and business consultant

Has not enough been written about ‘Leadership’ already?  You might have thought that most people, properly inclined, would have already studied, assimilated and implemented the many words of wisdom pertaining to the multi-faceted aspects of leadership conundrums.  Perhaps? Well, perhaps not.

Today, trusted leadership is much harder to attain in an environment that is typified by the impatience that characterizes the era of instant gratification – just like the Queen song – “I want it all and I want it now!”

Good leaders, however, understand and appreciate that there are consequences (good and bad) for their actions and like master chess players consider the future many moves ahead.

I have highlighted in my recently released novel; the consequences of actions taken in the lives of ‘everyday’ people and explored the consequences of those actions across time, generations and from a spiritual perspective.

Now, I am fairly certain that there has not been a lot written (if any) to describe leadership through the prism of spirituality or what happens after we pass on.  So, let’s look at the leadership conundrum from this (unique) perspective.

Leadership, whilst given many definitions, is fundamentally about what people (aka employees, clients/customers) will follow. What people believe is that which they will follow – all men/women want to believe, but very few can follow a dream – even a true one. But they will follow a man/woman with a dream.

Now, if I were a betting person, I would hasten to say that the consequences of a life well-lived can be found in the abundance of some things and the absence of others. Virtue is a prime example.

As a leader, I would want my many employees to work with and follow me because I was able to demonstrate an ability to act fairly and without prejudice or bias.

I would want them to follow me when I ‘led from the front’ and was ‘accountable for my actions’.  On the flipside, I would be loath to reflect actions of deception, where clients or customers were misinformed, mistreated or deceived.

Sadly, there have been many recent examples where virtue has been severely wanting from our so-called leaders of industry and community.

As a leader, many people follow by virtue of the trust they place in you.  After all, people’s livelihoods are at stake. They each have families and financial responsibilities to uphold.  If the trust they place in you is misguided the consequences of loss can be profound.

Trust is a treasured elemental to the leadership matrix and can only be earned not enforced.  They believe you – believe in you.

As a leader, I would not expect to get everything right.  Trust requires that others have confidence in your intentions.  Better, therefore, than being ‘right’, ‘strong’ or ‘competent’ is preparedness to be vulnerable.

Trust requires that we have confidence in each other’s intentions and have no reason to be protective or careful.  Trust is the foundation of great relationships (aka teams) and trust is the basis upon which all good teams (relationships) are built.  I would hasten to add that this applies both to employees and customers/clients alike.

In Bodies of Consequence, my main protagonist was an ex-sniper, WWII veteran, who had to experience the consequences of his actions in the hereafter.   He had to endure the consequences of his life and the choices he made under the duress and horror of war.

Ultimately, it told the story about the consequences of our actions on earth that go beyond the deeds themselves – and impact on people and situations that may never have been considered.

As a leader of men and women, whatever my system of belief, I would want to ensure that my own story was underwritten by both virtue and trust and that my legacy among the many that followed me was told in a story with a smile by those who placed the same in me.

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Stephen Chong’s applauded book, Bodies of Consequence is now available for purchase on Amazon, local bookstores (ISBN: 978-0-6484579-1-6) or from the website  www.stephenchong.com.au.

1. What are the larger universal themes of this book?

Empathy — that uncovering the motivations of others and gaining their perspective not only brings about your own growth but expands your world.  You become more in touch and gain agency over your choices by taking other points of view into account.

Context — we’re each a part of a larger whole, of forces that affect us knowingly or unwittingly.  That can be said for any character in your story and it’s up to you to find out what their framework is, so you know how much is personal, psychological, or contextual.

Self-acceptance — to need others approval more than your own creates an imbalance and a loss of contact with who you are and what matters to you.  Keeping your moral compass means listening to yourself without expectation to conform and accepting that message.

Intuition — it’s more than a little voice in your head, it’s a way of absorbing the world.  Although intuitive impressions are just a part of the lineup, they’re sometimes the most reliable gage of all–provided we’ve not stuffed them down in favor of rationalizing.

Grace — a state of grace means releasing, not harboring your anger in order to enforce a sense of self-righteousness.  It means reconciling and reaching a truce both with yourself over your supposed shortcomings and with others over theirs.  It means sacrificing your ego to gain peace and not have regrets. It prepares you for the next stage, whatever it is.

2. In what way has your experience led you to question your own identity?

My presuppositions had little or nothing to do with the identity I discovered through the reunion experience described in this book.  While I had been busy constructing a persona, a certain core congealed into original state, that only intensified through these events.  Finding out what and who I was not helped me focus on what I believed.  No one can give you your identity. It’s a consensual relationship with the world and your history.  When you understand your identity, you gain insight into your destinies and how to get there.

3. What about your story makes it so important today?

There’s a huge emphasis on our differences now, what separates us and what we represent predominating who we are in humanity.  The existential questions we face require that we come together, though we’re less sure every day how to do that. Negotiating means keeping the big picture front and center, that of the greater good, and that entails retrieving the positive in each situation, holding a light to progress, and not retreating into negativity.

4. How do you define the concept of family in your memoir? Has this definition changed for you?

Family is an emotional commitment that exists outside of any usual parameters of biological relationships and yet includes those, too.  Previously I thought that finding biological family was essential. And that remains true. But family is not zero sum. There is an abundant overflow of emotion for family so that ‘real’ or ‘blood’ can exist in the same space as ‘acquired’ or ‘blended’ or ‘adopted.’  Commitment both voluntary and involuntary, is the ingredient I would describe as forming families. Mine extends to adoptive, biological, and blended family, whose meaning transcends relationship.

5. What has writing this memoir taught you about empathy and relinquishing your anger?

Relinquishing anger was for me an exercise in mindfulness, and that exercise had to become a practice until it was internalized and the waves of anger passed.  Writing allowed me to see how obsessive I was about my anger, how intent I was in maintaining it, as if it were a part of my identity. That layer was shed-able.  Writing about my anger transformed it into an object to deal with, instead of an internal component. But as part of being human and fallible, so anger, too, is cyclical in nature, though each cycle shortens or has less capacity to derail whenever it comes around.

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For more information about Diane and her new book, please visit http://dianedewey.com.

By Lori Morrison

Almost ten years ago, in the middle of a volcanic lake in El Salvador, I was struck by a mysterious light beam during a late-night walk. After three hours of being unconscious, I awoke to realize that all of my perceptions of the world had changed. I had left my ordinary reality and was now living in a non-ordinary reality. After a few stays in mental hospitals, believing I had lost my mind, I realized that I had instead been given a gift and joined a rare group of people that call themselves “lightning shamans”. This was an even stranger story as I was a left-brain entrepreneur that had been in the boardrooms of wall street and then a successful business woman throughout Central America, far from the tenants of indigenous teachings. After receiving this gift, I was able to interact with the spirits of animals, along with a multitude of other mysterious beings from other worlds that I could see, hear and communicate with.

As a result of this experience, for several years, the spirits of four jaguars began to converse with me, along with Mayan ancestral priests, who would become my spiritual teachers and guides. They arrived on the night of my fifty-second birthday, an important date for the Mayan culture, to initiate me into a whole new purpose in this lifetime. I later learned that these jaguar spirits are often called Power Animals, guides that bring knowledge and power to human beings to support our earthly walk. I dove deep into researching to see if others had a similar experience and I realized that it is a richly woven practice among a variety of cultures of the world. Power animal spirits are also important allies for shamans. They are their guides and healers from the spirit world. Also, when an animal appears in the physical world it has a lot of meaning that can enrich our lives and expand our awareness.

I wrote this book because I wanted to share my findings about Power Animals and their importance to humanity. I had many questions to answer like, what meaning did different animals have for the Egyptians? Many graves have humans buried with a variety of animals, why? What did the Mayans believe when a hummingbird appeared? What messages did the Navajo medicine men receive from the animal spirits? There was a vast and hidden world that I wanted to discover, so I put on my Indiana Jones hat and headed off into the spiritual meanings of Power Animals.

My main source of information were symbols left by a variety of ancient cultures. I also found rich resources through art history and spent a lot of time watching videos of the animals in the wild. How did they react? What was their skill and power? Lastly, through intention and purpose with my new-found gift, I was now able to go to a multi-dimensional place where the spirits of Power Animals reside, and I asked them to share their wisdom with me for my book. They brought through me amazing and profound messages for humanity. The teachings at times were astonishing. I found myself immersed into an animal kingdom school with very original perspectives about living on earth.

What was an interesting discovery was learning that when a child is born into an indigenous community it is believed to be accompanied by its Power Animal. A ritual is performed through dance and celebration for the purpose of integrating the power of the animal into the child’s heart chakra normally orchestrated by a shaman. This connection is intended to keep the child safe as it will be its companion through life. Later in life, if a child has experienced a traumatic experience, the shaman will often do a retrieval and reinstate its energy back into the child to overcome any weakness. In the modern world Power Animals can be called upon like guardian angels, protectors and beings that raise our level of consciousness.

Through the use of scalar energy made famous by Nicolas Tesla, I have combined this cutting-edge technology with ancient practices to create a program where with a person’s birthdate and birthplace I can scan their energetic field to see what Power Animal was present with them at birth. This allows me to perform a modern version of this ancient practice. Combining this with my own skills, it has reached an incredible level of accuracy and validation.

With the launch of the book, I have given interested readers the opportunity to find out what their Power Animal was at birth. I now offer this service on my website and the book then gives them the insight as to the powers and the awareness of this relationship. Readers who have signed up for this “high tech” power animal retrieval have often been astounded when their Power Animal is revealed. With one client, the scan revealed that a sparrow was her Power Animal. This was an emotional revelation since she had a tattoo of several sparrows on her body thus removing years of questioning why she chose a sparrow. Another reader was scanned, and it was determined that her Power Animal was a cougar. In this case it was validation of many dreams she had through her life about cougars, and why a friend insisted on giving her a painting of a cougar years ago that she has hanging over her bed. These stories and more continue to validate the sometimes subtle and unknown ties we have to the animal spirit world.

Writing this book also brought me a wealth of knowledge about myself. It was often a whirlwind of messages from a Power Animals perspective of how unusual they see the humans view. From Mongolia to Machu Picchu I found that Power Animals have always been a part of our collective understanding and existence, yet with so little connection to nature, it has been lost to us. My goal was to find it again and bring it back to its loving form so that once again humans could reunite with their Power Animal and reconnect to the meaningful messages that are brought to us from their world.

About the Author:
Lori Morrison is the author of The Shaman’s Guide to Power Animals (March 2019). She is a best-selling author, inspirationalist and mystic. She is part of a rare breed of lightening shamans who have received a spontaneous awakening of shamanic knowledge. Lori first journeyed into the shamanic underworld in 2010 where she found the spiritual realm of Power Animals. Her teachers were Mayan Ancestors who took her through a two year initiation with the spirits of four Jaguar. Her later intimate connection with Lion, given to her by a Haitian shaman has been an extraordinary experience and has enhanced greatly her healing powers. By merging and forming a sacred relationship with animal spirits she is able to support her clients with insight and change through her cutting edge shamanic counseling practice in Sedona, Arizona where she resides. For more information, please visit https://lorimorrison.com and follow Lori on Facebook and Twitter.

By Sharon Prentice, PhD

Writing a book.  To be quite honest, the thought had never entered my mind; I’d never written anything other than personal prose or patient charts that were never meant to see the light of day.  The idea was so remote that it would’ve been, as in the Twilight Zone monologue, like “opening a door into a fifth dimension of thought and sound, as timeless as space, as vast as infinity.” But once the possibility was introduced to me,  I had one reaction: exposing the secrets that lay hidden within my Soul sent chills racing through the recesses of my very being. I couldn’t let it go, though — once unearthed…the thought simply would not leave me alone!

Imagine, if you will, standing on a stage, alone, in front of hundreds of people unknown to you,  while guffaws and ridicule, barbs of judgement undeserved and previously unknown are all directed your way!  A dizzying array of emotion and confusion filling your Spirit with every direct hit…and then, you realize you are, as my dad liked to say–naked as the day you were born! It’s then, possibly for the first time, that you begin to understand the concept of unadulterated vulnerability.

No one enjoys feeling vulnerable. Especially those of us who exist in environments created to keep vulnerability at bay. But there comes a time when life slaps you awake–and you can no longer exist within the protective bubble that served you so well in your private life.

Every writer understands this concept of vulnerability. Opening up to that bone-shaking, fearful reality—that I would be vulnerable–was the beginning of my journey into the world of publishing.  Accepting that in order to tell my story, I would have to surrender my oh-so- carefully tucked-away secrets to public scrutiny was my biggest hurdle. But it was one that needed confronting and eventually–conquering.

To tell my story… was exactly what I needed to do! One of my greatest mentors, Dr. Wayne Dwyer, before his death, told me, “Tell your story, Sharon. Tell the story.” The beginning of the writing process for me was the recognition that I was more uncomfortable staying silent than I was letting the words flow free and accepting the vulnerability inherent in exposure. Naked body or naked Soul–same thing!

But how and where to begin? What exactly did I want to say–or have to say–in this effort to release the words that were forming in the underbelly of my soul? Instead of letting anxiety rule the day, I simply sat myself down…grabbed pen and paper…and let the floodgates open.

I didn’t change my physical environment…I embraced it. The old La-Z-y Boy recliner that had been my dad’s “home base” before his death became my sacred space. I felt safe and peaceful. It became my home…my sanctuary. My body just seemed to conform to the indentations that had, for years, become its very nature and I felt as if it “knew” me.  I didn’t feel the need to have a totally private, quiet, locked away space that had no recognition of me and the joys and sorrows of my life. It was there, on my dad’s well-loved recliner, that Becoming Starlight was birthed.

But even in that sanctuary, I found myself chasing words.  It was irritating as the words seemed to erupt and run like madmen away from my conscious mind. The more I chased after the words as they fled the scene, the more irritated I became. Was this the well-known “writer’s block” rearing its ugly head? Or was it simply me trying to force something that simply couldn’t be forced? The operative word here became–relax! I needed to relax and just let it flow. Not trying to force each and every thought into some perfect form of writing saved the day! I stopped worrying about tense and punctuation and dangling participles! I simply put pen to paper and wrote the story.

It was then that the sacred words fell into place. It was then that the words found their place and told their story. My process needed acceptance of the vulnerability of the story that needed to be told. I let the invisible dancer lead the way and make the pen I held in my hand dance.

Becoming an author can be a life-altering decision! Finding your own safe space, your own sense of security, allowing the unfolding of the magic within…effortlessly…is the first step to creating and releasing the music in your Soul. Drawing out that music for healing and comfort…uncovering the shadows that haunt the human condition–that’s what it’s all about and what I hoped my readers would find. 

About the Author:

Dr. Sharon Prentice is the author of Becoming Starlight: A Shared Death Journey from Darkness to Light.Soon after completing her graduate studies in psychology, Dr. Prentice longed to discover “the why’s” about her own intimate experience with death in the form of an SDE, and that of others who had experienced something “weird, unbelievable, odd” at the time of the death of a loved one. Dr. Prentice is in private practice as a Licensed Clinical Pastoral Counselor – Advanced Certification. She is also a Board Certified Spiritual Counselor (SC-C) and holds Board Certification in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Group Therapy, Integrated Marriage and Family Therapy, and Crisis and Abuse Therapy. She is also a Board Certified Temperament Counselor. Dr. Prentice is a Professional Member of the American Counselors Association, a Professional Clinical member of the National Christian Counselors Association, a Clinical member of the American Mental Health Counselors Association, and a Presidential member of the American Association of Christian Counselors. She is also a Commissioned Minister of Pastoral Care. For more information, please visit https://sharonprentice.com and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter.

By Sandra Ingerman

I have always loved working with children. Since the 1980s I have been teaching children of all ages how to perform shamanic journeys as this is such a powerful way to help children and young adults feel empowered by challenging life situations. Over the years I have also worked with children who needed healing work to retrieve their lost soul essence, to remove a spiritual blockage causing an illness, or to help children deal with nightmares.

I felt it was important to write a book that included not just how power animals can assist children of all ages, but also life practices that are the same taught to children in shamanic cultures. For how to navigate challenges of life, to live a life of harmony with nature, and where children are acknowledged for their gifts and strengths are all taught as early as possible to children living in indigenous cultures. Our children are our future and deserve a way to work with the personal and planetary challenges they are facing.

So I set my intention to write a beautiful book that would incorporate the practice of shamanic journeying and how to live in harmony with nature.

When I submitted The Hidden Worlds to my agent she said, “This is the worst book I have read of yours.” My agent was born to be a mother, and she knew this book would not capture the imagination of readers. It was too heavy on spiritual lessons with not enough of a story to draw the readers in.

It was clear that as I did not have children of my own, I did not understand how to write an engaging story.

I was leading a reunion of shamanic teachers I trained. And Katherine Wood and I had lunch together. Katherine had a long career as a school teacher, and through our long history together I knew her work with children was simply brilliant!

She agreed to work with me and take the story I had created to become an engaging teaching adventure for young adults. Then the magic began.

Initially Isaiah, the main character of the story, appeared to me in a dream. In the dream I could see that he was frail and quite sick. I could easily see how writing a story of how Grizzly Bear could befriend and bring guidance and healing to child who was ill would be a great start to the story.

Then I wanted to bring in other characters who had certain issues. I created Rose, George, and Magda who were all so different. Isaiah who was frail, George who had special needs, Rose who was Chinese was so angry about being adopted and fought so much at school, and Madga was so popular and a great soccer player. I paired them with Grizzly Bear, Octopus, Giraffe, and Panther to help them with their issues at home and with other students at school.

With Katherine’s help, we devised a story to bring more adventure into the book. For in the first draft I only had the characters meet each other and their power animals in their dreams—not enough intrigue for children to get hooked into the story. And I did not create much character development. Katherine with her knowledge of how children can act out in life and behave towards each other in school brought in the details of their stories and their personal challenges. She brought texture to the characters to make them alive so that readers could really relate to them and their struggles.

We came up with idea of the children meeting each other in a dream. And then during the day they met while wandering on their own during a break. They all found themselves at a pond that was filled with dead birds. This unlikely group of friends decided to become detectives to find out the source of the pollution. They did not tell their parents or any school officials what they were up to. By putting their heads together and also asking for help from their most trusted power animals they found that a toxic waste plant was disposing of poison illegally.

I have found that when crafting a story there is a point where the character’s lives deepen to the point that they take control of the plot. It was great for me to experience this as the four worked together to shut this plant down. The story took interesting twists as they developed respect for each other’s gifts, performed rescues, explored romance, confronted bullies, and resolved their conflicts with each other. I hope they will remind our readers of the limitless possibilities that are available in their own lives.

About the Author:

Sandra Ingerman, MA, is an award winning author of twelve books, including The Hidden Worlds and The Book of Ceremony: Shamanic Wisdom for Invoking the Sacred in Everyday Life. She is a world-renowned teacher of shamanism and has been teaching for more than 30 years. Sandra is recognized for bridging ancient cross-cultural healing methods into our modern culture, addressing the needs of our times. For more information, please visit https://sandraingermanbooks.com and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter.

In Her Image Photography

I wrote The Burn Zone as a catharsis; I had to get the story out of me. Dr. Maya Angelou once said, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” I believe she is right. The story was consuming me. It was tearing me apart from within. I was filled with anger and hatred and confusion and I had to let it go. So I wrote. And wrote and wrote and wrote. I vomited all of it onto paper. Over and over and over again. The same scenarios, the same pain, the same periods of my life. I wrote hate letters that I never sent. I screamed into pillows. I wrote letters to God. Over 700 pages I wrote. And it helped. The heaviness began to lift. The anger began to abate. The fits of rage dissipated. The overwhelming sadness turned to hope.

As this happened I began to speak bits of my story to loved ones. I began to share what I went through, what I signed up for. People were shocked, amazed, and . . . impressed. I began to realize my story had worth. I began to realize it was a story of strength; a story of the fight of the human spirit; a story of uncovering my True Self from deep within the shattered pile of a whole lifetime’s worth of rubble. As I spoke my story I began to get a consistent similar response, “You have to write a book.” It was then that I realized I had been writing a book; it was then that I made the decision to publish what I had written.

But, it wasn’t easy. Reading through my journals was painful. Reliving those stories, those states of mind, was sickening. However, I kept doing it. Because as I did it I realized I had inscribed a map. It was a description of what so many of us (I may even venture to say all of us) do as we create a life to please others. And it was a map, a stepping stone path, out, back to authenticity. I realized I hadto print and share my story; even if it helped only one other person.

I suppose my background as a seeker and as a Buddhist monk influenced my writing in that I felt safe being raw. Vulnerable. “In my defenselessness my safety lies,” says The Course in Miracles. I took it to heart. And it has been liberating. Publishing my whole story is so freeing because I get to just be me. And it turns out I’m really good at being me. I sucked at being the versions of me I thought I was supposed to be to please my parents, my teachers, my friends, the rest of the world; but it’s actually not much effort at all to just be me. I had a great writing teacher in high school who taught us all the rules of grammar, but then encouraged us to break them. So, you will notice I break a lot of writing rules, but I write the way I would tell a story. Thought by thought, sentence by sentence. Again, authenticity. This is the way I would tell you a story if we were face to face in my living room; why should I write it any other way?

It is my sincere desire that readers would feel liberated after reading my book. I love to imagine the little child within them smiling, finally feeling like s/he gets to call the shots. I love the idea of my readers making the commitment to love and nurture themselves; to treat themselves to the little joys in life that they love. I would love for my readers to finally let go of shame; to start claiming and even celebrating their stories. Especially the “skeletons in the closet.” I imagine shackles around the soul being removed; the shackles of shame, the shackles of not-forgiving, the shackles of wishing this or that never happened. I love imagining the spirits of my readers dancing around in the joy and wonder of their Earth Walk. Changing their mental paradigms to believing their life has been a wild adventure instead of lugging around the baggage of regret. I love imagining the flames within their hearts, the light within, igniting. And I would love for my readers to pull up to the surface, and feel safe in the exposing of, the parts of them that make them different. I would love for them to put my book down knowing their difference is their destiny and feeling ready to show and tell the world about their story, their fight of the human spirit, all that they have gone through, all that they have learned. I would love for them to discover the exhilarating freedom that comes with forgiving all of it, embracing their battle scars, and using those scars to go out in the world and fulfill their true Divine Purpose.

About the Author:

Renee Linnell is the author of The Burn Zone (She Writes Press). She is a serial entrepreneur who has founded and cofounded five companies and has an Executive Masters in Business Administration from New York University. Currently she is working on starting a publishing company to give people from diverse walks of life an opportunity to tell their stories. She divides her time between Colorado and Southern California. For more information, please visit https://reneelinnell.com and follow Renee on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.