|
|
 
|
Although it would be difficult to list everything that ever left a lasting impression upon me, there are a few key events in my life and a few ideas and philosophies I've come across which have caused profound shifts in the way I look at life. The one that comes most immediately to mind is the work I've done at Landmark Education Corporation. There are various places around this site where I discuss that work in more detail but, for here, I'll just say that both the courses I've done there and the volunteer work I've taken on have left me with a profound willingness to take responsibility for how my life is going, to routinely rid myself of accumulated baggage around heavy issues in my life, to get very clear about what is real in my life and what is my constructed interpretation(s) of it and, most fundamentally, to experience love on more levels and in more areas of my life than I ever dreamed was possible. I've read a large number of self-help and spiritual development books and find that most have been, at best, good for a few quotes and (perhaps) a little useful advice on a particular problem I'm dealing with. Moreover, the notion of a self-help book in general, I think, suffers from the flaw that those issues which the reader would do best to confront (which are likely to be the ones most strongly resisted) are quite easily skipped over in the book. This is why I feel there is far more power in a well-designed seminar/workshop where a dedicated course-leader or personal coach holds you to your word about working through an issue you've vowed to complete. In spite of this, I have come across a handful of authors who, for whatever reason, have managed to put across very powerful concepts in a broad, easy-to-grasp manner which allows the ideas to land like seeds cast freely upon the soil, germinating gradually over long periods of time.
The first book I came across that had this kind of impact upon my was James Redfield's The Celestine Prophecy. There was nothing really new for me in this book. I'd heard most of it before and, as a novel, the book is not very well written. Nonetheless, I found I was able to let go of the mediocre prose and bask in the way the various ideas, many of which I had heard only from rather disparate sources, were suddenly brought together for me in a coherent whole. I first read the book early in 1994 and to this day, every time I find myself upset or powerless around some situation, I am able to draw on the ideas in this book to get in touch with what seems to be an unlimited source of spiritual energy deep inside of me. (I'm sorry to say that the various Celestine workbooks and sequels have been far less powerful for me although Redfield's monthly newsletter (The Celestine Journal) has provided some deep insights for me.) Peter McWilliams, author of books like Life 101: Everything We Wish We had Learned About Life In School - But Didn't, Wealth 101: Wealth is Much More Than Money, Do It! Let's Get Off Our Buts and Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do (The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free Society), is, for me, one of the easiest and most entertaining reads in the whole self-help literature. Combining a light, witty style, liberally interspersed with quotes from a vast variety of sources with a commitment to simply say what needs to be said, I find that he has a wonderful knack for taking the drama and hopelessness out of seemingly unsolvable dilemmas (like Life!). Most of my belief in the matters of mind-over-matter, especially in the domain of health, come from the writings and lectures of Deepak Choprah. A friend of mine gave me a set of Choprah's tapes called Magical Mind, Magical Body and I found virtually all my ideas about health and well-being radically altered. Here was a well-established doctor, well-versed in ancient Indian healing but also trained in traditional western medicine who was showing documented evidence of spontaneous remissions from cancer and reversal of the affects of aging which were brought about, at least in large part, by the patients' determination and will to be well. I was raised as a "hard-core logical empiricist" (as a friend of mine once put it) and part of my mind balks at some of the unconventional (to my thinking) explanations that Choprah gives but I've largely adopted this "be-well" mindset and the facts are that I'm a man in my mid-40's who is routinely assumed to be in his late twenties or early thirties, I'm rarely "too tired" and I'm so seldom sick that my doctor generally has to pull my file to remember anything about me.
Finally, my life was deeply impacted by the death of my wife, Michelle, at the age of 37 after a ten-year fight with cancer. There are a number of places around this site where I discuss this in more detail but, for now, I'll say that watching her body deteriorate, I vowed to keep myself physically active as long as I am able. The shock of her death at such a young age made me want to cherish every day I am alive. The miraculous remission she had at one point impacted my belief that one's mind is the best doctor even more than my reading of Choprah had. As Michelle began to slip away, her mother grew very bitter, chose me as a target for her anger and did much to add to my troubles (both emotional and financial) over a period of years. From this, I learned much of the nature of anger and the power of forgiveness. Experiencing the overall loss of her gave me a profound ability to "accept the things I cannot change" and also taught me that, just as much in nature dies or metamorphoses in order that new life can arise, so it is that part of living our lives, part of growing, involves a certain degree of loss and there is far more to gain in learning lessons from the loss than in being a victim of it. |
|
[Home] [Travels] [About Me] [Guestbook] [Map] [Search]
|
