How to Survive Your Childhood Now That You're an Adult: A Path to Authenticity and Awakening - Book Review
Have you ever wondered how childhood experiences shape our lives and contribute to the person we see everyday in the mirror? Most of us carry fears, prejudices and a way of viewing the world that were programmed into us as children. Usually unbeknownst to us, these experiences shape our perception of the world and those around us. While many of the programs that operate in our subconscious can be positive, there are also programs that are fearful, anxious, impatient and counterproductive to living a fulfilled life.
In Ira Israel's newest book, How to Survive Your Childhood Now That You're an Adult: A Path to Authenticity and Awakening, we are led to examine our beliefs, subconscious programs and assumptions that might be preventing us from experiencing the life we truly desire. Through wisdom gained from over thirty years of studying consciousness, the author has identified many tools we can use to alleviate suffering and keep us at the higher end of our happiness spectrum. If you are curious as to how to surf the paradoxes of life, shed fears and prejudices, learn discipline, effectively connect with others, identify constructive activities to vent frustration and live a fulfilling life amidst constant change, then this book will be of immense value to help you navigate the diverse challenges of life. The first half of the book explores our "level of awareness about subconscious beliefs or assumptions so we can get some insight into our 'way of being' in the world." The second half of the book provides valuable tools and steps we can take toward our path of awakening.
More often than not, we are able to examine and identify the methods our parents used in our upbringing that we feel were effective or non-effective. If raising our own children, we might choose to discard methods we feel were ineffective or counterproductive and keep only methods that are empowering and helpful. Conscious parenting is a recent field of study that has resulted in the publication of books that broaden our awareness and facilitate new perspectives that allow us to not only make better decisions as parents but allow us to experience our own personal growth in tandem with our children. By understanding the dynamics and implications of our own childhood, the author invites us to heal ourselves and take a deeper look at the long lasting effect our actions have on our children and those in which we interact.
Forgiveness is a key component of our happiness. By recognizing that all who have wronged us were doing their best with the level of consciousness they had to work with, we are able to release resentment and heal ourselves. The author states that, "The goal of this book is to help us become conscious of each of our individual paths and provide new tools for procuring the unconditional love we crave, so that we can avoid being ardent and cruel - to ourselves and others - on our journeys."
There are many valuable aspects of this book to contemplate regarding authenticity and embracing your shadow self. How do you blow off steam and keep your life manageable? We all have our own methods of dealing with stress. Are we able to choose positive methods of dealing with stress like meditation, yoga, exercise, art or music, or do we choose addictive unhealthy behaviors that simply sweep the problems under the rug to be dealt with at a later date? This book "is devoted to helping you decide who you want to be and what life you wish to live, and to giving you tools to accomplish your goals."
"Buddhism today is best regarded as a prescription to help us alleviate the suffering our minds inadvertently create when they try to prolong ephemeral pleasure and avoid inevitable pain," says the author. By utilizing eastern philosophy and Buddhist wisdom, How to Survive Your Childhood Now That You're an Adult provides us with context, understanding and methods to not only make sense of life but to thrive and add value to it.
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Grab your copy of How to Survive Your Childhood Now That You're an Adult here.
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Cultivating Mindfulness: How to Practice Mindfulness Meditation
Cultivating mindfulness is the key to overcoming suffering and recognizing natural wisdom: both our own and others'. How do we go about it?
In the Buddhist tradition and in Contemplative Psychotherapy training, we nurture mindfulness through the practice of sitting meditation. There are many different kinds of meditation. For example, some are designed to help us relax; others are meant to produce altered states of consciousness.
Mindfulness meditation is unique in that it is not directed toward getting us to be different from how we already are. Instead, it helps us become aware of what is already true moment by moment. We could say that it teaches us how to be unconditionally present; that is, it helps us be present with whatever is happening, no matter what it is.
Mindfulness, paying precise, nonjudgmental attention to the details of our experience as it arises and subsides, doesn't reject anything. Instead of struggling to get away from experiences we find difficult, we practice being able to be with them. Equally, we bring mindfulness to pleasant experiences as well. Perhaps surprisingly, many times we have a hard time staying simply present with happiness. We turn it into something more familiar, like worrying that it won't last or trying to keep it from fading away.
When we are mindful, we show up for our lives; we don't miss them in being distracted or in wishing for things to be different. Instead, if something needs to be changed we are present enough to understand what needs to be done. Being mindful is not a substitute for actually participating in our lives and taking care of our own and others' needs. In fact, the more mindful we are, the more skillful we can be in compassionate action.
Making Friends with Your Mind
Joseph Campbell on the Mythic Symbology of Release
One of our all time favorite teachers is the late Joseph Campbell. Joseph Campbell was a preeminent scholar, writer, and teacher who had a genius for finding the unifying symbols and metaphors in apparently distinct cultures and traditions. Campbell explores the enduring power of the universal myths that influence our lives daily and examines the myth-making process from the primitive past to the immediate present, returning always to the source from which all mythology springs: the creative imagination. He had a profound influence on millions of people--including Star Wars creator George Lucas. To Campbell, mythology was the “song of the universe, the music of the spheres.”
In the video below, Campbell discusses winged fish, the feathered serpent, the Bodhisattva, and the Christ -- all mythological images of a shift in consciousness. This video is a brief excerpt from interviews filmed with Joseph Campbell shortly before his death in 1987, previously unreleased by the Joseph Campbell Foundation.
