Quiet Mind, Fearless Heart

admin — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 23:21:26 +0000

By Pink Sherbet

Brian Luke Seaward

ISBN 0-471-67999-2

From the author—

“Current statistics suggest that 1/3 of the American population is one anti-depressants. Alcoholism, drug addiction, self-mutilation, and suicide are just some of the more popular ways that people cope with their stress today. Through these tactics, people merely avoid the problems at hand, rather than work to resolve them. For stress to be dealt with effectively, no matter how much pressure is bearning down on use, avoidance is rarely a viable option.”

“If you listen closely to people’s conversations, you might notice how they tend to be stuck: not processing every aspect of a given situation to make sense of it, but rehashing thoughts and feelings, which, in turn, only validates their stress.”

“In what is often called the Universal Law of Attraction, a critical mass of negativity forms, and like a magnet, our mental focus begins to attract more things to complain about. As a result, we get caught in a whirlpool of negativity, from which is is really hard to escape. In the words of Marcel Proust, “The real act of discovery is not in finding new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.” Attitude, once again, is the paintbrush with which we color our world.”

From Chapter 5: The Human Equinox: Six Ways to Bring Balance into Your Life—

1) Work life balanced with personal life

2) Freedom balanced with discipline

3) Mental stimulation balanced with quietness

4) Right-brain thinking balanced with left-brain thinking

5) Technology balanced with nature

6) Ego balanced with soul

“Rest assured, behind every unresolved personal drama lies an overactive ego trying to control, manipulate, or dominate whatever it can.”

“At its most rudimentary level, the ego is the bodyguard for the soul, to serve in the role of protector. The problem comes when the bodyguard forgets its primary position, eclipsing the soul’s splendor, to dictate a policy of human behavior.”

From the introduction:

“In the spirit of one of my heroes, Joseph Campbell (The Power of Myth), a man who certainly understood the relationship between stress and spirituality, this book is divided into sections that resemble the classic template of what Campbell called “the Hero’s Journey.”

Part I: Into the Unknown frames our departure from the familiar into a brave new stressful world and the problems often associated with that departure.

Part II: Crossing the Threshold highlights the ageless wisdom of the dance between stress and spirituality and features several stories of

everyday heroes who perform the dance masterfully.

Part III: Life in the Balance contains abundant how-to advice to help you build a solid foundation or an action plan, using effective coping skills to victoriously meet the challenge of life’s stress and thus celebrate your own heroic qualities.

Part IV: Back Home Again brings you home to a hero’s welcome, with a few inspirational stories that promise that you, too, can complete the journey and return home as “the master of two worlds.”

“To support the theme of balance, sprinkled throughout the book are exercises, action plans, photographs, meditations, and poems to engage the right brain, help the left brain to process and reintegrate the information, and remind us of what we already know. It is my hope that Quiet Mind, Fearless Heart can reawaken your slumbering spirit, help you build a foundation of balance in your life, and enable you to regain a sense of personal homeostasis, so that the winds of change become the winds of grace that will allow your spirit to soar!”

Excerpt from “The Health of the Human Spirit”:

Twenty-one Strategies for Letting Go of Stress:

· A bird’s eye view: keeping everything in perspective

· Flexing the funny bone: comic relief

· Physical exercise: flushing out the stress hormones

· Decompression: the art of calm

· Do not enter: establishing healthy boundaries

· Respond, don’t react: taming that ego

· Seeking a balance: complexity versus simplicity

· Good vibrations I: turning off the TV

· Anger management: learning to fine-tune expectations

· Meditation: take five or even ten

· Adopt an attitude of gratitude: counting your blessings

(and curses, too)

· Good nutrition: avoid putting gasoline on the fire

· Empowerment: remember, you’ve got the goods

· Friends in need: having a good support system

· Back to nature: getting and staying grounded

· Diversify your interests: place your eggs in more than one

Basket

· Amazing grace: the healing power of prayer

· Reserving judgment: the power of acceptance

· Seizing the day: the future is now

· Forgiveness: the last frontier

Emotions Come From Thoughts » 5 Spirituality

Quiet Mind, Fearless Heart