Holistic Networker » Reviews

Book Review: One Soul, One Love, One Heart

Alec Franklor — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:04:00 +0000

If we’re not getting along with the people in our lives, what good is all our spiritual ‘progress’? Demonstrating the interconnection between our spirituality and our relationships, John E. Welshons begins his One Soul, One Love, One Heart: The Sacred Path to Healing All Relationships with a parable: a yogi meditates in his mountaintop hermitage for many years, eventually reaching the pinnacle of enlightenment, radiating an aura of peace and wisdom. That is, until he goes down to the nearby village and is accidentally shoved by a peasant, at which point he loses his hard-won serenity and explodes at the poor fellow. Therefore, no matter what spiritual path we follow, our first priority is maintaining good relationships, whether romantic, familial, professional, or casual.

Synthesizing many spiritual traditions, including elements of Buddhist, yogic, and western psychology, as well as his own experience as a counselor and workshop leader, Welshons constructs a broad three-point plan for relationship repair, ‘Seeing the Light,’ ‘Freeing the Light,’ and ‘Being the Light,’ that easily resonates no matter our background or beliefs. Endeavoring to cover the entire spectrum of human relationships, from the difficulties of caring for an aging parent to the lessons we can learn from our pets, Welshons’ advice remains sound, even when resorting to speaking in generalities. Writing in a gentle, even playful tone, he never allows the enormity of the task—the reform of all our interpersonal relationships–to feel overwhelming. For as Welshons points out, the path to healing our relationships is not to dwell on the problems that beset us, but to see the opportunities for greater love that surround us.

One Soul, One Love, One Heart: The Sacred Path to Healing All Relationships

Book Review: The Five Ways We Grieve

Alec Franklor — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:02:26 +0000

Current pop psychology in America tells us that grief proceeds in five specific stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. But how do we make sense of things when our grief does not follow the rules? How does this help us move forward in life after a loss that radically changes our view of the world?

Following the loss of her parents and friends, Susan Berger, found that her own grieving process failed to follow this rote progression and that she needed additional tools to move beyond her loss. Through research and ten years of working with the bereaved Berger, a counselor and hospice volunteer, found that while people move through their grief in unique ways, they appear to follow five main archetypes: the Nomad, who wanders with unresolved grief and fails to establish a new identity; the Memorialist, who focuses on honoring the deceased; the Normalizer, who works to recreate the life they lost; the Activist, who helps others dealing with similar issues; and the Seeker, who explores philosophy in an attempt to reestablish meaning in life.

Within each type Berger gives numerous and varied profiles to illustrate the coping pattern along with its advantages and disadvantages, strategies for healing and growth, and questions for further exploration. Thus, finding ourselves in these archetypes assists not only in giving meaning to loss, but also allows us to grow and create a new healthy direction and worldview.

Often heartbreakingly direct, but always gentle and respectful, The Five Ways We Grieve speaks frankly and refreshingly about the diverse impacts of death and loss. Endeavoring to connect each person to assistance appropriate for their grieving, Berger concludes the book with an appendix of resources for self-help, while acknowledging that any advice from others can only play a part in our healing. Ultimately it is we who must journey through our grief, to find hope and re-embrace the fullness of life.

The Five Ways We Grieve: Finding Your Personal Path to Healing after the Loss of a Loved One

Book Review: Beyond Tolerance

Alec Franklor — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:01:46 +0000

Though warriors of peace are certainly not hiding in the shadows, it often seems as though they are because of the media attention to those who preach and practice intolerance. To help shine a light on this important and inspirational work, Gustav Niebuhr in Beyond Tolerance profiles the efforts of organizations and individuals rooted in different faiths, but working together to build their communities and help those in need. Through their cooperative labor they not only create a better life for themselves and those of their faith, but along the way they discover the essential ties of love and compassion connecting every faith. Niebuhr echoes Martin Luther King, Jr. in calling this a “Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief.” Niebuhr eagerly notes that many interfaith groups came together in response to 9/11, dispelling the mis-belief of the time that ecumenicism was impossible.

Writing in spare, direct prose, Niebuhr argues that in this time of continued strained interfaith relations, an ecumenical spirit is not only possible, but essential: “We can hardly discount the possibility,” he writes, “that a single individual emerging from an encounter with someone of a different faith convinced that they share a common humanity might make a difference. Occasionally, one person can stop a mob.” Whether the individuals profiled in Beyond Tolerance will indeed stem the rising tide of intolerance remains to be seen, but their efforts and Niebuhr’s sentiments deserve a fervent “amen.”

Beyond Tolerance: Searching for Interfaith Understanding in America (The Documents of 20th-century art)

Book Review: The Twelve

Felicia Weiss, Ph.D. — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 11:44:44 +0000

The Twelve By William Gladstone
In this excellent novel, the reader is taken on an exciting journey through the life of a fictional character named Max Doff, from his birth through December 21, 2012. At age 15 Max has a near death experience in which he sees twelve names. Although he is unable to remember them upon awakening, eight years later, while working in Peru for a film production company, he meets someone with one of these names. From there he embarks on an intriguing path in which he attempts to understand his childhood vision as he searches for and attempts to unite the Twelve.
The author William Gladstone has drawn from his own life in writing this incredible novel. He notes, “THE TWELVE has been written to entertain, educate, intrigue, and perhaps even enlighten those who question the meaning of the Mayan calendar and the importance of 2012…It is a journey that links the mysterious legends of The Twelve from ancient Egyptian, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, American Indian, Christian, Celtic, and aboriginal cultures to speculation about what will occur in 2012.”
I found this novel to be riveting. Those who enjoyed The Celestine Prophecy will also appreciate this fine literary masterpiece. As we approach 2012 many of us are contemplating its significance. Is it an ending or the beginning of a new era? Will humanity be able to shift its consciousness and transform the world? This book will leave you excited about the possibilities of this momentous time.

Video Review: Rejuvenation Yoga For Everyone

Felicia Weiss, Ph.D. — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 11:33:46 +0000

Rejuvenation Yoga For Everyone

Cynthia combines Polarity Energy Exercises and Iyengar Style Yoga to create a DVD that can be utilized by both the beginning and advanced student. She explains how the yoga poses can be modified in order to tailor them to your specific abilities and comfort. She also incorporates guided breathing exercises to open your body for health. This DVD also contains upper and lower body warm-ups, 6 poses for full-body toning, 7 standing poses for energizing and strengthening, 6 stretches for spinal health and a relaxation segment.

I enjoyed the beautiful imagery contained in this DVD, as well as the soothing music. Cynthia has a wonderful voice and is an expert yoga instructor. She knows how to combine the mind, body and spirit in her practice, leaving one feeling refreshed and calm. By teaching how to modify the poses, she allows her students to work at the level that is comfortable for them. As one becomes stronger and more advanced, the poses can be taken to a new level. I especially enjoyed the relaxation segment and found it to be a pleasant way to complete the session.

Cynthia has been a Holistic Practitioner/Educator and Massage Therapist since 1985. Since 1990 she has been teaching certification level Polarity Therapy. She has also been a Rejuvenation Yoga instructor since 1996. Her expertise and years of practice are evident in the quality of the work she has produced. I highly recommend this DVD to those who are wanting to enhance the strength of their body, the ability of their mind to relax and the vitality of their spirit.

Cynthia Pierro, BS, LMT, RPE, NLP
Content: Rejuvenation Yoga 80 min. How to Modify Poses: 12 min.
www.circle-of-energy.com

Book Review: Entering the Castle

Alec Franklor — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 08:33:45 +0000

Caroline Myss, Entering the Castle: An Inner Path to God and Your Soul, Free Press, New York, NY, 2007.

For those craving to move beyond a ‘hybrid spirituality of intuition and mind-body practices’, for those wishing to be ‘mystics without monasteries’, Entering the Castle provides the grounded framework for your path. In this contemporary writing on the remarkable meditative text, The Interior Castle by St Teresa of Ávila, an extraordinary 16th century saint, Carolyn Myss utilizes prayer, contemplation and self-inquiry to slowly build your endurance for authentic mystical experiences.

Moving beyond Anatomy of the Spirit, a work focusing on the mind-body-spirit connection, in Entering the Castle Myss leads you from simply living with spirit to awakening to the deep mystical soul. Using the metaphor of a castle containing seven mansions to represent your soul and the seven stages of consciousness, Myss guides you though removing the illusions that blind you to your divinity. “How are you repressing your soul’s purpose from emerging in your life because you fear humiliation?” How do you use chaos to prevent change? Are there “parts of your life you consider off limits to God?”

Balancing the difficult work of facing your personal demons, Myss inspires you to continue your journey by offering stories of authentic mystical experiences and explaining the various ways you may “experience God, grace, and divine love as your soul and psyche awaken.” Choosing to embark with Myss on the journey into your soul’s castle will radically “transform you and your relationship with God and the world.”

Buy Entering the Castle: An Inner Path to God and Your Soul at Amazon.com

Alec Franklor owns RetreatFinder.com, an online directory of spiritual and healing retreats.

Book Review: Real Success Without a Real Job

Alec Franklor — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 08:33:40 +0000

Ernie Zelinski, Real Success Without a Real Job, Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, CA, 2006

It is possible to make money doing what you love; millions have done it before you! If you dream about a life full of fun and freedom, a more relaxed work environment, pursuing your passions, or living extraordinarily, then an ‘unreal job’ with your own ‘unconventional business’ is right for you. However, if having health insurance and a retirement plan are more important to you than the personal freedom to spend your time as you please (with friends, at the beach, etc), then the path to self-employment will be slower, or just not appropriate.

Rather than a guide to help you plan your way to your dream life, Real Success without a Real Job guides you through the first step—coming to deeply believe that such a life is even possible. Robert Sharma was an overworked but highly paid litigation lawyer who successfully leapt into his dream job as a writer and professional speaker.

David Bach was once the butt of jokes at the investment firm. Since leaving the firm in order to implement his unorthodox ideas he has become a financial guru. No matter your field of interest, or phase of life, Ernie Zelinski’s success principles will help you find and tap into your unique well of creativity as you redefine ‘career’ and ‘life success’ on your road to happiness.

Buy Real Success Without a Real Job at Amazon.com

Alec Franklor owns RetreatFinder.com, an online directory of spiritual and healing retreats.

Book Review: The Hundred-Year Lie

Alec Franklor — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 08:33:38 +0000

Randall Fitzgerald, The Hundred-Year Lie: How Food and Medicine are Destroying Your Health, Dutton (Penguin Group), New York, NY, 2006. $24.95

Myth: vaccinations are always helpful. Myth: food does not cause violence. In The Hundred-Year Lie, Randall Fitzgerald lays bare the facts in this investigative report on the cataclysmic intersection of the processed food, pharmaceutical and chemical industries. Starting with the simple idea that man can improve upon nature, these industries have indeed brought us extended life spans, especially for the seriously ill, but they have done so at the price of the quality of our health.

Over the past one hundred years those affected with diabetes increased from 1% to 20% of the population, and death from cancer rose from 3% to 20%. When the Food and Drug Act was enacted in 1906, asthma and related immune system diseases were virtually non-existent.

While we have gained lower prices for our foods, we now find ourselves in a world where the breast milk of Inuit mothers (living at the remote Artic Circle) would be categorized as hazardous waste due to PCB and mercury contamination; a world where foods containing ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ flavors contain the same chemicals; a world where grocery store shelves are lined with processed foods, almost all of which contain at least one genetically modified ingredient that has not been thoroughly tested for its potential harm. But the true story lies in the new issue of chemical synergies—when chemicals which are believed to be harmless by themselves combine once in the body to create toxic substances.

Overcoming any doubt that this threat to our health is real, Fitzgerald offers hope in the telling of his own detoxification and relays resources for you to do the same. Buy it today at Amazon.com

Alec Franklor owns RetreatFinder.com, an online directory of spiritual and healing retreats.

Book Reviews

Tony — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:35:58 +0000

Elson M. Hass, MD, Staying Healthy with Nutrition: The Complete Guide to Diet and Nutritional Medicine, Celestial Arts, Berkeley, CA, 2006. $39.95

Leaving no area of nutrition untouched while answering the mystery of how to put it all together to create a healthy diet for an energetic and well balanced life, Elson M. Hass, MD brings the planet to your plate with the updated edition of Staying Healthy with Nutrition. Accessible enough for every bookshelf yet detailed enough for use by health professionals, Hass covers everything from the biochemistry of digestion to investigation of pollutants and toxins to nutritional suggestions for many common ailments, all with an eye on keeping the earth healthy. In teaching how to balance amino acids for a vegetarian diet, Haas illustrates that “rice’s deficiency in the amino acid lysine has been accommodated over the ages by the use of spices (such as fenugreek, mustard seed, and turmeric- all high in lysine).” Pointing out that the balance of omega-6 to omega-3 EFAs has been linked to the likelihood of weight-loss and to chronic inflammation, Hass suggests replacing high omega-6 peanuts with high omega-3 sesame seeds and pumpkin seeds. Listing the most important foods to buy organic- such as baby food, strawberries, milk and bananas, Hass warns that attractive conventional produce often remains laced with pesticides, such as cucumber which has the second-highest level of carcinogenic pesticides used. Instead she offers her motto: good food (natural, organic, fresh), good thoughts, good actions. Providing meal plans and recipes for every stage of life including infancy and adolescence, during lactation or when taking birth control pills, and diets for anti-stress and healthy travel, this easy to use and comprehensive tome can be considered the owners manual for the human body.

Deb Shapiro, Your Body Speaks Your Mind: Decoding the Emotional, Psychological, and Spiritual Messages That Underlie Illness, Sounds True, Boulder CO, 2006. $19.95

Battling insomnia? If so, has someone broken your trust or is there something you are holding on to that is preventing you from releasing into sleep? Receding gums? If so, have you failed to maintain healthy boundaries or experienced a loss of power? Take back control by becoming fluent in the language of the bodymind. Speaking through its symptoms, the body concisely expresses the state of your mind and emotions. “Any emotion that is repressed, denied, or ignored will get stuck in the body,” explains Shapiro. This blockage leads to the symptoms you experience as illness. Using everyday language to detail the medical complexities of the body, Deb Shapiro, in this updated edition of Your Body Speaks Your Mind, provides an excellent place to begin querying what emotional, psychological or spiritual problem your body is trying to solve by creating illness, while accounting for other factors at play such as environment and genetics. Expertly weaving together the best minds in the field, Shapiro presents a host of suggestions and questions to explore the hidden inner realms of specific illnesses ranging from food allergies to loss of balance. In addition, she supplies a CD that guides you through turning your body from a stranger into a friend. Stopping short of claiming that fluency in bodymind speak will cure illness, Shapiro instead offers a powerful tool in the healing process. After all “As you think, so you become.”

James S. Gordon, MD, Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression, The Penguin Press, New York NY 2008. $25.95. ISBN 978-1-59420-166-0

We have all felt the affects of depression at some point, whether personally or through witnessing the suffering of a loved one. Beginning with the sense of being lost, trapped or adrift, then compounded by a feeling of dependence and frustration at being unable to change, the sufferer comes to feel isolated and stuck. With Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression, psychiatrist Dr. James Gordon offers a plan to take charge of depression by repairing the imbalances that create and maintain it. With over forty years of experience treating depression, Gordon has seen first-hand the failure of the usual drugs and therapies to truly fix depression. Instead, Gordon advocates a real and lasting cure — to change the lifestyle that led to the depression in the first place. Guiding you through this life overhaul, Gordon lays out a seven-point plan incorporating nutrition, exercise, meditation, and other healthful habits to promote wellness on all levels: physical, mental, and spiritual. Offering far more than just his medical expertise, Gordon shines light on depression by sharing his broad life experience and keen insight into human nature. Interspersing lessons from sources as diverse as neurology and Greek drama with anecdotes from his psychiatric practice and an abundance of helpful sidebars, Gordon empowers through a combination of education and support. Through warm, friendly, and reassuring writing, Gordon helps even the most depressed to open their minds to solutions instead of dwelling on problems. But those looking to Unstuck for a quick fix won’t find one. Instead, Gordon focuses on lasting change born from what may be a long and sometimes difficult path, but also a good one, full of movement, laughter, and finally joy.

Alec Franklor and Charles Duncan work for RetreatFinder.com, an online directory of spiritual and healing retreats. They can be reached at: books@retreatfinder.com.

Book Review: Healing and Recovery

Felicia Weiss, Ph.D. — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:13:13 +0000

Healing and Recovery by David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D.

In this book Dr. Hawkins draws from over 50 years of clinical experience, as well as his research on consciousness. He applies the map of consciousness, which he derived from kinesiology (aka muscle testing), and which he believes is the only way we can tell truth from falsehood. He dedicates this book to the highest good: physical, mental, and spiritual, and his goal is to help us to heal ourselves on all of these levels.

Dr. Hawkins explains why the body may not respond to traditional medical approaches and why it is important that we include spiritual practices in healing and recovery. In fact, by doing this, traditional medical practices that did not work before may now work. He offers strategies that can allow us to heal ourselves from any disease.

Dr. Hawkins discusses how he himself has used this approach to heal himself from over 20 chronic conditions, including ulcers and diverticulitis. He has also utilized this work to lose over 50 pounds, which he has kept off successfully for several years. He has even used these tools effectively when he came face to face with a rattlesnake, to overcome his fear of heights, and to handle other crises in his day to day life.

Dr. Hawkins addresses how we can handle stress and the aging process, worry, fear, anxiety, pain and suffering, as well as depression, alcoholism, cancer, death and even dying. He helps us to see that these principles work, no matter how serious or chronic our illnesses or issues might be. Dr. Hawkins offers practical and helpful information that can easily and successfully be applied to one’s life.

I found this book to be an excellent resource for how to live a healthy, happy and fulfilling life. Not only did I ind it to be highly enlightening when I read through it for the first time, I am now able to refer to specific chapters to help me to address whatever issues are most pertinent to me at a particular moment. This makes it an invalu- able reference tool that one can utilize on an ongoing basis. It truly is timeless in the information that it offers and the approach to life that it suggests.

I highly recommend Healing and Recovery. Alhough I have greatly appreciated all of Dr. Hawkins’ books and I am a big fan of his work, I found this book to be his best. Even if you have never read one of his books, this book can stand alone and be understood. I found it to be truly inspirational and lifechanging. Dr. Hawkins is a remarkable man, who has helped me to expand my ideas of what is possible. His work has helped shape how I view the world and, as a result, I feel more empowered and in control of my life. I cannot imagine a more timely and helpful book for anyone.

Buy Healing and Recovery at ShiftingFrequencies.com