My Journey Writing "The Seven Tools of Healing: Unlock Your Inner Wisdom and Live the Life Your Soul Desires"

I’m not a bookish person. My wife and a couple of my kids are bookish people, so I know the difference. But I felt compelled to write The Seven Tools because,

·         My whole career, I’ve witnessed people working long and hard to make lasting healing changes in their lives.

·         They spend huge sums of money and untold hours seeking these changes: workshops, on-line courses, books, meditations, seeing a wide variety of practitioners, taking tons of supplements…on and on.

·         Most of the time, they have great insights and “aha moments” and make some progress, only to later fall off the wagon and return to their old patterns, or have some new health problem crop up with a similar symbolic significance.

·         I wanted a way to help these people: to help them make inner changes that last, that truly transform, that heal their lives on deep levels. So I started studying the world’s healing traditions.

·         But, more importantly, I also listened deeply and honestly to my patients, trying to understand their experiences—especially when they did not fit the conventional medical model—to observe what worked and what didn’t.

·         I’ve been practicing integrative medicine since the mid ‘80’s and I’ve followed some people for years on their healing journey. This long perspective has allowed me to make some observations about healing that elude my colleagues with more transient practices.

·         Over many years of practice, study, and stewing about it, I figured out why deep inner change is so rare and what to do to accomplish it on a more reliable and consistent basis.

·         What I’ve learned has been helping my patients for years and now I want to share it with the world.

Coming from a background in Conventional Family Practice, I have to admit that what I learned surprised me. Our society is so deeply dysfunctional in many important ways, a truly healing path is a major diversion from the path of the herd. Many of the foundational concepts I uncovered involve how the unconscious mind and Consciousness work: not frequent topics of conversation in a doctor’s office. To many in our culture, these ideas are unexplored and unfamiliar, though they have been with us for thousands of years. It takes courage, curiosity, and trust to embark on a healing path. It is helpful to have a mentor or guide, and a supportive community.

My fervent hope is that this book can be one of your guides to make your healing journey more efficient, effective, and in alignment with the Laws of Consciousness; that many mentors will get trained in these ideas; and that small pockets of communities practicing the Seven Tools will pop up, grow, and coalesce.