I get Kurt Vonnegut!
He was once asked by an aspiring author what it took to succeed. Without blinking the famous writer bluntly remarked, “Stop writing crap!” I too am blunt and to the point when I review books. But, that sort of dedication to professionalism can wither relationships with friends who are authors.
So it was with great reservation that I agreed to review Rev. Teri Hawkins’ new book, “Life Retold.” I didn’t want to lose the friendship. I reluctantly opened the book thinking to myself, “here’s gonna be another clunker where, as usual, I am going to have find a nice way to tell the author it sucks.” Yet after the first 50 pages I realized I had been deftly sucked into the work and was reading a truly remarkable book.
The Choice!
A basic tenant of modern psychology is that denial leads to projection. The real secret is that we all falsely believe in a primeval guilt we have repressed into the hidden dark canyons of the subconscious mind. A dark foul pit within we hide from others believing that, if they were to see who we secretly think we are, they would recoil from us as if from a venomous serpent. So, we attack first, if only in our seemingly separate private thoughts, at best dreaming up a murder without a corpse. And, all the while our “therapists” tell us anger is healthy.
At worst we end up on death row.
And, on and on we go projecting our unconscious fear of attack onto an illusory universe of bodies we have forgotten that we made up. We reinforce it with scraps and pieces of memories and images we piece together into imaginary stories we call our lives. Forgetting we made it all up even as we recount to others our tall tale taking the role of victim at times, victimizer in others, or even hero in between. But, again we forget that these are stories we made up to invent a world of fear reflecting our primeval guilt of separation.
Never looking within we continue wandering about an unreal dream world seeking answers in nothingness. We look away from the reality of our loving source hidden under our subconscious cesspools of fearful thought. Cesspools pushed just out slightly out of our awareness. But, out of sight is not out of mind, and we fear that we will be stricken dead if we look within. Hence, we use our stories to reinforce our subconscious projections of a world driven mad by guilt to make it all seem like it’s out there and not in us.
As we keep forgetting that we and we alone can choose to see otherwise.
“The secret of salvation is but this: that you are doing this unto yourself. No matter what the form of the attack, this still is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, still is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is still true. For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that you were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they could have no effect on you unless you failed to recognize it is your dream.”
—A Course In Miracles, Text VIII, The “Hero” of the Dream
You Can Decide Between Heaven And Hell!
Reverend Teri Hawkins, in “Life Retold,” has created a delightfully entertaining book with a vital message of hope — a velvet cord around a heavenly awakening. Her message is this: If you choose to rewrite the fearful stories of your life into loving thoughts you will begin a compelling caterpillar-to-butterfly transformation of life experience.
I don’t know where you are right now.
Perhaps you spent the day shivering in a ball on your living room floor too afraid to leave the house as your panic disorder drives you closer to full-blown agoraphobia. Maybe you’re in a half-way house battered and bruised with other women who have decided that living on the street is better than living in hell with an abusive alcoholic husband. You could even be sitting in a jail cell on a life sentence. Or it could be that you’re just trying to make your troubled marriage or life partnership work.
Whatever your situation this book will help you see that you made it up. And, since you made it up you can undo do it by rewriting your life story as reverend Teri guides you. Perhaps you’ll rewrite your life story just a little to soften the terror just a bit. Or better yet perhaps you’ll come to see that every story that disturbs your peace, even a little, is an opportunity to forgive. In forgiving you’ll transform fearful stories into loving relationships.
And, in so doing maybe, just maybe, you might decide to completely rewrite your life story which you alone have the power to do.
I am Dr. Scott Brown, Ph.D, and I suffered self imposed setbacks most of my adult life from severe undiagnosed panic disorder. I finally hit rock bottom when it became increasingly difficult to perform normally in society; to leave the house; to walk down a busy street; to talk to strangers. I cured myself using a cognitive restructuring technique called hedonic editing where I rewrote the negative dialogue rambling unchecked throughout my conscious thinking.
A Life Story Retold Will Transform Your Future!
The result was not just relief from daily mental suffering but a blossoming of personal achievement. In the 10 years since, I have completed a Ph.D. in financial economics — the hardest doctorate in the social sciences where only about 150 finance doctorates graduate from good schools worldwide.
I have published numerous books and courses that help thousands of families enrich themselves.
I am a finance professor at a major state school and a renowned public speaker in investing. To top it all off I was selected by The Oxford Club to write their first home study investment course in their educational division — Investment U. I later discovered that they had been searching for the right person for many years … and amazingly I was it.
All this has blossomed in my life because like reverend Teri, I rewrote my life story!
Negative life stories affect you on a level deeper than you can possibly imagine because you are, “far too careless of mind wanderings.” Those who seek my financial guidance are generally shocked when I explain that the tip of the wealth building iceberg is to know what stock or stock option to buy. It’s actually far more important to rewrite your unchecked mind chatter. It’s really the internal psychobabble that trips us up as investors.
Psychobabble that manifests itself in the fearful stories we are constantly telling ourselves and others!
A Brave New World!
The bright new field of behavioral finance is an attempt to understand how the investor’s cognitive (decision) processes affect individual performance. It’s a new attempt for finance academics and the field of psychology still hasn’t harmonized with us as we ask brave new hard-line questions about the impact of cognitive dissonance in return performance. Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling or stress caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously.
Many investors desire wealth while believing themselves unworthy and this self sabotages their investing actions.
In the nascent field of behavioral finance no solutions are offered. Yet, if hedonic editing can cure panic and depression, resulting in vastly enhanced personally achievement, then it can also enhance your investment performance. It is for this reason that I am very pleased to present to you Reverend Teri Hawkins. Her book and intensive hedonic editing boot camps finally offer tangible cognitive restructuring tools that will vastly enhance your investment performance and your personal relationships.
Indeed, this is the first book I have found that makes the complex science of performance enhancement through cognitive restructuring easy to understand, fun, and immediately pertinent to your life!
—Dr. Scott Brown, Ph.D.
Education Director, The Oxford Club’s Investment U http://www.oxfordclub.com/Visitors/AdvisoryPanel.html
The Wallet Doctor, http://www.walletdoctor.com/
Assistant Professor of Finance, Graduate School of Business, University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras main campus, http://business.uprrp.edu/sp/spindex.html
Scott recommends Reverend Teri Hawkins program to help you rewrite your negative stories that dampen your true potential. For more information go to http://www.4thechoice.com/
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Professor Brown is on the advisory panel of the largest and most respected invitation only worldwide investment club; The Oxford Club where he is also the Education Director of http://www.investmentu.com/ He also teaches families how to manage their money through: http://www.walletdoctor.com/
