have lost my peace. I know when I am operating lovelessly (meaning living in the Universe of Fear). Most importantly, using the approach I present in this book—an Inner Family living in balance and working together—I experience an integration of many of the divisions, and a healing of the inner conflicts that have predisposed me to my emotionally erratic ways. By taking on the work of healing their Inner Family, I have witnessed many clients and seminar participants rid themselves of a vast array of debilitating symptoms and unwanted behaviour patterns by ending the conflicts and divisions raging inside of them. These people experience a transformative sense of self-integration, balance, and unity. I hope to extend these same possibilities to you.

One belief this book, and the body of inner work described in it, is founded on is the belief that your state of consciousness is the defining factor that determines the quality of your life. How you experience everything in life, for example, the weather, the day, your finances, your self-worth, your marriage, your family, other people (and their motives), and the world around you, is not determined by these external agents and circumstances coming at you. It is determined by the state of consciousness that you are in when you experience them. Your state of consciousness is more important than what you perceive, think, feel, say, or do, and actually gives rise to what you perceive, think, feel, say or do, and the results you produce in yourself and others. Your state of consciousness determines the quality of your life.

Your state of consciousness is like rain falling from the sky. It creates oceans, rivers, lakes, and streams which, in turn, give rise to wells and reservoirs and the supply of your daily drinking water— a supply which must be clean and safe for your body to be nourished. If the rain is contaminated, so are all of the rivers and lakes. This is equally true if the rain is natural and pure. So it is with your state of consciousness. It gives rise to the oceans, rivers, lakes and streams of your perceptions, thoughts, feelings, words, and behaviours. As such, these will be natural or unnatural, pure or contaminated and healthy or destructive to yourself and your world.

A second belief on which this book is founded is that your “normal” state of consciousness is fear-based and survivaloriented; a consciousness I will call the aggressive/defensive ego. This consciousness, if left unchecked and unhealed, produces and perpetuates an extremely dark vision of reality and inestimable hardship and damage for you and other human beings.

The good news, and a third tenet upon which this book and approach to personal healing is built, is that there are other states of consciousnesses (which I call Inner Family members) within you. If you can develop the desire and the skill to access them, they will offer you an entirely different way of interpreting and experiencing your reality. Through these other consciousnesses (ones I have named the Natural Child Consciousness/Authentic Self and the Spiritual Consciousness) you are afforded a friendlier and safer version of the weather, the day, your finances, your self-worth, your marriage, your family, other people (and their motives), and the world around you—a version that is much lighter and brighter and considerably easier on yourself and everyone else.

This book will present a model for personal healing (creating inner harmony) and offer you an extremely significant choice—a choice over your moment to moment state of consciousness and whether you are giving rise to a fear-based consciousness or a heart and spirit led one. If you decide to change, at first you will probably exercise this choice only occasionally, but with practice you can increasingly choose the state of consciousness you are in. The heart and spirit consciousness are so powerfully healing and restorative that even experiencing them one-half hour a day, or two minutes an hour, can make a tremendous difference in the quality of your life and the contribution you make to the world.

Fortunately, there are many ancient spiritual and more modern psychological paths that have been devised to assist human beings in the alleviation of their unhappiness and suffering. This book describes one more path, albeit a contemporary, nonreligious one. It is my hope that you find it effective and it brings you greater balance and harmony, inner freedom, and personal happiness.

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