a DIY Handbook Vol. 1 Inspiration
a DIY Handbook, Vol. 1: Inspiration
As the cover states, this book is a do-it-yourself handbook on transformation. It took me many years of exploring before I discovered the transformation tools that allowed me to take responsibility for my development.
Volume 1 focuses on expanding your awareness and understanding of how to bring greater balance and SPICE (spiritual, physical, intellectual, communal and emotional fulfilment) into your experience. The format of Chapter 1 sets the foundation for the remaining chapters in this two-volume manuscript. Although the content and focus for each chapter changes, the DIY Practice Sequence remains as the transformational recipe for applying new knowledge and experiences in your daily life.
I started my journey of awareness, in the words of another soul traveller, feeling like an “aimless wanderer” filled with questions but devoid of answers. Trial and error, pressed on by a nagging search for passion and purpose, led me to another weary traveller. Together, we “grasped hands” and began a shared journey into the joy of writing. Writing seemed to be the only vehicle that would allow us to open our hearts to the unknown and express our deepest desires, and for the next nine months, writing is what we did. Our emerging picture of perfection resembled an incomplete puzzle. The disconnected pieces took the form of words wherein lay the key to unlock the mystery. And then it came; if writing was the vehicle to express our desires and awareness and inner peace was the goal, then joy was surely the destination. Myself, I was hoping to jump right to the stuff of joy, solve the puzzle and move on. Of course, I learned again and again that life doesn’t work that way.
To paraphrase Louise Hay — if you want a gourmet meal, then you must give the universe time to provide the ingredients essential for such a culinary masterpiece.
And time did pass. Old pathways ended or converged into undreamed of possibilities.
Since 1998, I have meditated, facilitated and written my way through self-transformation alongside several hundred seekers that joined my transformation writing circles. Inch by inch, inspiration illuminated my path providing me a banquet of possibilities from which to choose. Step by step, a vision unfolded and showed itself to me. There were distractions and dilemmas, detours like yoga and even one false start. Patience wore down resistance. Much crossed the threshold of my mind and heart. I am forever altered, transformed into a lighter being. The metamorphosis into a butterfly fits as an appropriate metaphor for this transition. Nothing seems to have remained the same, yet as T. S. Eliot paralleled,
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
And for the first time as a butterfly, I spread my newfound wings and felt the whispers of inspiration lift me effortlessly into flight. What a flight it has been. With each piece of writing, old wounds washed away and new frontiers emerged shimmering in the distance like a desert mirage to a thirst-starved traveller. Words written on paper helped me lift the veil of illusion that kept me from reaching the oasis of peace and potential in my mind. As you will see throughout the book, I include passages and poems voicing my own transformational voyage. It is my hope these pieces of writing will amuse, inspire and remind you that you are not alone on the journey. In the words of Carl Jung, “what is uniquely personal is also universal.”
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