Healing
Together
How to Bring
Peace into Your Life and the World
by Lee Jampolsky,
Ph.D
ISBN
0471236853
256 pages, US$
17.47
Click
here to order
It
is all too easy for the tragedies of life to overwhelm us. When life
gets very rough, when tragedy occurs, it invariably touches deeper
wounds within all of us—feelings of vulnerability, denial, fear,
sadness, anger, and vindictiveness. This groundbreaking work is a
book for all times of crisis. In Healing Together, Dr. Lee
Jampolsky, one of the world's leading experts in peace-based
thinking, writes that the path to healing begins when we make room
for all of our emotions, then work toward compassion and the
understanding of other people's points of view. This process helps
bring us together and helps us find peace in ourselves and in our
common world.
In
Healing Together, rooted in authentic spirituality as well as
the author's experience as a clinical psychologist, Dr. Jampolsky
explains how turbulent times can lead to spiritual awakening and
self-improvement. He shows that there are no circumstances or
situations that truly cut us off from our vital connection with God
and humanity. Dr. Jampolsky shows that, through peace-based
thinking, we learn to experience love instead of being consumed by
hate, and we perpetuate acts of compassion rather than acts of
violence.
Integrating
the wisdom of many spiritual and political leaders and his own work
with patients, Dr. Jampolsky includes dozens of exercises,
meditations, and prayers as well as an eight-step program that shows
us how to change our perceptions, find the opportunity to love, and
alter our ways of thinking so that genuine and lasting peace—with
ourselves and the world—can truly be achieved. Both prescriptive
and filled with dramatic personal stories (including the author's
own) about how people can transform the world through love, this
book is destined to be a classic.
Table
of Contents
Foreword
by Neale Donald Walsch.
Foreword by Gerald J. Jampolsky, M.D.
Acknowledgments.
Introduction.
Part One: What to Do When Tragedy Enters
Your Life.
1. The Key to Maintaining Peace of Mind.
2. Universal Spiritual Truths to Remember.
Part Two: Eight Steps to Personal and
Global Healing.
Step 1. Let Yourself Feel.
Step 2. Rise above the Details.
Step 3. Ask Important Spiritual Questions.
Step 4. Find Opportunity in Crisis.
Step 5. Let Go: A Time for Prayer.
Step 6. Decide between Violence and
Nonviolence.
Step 7. Develop and Commit Together to a
Purpose of Peace.
Step 8. Understand and Practice
Forgiveness.
Part Three: Building a Positive Future.
1. How Tragedy Affects Our Relationships.
2. How to Overcome Feeling Separate and
Helpless.
3. How to Talk with Our Children about
Tragedy.
4. How to Create a New Vision for Our Lives
Following Tragedy.
Epilogue.
Suggested Reading.
Excerpted from "Healing Together"
Copyright © 2002 Lee Jampolsky. Reprinted by permission. All rights
reserved.
The
Key to Maintaining Peace of Mind
Hope
is a state of mind, not of the world
-Vaclav Havel
It
would be naive to think that the problems plaguing mankind today
can be solved with means and methods which were applied or seemed
to work in the past
-Mikhail Gorbachev
Bad
things happen, and to good people. Some of us seem to attract more
than our share of tragedy, and often without obvious reason. Seldom
do we know when tragedy will come, and no amount of preparation can
make the world a crisis-free place. The key to maintaining peace of
mind in such an unpredictable world is searching for purpose and
opportunities to grow no matter what life brings us. We should not
look to the tragedy itself for purpose, but rather to our response
to the disaster. It is here that we have choices and can discover a
purpose that make us better individuals and brings us closer to one
another.
I
want happiness for all beings, and don't wish tragedy on anyone.
Nevertheless, I wouldn't prescribe a completely pain-free life for
someone I love. We certainly need to work toward a world that is
free from devastation and avoidable suffering, from the pain of
poverty, hunger, and senseless violence. However, I wouldn't opt for
a world where pain, grief, and loss didn't exist. I am always deeply
saddened when someone close to me passes on, but I also realize that
pain and loss are a part of every life, and that there is no
escaping our mortality. The human experience is not pain-free
because through our anguish, no matter how great it is, we can learn
to be more compassionate and aware, to become healthier as
individuals and as a society.
I
write these words from having had the personal experience of a
challenging life and of being a psychologist. There have been times
when I have thought that my life has been filled with more hardship
than the average person's. Yet as I reflect on my life I become
grateful for what each challenge has taught me.
I
believe there is more depth to my spiritual life and my happiness
because of the obstacles I have faced. Each decade has seemed to
bring a new challenge. As a young boy I had a pronounced speech
impediment and was teased a great deal. Throughout my adolescence I
had a serious spinal disease and as a result spent many months of
each year in a body cast, in traction, in a hospital bed or
bedridden at home. Complicating this experience was my increasing
emotional pain and isolation, which was largely unrecognized by
others.
By
my late adolescence and throughout my early adulthood I was heavily
addicted to a variety of drugs. In my thirties I developed an
autoimmune disease that resulted in the loss of most of my hearing.
In my forties I faced potentially life-threatening prostate problems
and underwent surgery. Like many others, I have also had the
challenges that come from relationships, including divorce, being
raised in an alcoholic home, and dealing with the inevitable loss
that comes from the death of people we love.
Although
there is certainly a part of me that would like to not have such
challenges, from each one I learned and grew spiritually. In this
book I will share this process of healing with you. For now it
suffices for you to know that I write this book from both having
been in the trenches and tragic times and having helped others rise
out of them. I know that healing is possible because of the life I
have lived and from those I have had the honor of helping heal from
their own personal pains
End
of Excerpt
About
the Author
Lee Jampolsky, Ph.D., is an internationally known
psychologist, a popular speaker, and an author. He coined the
phrase "peace psychology" when he began research on the
subject twenty years ago. Dr. Jampolsky has lectured on the
subject throughout the world and has served as a consultant to
numerous organizations, universities, political leaders, and
hospitals.
