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Summary: an "AH-HA" book for me
Review: Absolutely incredible. I am so appreciative for this book that explained some aspects of myself that years of counseling failed to adequately address.
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Summary: Absolutely best book of its kind--start here
Review: As a survivor of a very dysfunctional and abusive family and as someone who suffers from depression as a result, I can say that Legacy of the Heart is without doubt the single best book I have ever read on the subject of childhood trauma and abuse. It is vast and open, appropriate for so many different wounds we confront as adults. More importantly for me (since I am a professor and an "intellectual"), this is not the vapid New Age, psychobabble that is so often dished out. This is substantive, thoughtful, thorough, articulate. If you like Thomas Moore's books, you will love Wayne Muller! If I were to give only one book to a suffering friend, it would be this one.
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Summary: Insightful, comforting and full of hope!
Review: As the product of a dysfunctional childhood with trauma, abuse and alcoholism. Legacy of the Heart was not only insightful, but soothing, comforting, and offered hope! Although I have had many accomplishments and successes in my life, I have suffered deep depression and conflicts in my relationships because of the way I thought about myself and others due to my early family experiences. I was diagnosed with mental illness, attempted suicide and thought at times I was doomed to a life of emotional pain. Although I had never stopped believing in God, I never truly felt a spiritual connection with Him. In fact, I didn't feel a true connection to anyone, even my spouse or closest friends. I felt so alone..... Outwardly, I am a competent, intelligent and talented person. I make friends easily and people seem to like me ... Yet inside I have felt like an emotional mess and eventually my emotional/psychological problems play out and cause ruptures in my career and relationships ....furthering my belief that I am destined to have an unhappy life. I have taken anti-depressants, herbs & vitamins, and tried acupuncture. I have read numberous self-help books and been to several therapists. I have spent time in hospitalized psychiatric care. Yes, these things have helped me, but I kept struggling with the same issues and problems over and over. I thought I was "Different"... my case was so horrible, so complex, so confusing, no one could ever really understand the real me. Therapy seemed often to increase my pain, in trying to understand the "why" and uncover the source of every painful thing that ever happened and explain or blame every emotion on childhood ... I wasn't solving the problems of today. I wasn't learning how to cope. Muller address these very issue with such great insight and compassion! I read the entire book in two evenings, but plan on going back and re-reading and practicing the meditations. So many times in reading this I felt a revelation into my heart -- that some one understood me, my pain, and was offering hope for healing! There are no big miracles in this book, no promises that you will never feel pain again, but it is an incredibly sensitive look inside the behaviors we learn in childhood. I hope to find a therapist who will use this book with me to continue my healing. And I plan on buying a copy for each of my siblings as well. This book, along with Feeling Good by David Burns are a great place to start making permenant changes and heal the suffering. I can't recommend it highly enough. Thank-you Wayne Muller. Blessings to all children of God in your journey to healing.
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Summary: Just what I've been looking for
Review: Exactly what I needed to underscore my counseling practice. I have purchased several copies for clients and recommended the book to helping professionals and clergy. Pulling from a variety of spiritual traditions, Wayne Muller states his thoughts clearly and tenderly, making this teaching accessible to everyone. Read this book and "become the change you want to see in the world" (Gandhi).
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Summary: Just what I've been looking for
Review: Exactly what I needed to underscore my counseling practice. I have purchased several copies for clients and recommended the book to helping professionals and clergy. Pulling from a variety of spiritual traditions, Wayne Muller states his thoughts clearly and tenderly, making this teaching accessible to everyone. Read this book and "become the change you want to see in the world" (Gandhi).
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Summary: Gives New Age Spiritualism a Bad Name.................
Review: I have never given one star for any book I have read but this book is so void of any authentic treatment of those who have suffered a painful childhood that I must give it one star. First, Muller gives examples of people who suffer from PTSD - simplistic explanations of how they have used some of his techniques and bravely conquered their problems. In one example, a young man who was molested as a child by his mother and who for years has run from intimate relations with woman, is told to sit closer and closer to a woman in his therapy group. He is scared and shaking more and more each time he moves closer - until he gets really close and she holds his hand. It is at this moment, where the man announces that he feels better and more relaxed. Muller attributes this to his method of "moving closer to the pain instead of running from it." I attribute it to dissociation on the part of the client! When Muller talks about sexual abuse and other abuses, it's not as simple as he makes it out to be. His book does a disservice to those needing real help from a painful past. The other problem with the book is that the first chapter is on Forgiveness. While some survivors of childhood abuse choose to do this work, others don't. Whether one chooses this or not, however is not the issue- the issue is that it just doesn't make sense for forgiveness to be the FIRST chapter, regardless.
I am a supporter of much of the curent new age thinking and consider myself to be very spiritual - but there is a time and a place for dealing directly with abuse and then for letting it go. Muller seems to feel you can bypass dealing with the painful feelings of abuse and go directly to forgiveness and letting go of the drama of a painful past. I highly recommend that if you are a survivor of a painful past, that you first do some healing work with a therapist who specializes in the type of abuse you've endured (and don't settle for someone who claims they've worked with a few people with that problem...). Survivors of a painful past deserve to be healed first, feel their feelings and anger and all else and then and ONLY IF they want to, should they forgive. It certainly is not required of anyone. It's too bad about this book because lots of surviors who already don't feel it's okay to feel angry at the abuser will cling to this book as yet another resource that supports them in not feeling their anger when that is truly the only thing that will help them heal and move forward. I recommend Alice Miller's work for working through a painful childhood. Heal first, then decide how you will reconcile what happened to you later. You can't do it the other way around, for if you do, you're only cheating yourself of an authentic and happy life.
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Summary: Overflowing with wisdom and inspiration!
Review: I once heard Oprah say that we need to nurture ourselves the way we might nurture and care for our best friend. . . and that really blew me away as I have always been very hard on myself. This book gave me the tools to begin to learn how to do just that. Part of me will always be the frightened little girl that grew up in a houseful of alcoholics, trying to make everything that was topsy-turvy seem somehow normal, but this book has helped me to let go of and learn from that painful part of my past. I've practically underlined the whole book, it contains so much wisdom and excellent advice! I want to highly recommend it to anyone who has suffered a painful childhood. It fills you with hope and gives you the courage to look at the garbage from your past, toss it out and get on with your life. To quote part of the Publisher's Weekly blurb on the back of the book, "Like a lullaby, this gentle book soothes the spirit, reaching out to the inner child and reassuring the wounded adult..."
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Summary: A must read for everyone
Review: I read this book because of the reviews posted by amazon.com. The Richmond reader hit it perfectly. This is a sensitive book for sensitive people, which all of us are or should be. To become fully human and to connect with all other humans, you must read this book. It is one to keep and savor.
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Summary: A testimony of transformation and liberation !
Review: I was listening to the audio version of this book in my car and all of a sudden I had to stop in a corner just to start crying for over one hour. A sense of relieve and healing changed completely my life as I allow to let go of the sorrows of my childhood. I never knew that was ever possible. But It is. This book gave me the key. I hope It gives you what It granted me.
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Summary: This book is a gift to the soul
Review: In this book the author outlines twelve distinct manifestations of childhood sorrow; lingering wounds that express themselves as points of tension between our emotional history and our spiritual unfolding. Each chapter begins by examining the shape of a particular childhood wound, and reveals how the scar from that wound affects our emotional and spiritual life.It includes teachings from Christian, Budhist, Hebrew, Sufi, Hindu, and Native American traditions that describe these same points of tensions as doorways of the spirit
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