Myss - Anatomy of the spirit : the seven stages of power and healing

I am grateful to so many people who have been part of writing this book and supporting my work. To my agent, Ned Leavitt, I extend my deepest gratitude for leading the way into this project and for being a person of such fine integrity and skill. To my editor, Leslie Meredith, I will be forever grateful for so very muchher endless optimism, her refined talent, her warm and caring spirit. But mostly I will always hold a special place for her in my heart because of her capacity to understand the vision I needed to give birth to in this book, especially since I redirected the manuscript in midstream, and she was able to embrace the idea. I admire her scholarly nature enormously and her genuine dedication to bringing the work of her authors to the public, my own included. My thanks also to Karin Wood, assistant editor, for her many kind words and her tremendous efficiency. I am also deeply indebted to Janet Biehl for her extraordinary copyediting skills. And to my personal editor, Dorothy Mills, I extend a heart full of love and gratitude, both for her professional support and for her friendship. Dorothy has become a resource of strength and optimism for me, and I will forever be grateful to fate for introducing the two of us so many years ago.

C. Norman Shealy, M.D., Ph.D., has been my research colleague for more than ten years. He is also one of my dearest friends, a confidant, a counselor, a guide. I do not believe I would be doing this work today if he had not become a part of my life. Thanks are not enough for what I feel for all he has given to me. To his wonderful wife, Mary-Charlotte, who has become a dear friend and an integral part of our work, I extend my warmest appreciation. And to Roberta Howard, our Virgo-skilled secretary, my sincere gratitude for all that you do to assist our work.

My life is filled with friends I both love and admire and whose lives and work have been a constant source of inspiration for me. Christiane Northrup, M.D., a gifted physician and author, asked me to work with her five years ago. Since that time we have continued to learn together, and I have found in her a source of great humor and energy, as well as dedication to holistic medicine.

Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., has touched my heart deeply with her constant words of support for my work, a sentiment that is mutual. Mona Lisa Schulz, M.D., Ph.D., a visionary and brilliant woman, has given me personal courage when I needed it most and taught me so much about the path of healing. Ron Roth, a gifted healer, and Paul Fundson, a dear friend, have been the backbone of my spiritual support, and I will always appreciate their presence in my life, especially during the darker times, which were many these last two years.

I met Clarissa Pinkola Ests, Ph.D., shortly before beginning this book. I have found in her a lifetime friend, and I am ever so thankful for her wit, wisdom, genius, and depth of spirit, as well as the bond of faith we share in our spiritual heritage. And to Tami Simon, the founder of Sounds True Recording, I extend an endless stream of gratitude and love for her support of my work, for her friendship, for her honorable spirit, and for her generous nature.

I also wish to extend my gratitude to Elmer Green, Ph.D., the father of the biofeedback movement, who has served as a faculty adviser during this project. Dr. Green is world renowned for his contributions to the human consciousness field, and I consider it an honor to have his support all these many years for my work.

Nancy W. Bartlett, a computer wizard, came to my rescue continually during the creation of this book. I thank her from the bottom of my heart for her many trips to my home and for her patience with my lack of skill and my inability to learn the simplest of computer instructions. And I thank the wonderful team at Dannys Deli for supplying me with my daily allotment of cappuccinowith no cinnamon. Youll never know how much your warmth and hospitality helped to make me feel at home again in the neighborhood I grew up in.

To M. A. Bjorkman, Rhea Baskin, Carol Simmons, Kathalin Walker, and the rest of the team of The Conference Works, all my love. I have found in your organization a quality of care that has touched me more than I can say. Working with you is more than a pleasure, not just because of your genuine concern for my well-being but because of your honor and integrity as business associates. You are a blessing in my life.

And to so many of my dear friends, who have only and always been treasures in my life, treasures I have especially appreciated during the writing of this book, I am forever grateful: Eileen Kee, Susie Marco, Kathy Musker, Reverend Suzanne Fageol, David Luce, Jim Garrison, Penny Tompkins, Lynn Bell, Carole Dean, Carol Hasler, Ron Roth, Paul Fundsen, Tom Williams, Peter Brey, Kaare Sorenson, Kevin Todeshi, John May, Sabine Kurjo, Siska Pothoff, Judy Buttner, Paula Daleo, Fred Matzer, DeLacy Sarantos, and the many others who make my life a rich tapestry of friendship.

Also, I extend an endless stream of gratitude to the many people who support my work by attending my workshops and lectures. No words can communicate the appreciation I feel toward all of you, who have played such a significant role in helping me to refine my work. Without your enthusiasm and your feedback, I would not have had the inspiration to continue to develop and teach this material.

And to the many people I have neglected during these past two years due to a schedule that has kept me from answering letters and phone calls, my deepest apologies.

Mostly, however, I want to acknowledge the love and support that I have always received from my family, especially my dear mother. I consider my mother to be one of Gods direct blessings in my life. Her care, love, strength of character, bottomless heart, and limitless energy have helped me not only to write this book but to heal myself. She has always opened her heart to my ideas, no matter how radical they were. I recall with such warmth the many times we would discuss new ideas about God I had as a graduate student, sometimes into the middle of the night. Never did she discourage my pursuit of truth. And her role model as a woman who knows the intimate power of faith inspires me still. My brother Edward, his wife, Amy, and their children, Rachel, Sarah, and Eddie Jr., fill my life with so much joy as do my nieces Angela and Allison, my nephew Joey, my sister-in-law, Mary Pat, and my brother Joseph. These wonderful people have helped me through very difficult times and knowing all of you are a forever part of my life makes me grateful to be alive. All of you are home to me.

And to my dear cousins, whom I love so very much, I thank you for always supporting and encouraging me, even though I realize that half the time you had no idea what I was doing. It just felt good to know you believed in me unconditionally. And so to Marilyn and Mitch, Chrissy and Ritchie, Pam and Andy, Wanda, Mitchie, Father Len, Aunt Virginia, to all the rest, and to my wonderful Aunt Gen who recently left us for heaven, all my love. I am so grateful we have each other.

I know that Im not the first to announce that this is a most exciting time to be alive. We are living in a time unlike any that have come before. We are living between two paradigms of power, or two paradigms of realityinternal and external, energetic and physical. We are restructuring ourselves and our relationships to personal and spiritual authority. Inevitably, that restructuring will reshape every aspect of our world culture in accordance with the sacred truth All Is One.

The fact that our global society is now saturated with crises that touch every nation, every organ, and every system in our global body has symbolic significance. Nuclear poisoning, the shortage of fresh water, environmental concerns, and the thinning of the ozone layer are just the first of many issues that are no longer national in scope but global. At the macrocosmic level the threat of global disasters is forcing us to create a politics of unity, much as an individual faced with a serious illness must unite all the powers of his body and his life in order to survive. We have reached the end of the divide and conquer system of power, and that system is being replaced by an attempt to unite the powers of the different nations in order to survive and move safely into the next millennium. Our interconnected information age is the symbol of a global consciousness.