Fiore - Awaken Your Strongest Self

BREAK FREE OF STRESS, INNER CONFLICT, AND SELF-SABOTAGE

NEIL FIORE, Ph.D.

Copyright 2007 by Neil Fiore. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN 978-0-07-175958-8
MHID 0-07-175958-1

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This book is dedicated to my parents, Esther and Anthony Fiore, who gave me a sense of innate worth and the loving acceptance to develop my own Strongest Self. And also to my therapy and coaching clients, who have helped me refine this process over the last twenty years.

I COULD NOT HAVE WRITTEN this book without the encouragement of my therapy and coaching clients, who motivated me to put the Awaken Your Strongest Self process down in writing. I am enormously grateful to clients and friends who were willing to have the stories of their longing for a more joyful and fulfilling life shared with the readers of this book.

I especially want to thank Lauren Cox-Pursley, Melanie Rigney, and my niece Debra Sutton for their editorial help, guidance, and recommendations; Barbara Van Diest for her wise coaching; my sister Nancy Hershbain for her support and encouragement; and the many readers of early drafts, especially Pam Rudd and Jane Sterzlinger. I am indebted to Dr. Chris Duis for her consultations on neuropsychology and to Drs. Sonia Lippke and Ralf Schwarzer of the Free University of Berlin for their excellent research on the stages of health behavior change and for their personal support. My agents, Sheree Bykofsky and Janet Rosen, deserve a special acknowledgment for their sage advice and instantaneous responses, as does Natasha Graf, my editor at McGraw-Hill, whose generous enthusiasm for this book has kept me inspired throughout.

The development of the concepts, processes, and exercises in this book has been influenced directly and indirectly by my larger support system of innumerable teachers, writers, and researchers, as well as from feedback from my clients and workshop participants. Among the primary resources that deserve acknowledgment are Roberto Assagioli, Sylvia Boorstein, Joan Borysenko, Joseph Campbell, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the Dalai Lama, Ram Dass, Teilhard de Chardin, Anthony de Mello, Wayne Dyer, Milton H. Erickson, Matthew Fox, Erich Fromm, Tim Gallwey, Thich Nhat Hanh, Kabir Edmund Helminski, Jean Houston, Carl Jung, Louise Kaplan, Jack Kornfield, Harold Kushner, George Leonard, Stephen Levine, Donald Meichenbaum, Dan Millman, Wayne Muller, Michael Murphy, Robert Ornstein, Wendy Palmer, James Pennebaker, Fritz Perls, H. W. L. Poonja, David Richo, John C. Robinson, Ernest Rossi, Martin Seligman, Herbert and David Spiegel, Charles Spielberger, Richard Suinn, D. T. Suzuki, Shunryu Suzuki, Leslie Temple-Thurston, John and Helen Watkins, Alan Watts, John Welwood, Ken Wilber, and Colin Wilson.

An Important Note: The identities of all patients and clients described in the examples presented in this book have been altered to protect their confidentiality.

A person needs new experiences.... Without change something sleeps inside us and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.

Duke Leto in Frank Herberts Dune

THIRTY YEARS AGO I underwent nine months of weekly chemotherapy to treat cancer that the doctor told me had spread to my lung. That experience awakened in me a new appreciation for life that didnt leave time or energy for worrying about the small stuff of life. If you, like me, have ever narrowly escaped a tragedy and had a wake-up call, you probably discovered, as I did, a profound gratitude for just being alive and a deep appreciation for your loved ones. But have you ever wondered who the wake-up call is for and whos been asleep? I believe that its for your Strongest Selfthe you whos been waiting to unlock the full potential of your new, human brain.

This books four-step program will show you how to awaken your Strongest Self without needing a dangerous wake-up call. Youll learn how to use the uniquely human part of your new brainwhich neuroscientists label the executive organizing functions of the prefrontal cortex, located in the center of the fore-headto live more fully, joyfully, and effectively.

Over the last two million years, the hominid skull has expanded to accommodate the monitoring, planning, socializing, and leadership functions of our modern prefrontal cortex. The skulls of apes, chimpanzees,