Jim Curtis - The Stimulati Experience: 9 Skills for Getting Past Pain, Setbacks, and Trauma to Ignite Health and Happiness

This book is intended as a reference volume only, not as a medical manual.

The information given here is designed to help you make informed decisions about your health. It is not intended as a substitute for any treatment that may have been prescribed by your doctor. If you suspect that you have a medical problem, we urge you to seek competent medical help.

Mention of specific companies, organizations, or authorities in this book does not imply endorsement by the author or publisher, nor does mention of specific companies, organizations, or authorities imply that they endorse this book, its author, or the publisher.

Internet addresses and telephone numbers given in this book were accurate at the time it went to press.

2017 by Jim Curtis

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any other information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1923, 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, Inc., renewed 1951, by Robert Frost. Reprinted with the permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

Illustration by Karen Morgenbesser

Note: Page numbers listed below refer to the print edition of this book.
Photographs: pages xxvii, 3, 12, 171, 173: Jim Curtis; page 34: Alan Lees Chinese Kung-Fu, Wu-Su Association; page 37: Kadampa Meditation Center NYC; page 46: Melvin Brighton-Miller; page 75: Healing Dimensions ACC; page 90: Timur Civan; page 127: Geraldine Agren; page 157: personal collection of Dr. Rosenfield

Book design by Amy King

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the publisher.

ISBN-13: 9781623368173 hardcover
ISBN-13: 9781623368180 e-book

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I dedicate this book to all the wonderfully terrible obstacles in life, and all those striving to move forward in spite of them.

Writing this book has been the next step in my healing. It has opened something in meI can feel it in my chest. It has connected me again to emotion and put a larger crack in the wall.

I am so grateful for this opportunity and to all of those who have supported me in the process. Thank you to all the Stimulati who contributed to my life and these pages. Your lessons are invaluable.

To my family: Mom, Dad, Pam, Kevin, Kim, Mike, Jess (my young guru), Jared, Jenna, and Joshua, thank you for being my cheerleaders and my support, and more importantly, thank you for your unwavering love. I love you to the moon.

To my son, Aidan, you are quite simply, the man. This book is for you. And Odie, off the bedgood boy.

I would also like to thank my guide in writing this book, Pam Liflander (you are amazing), my agent Carol Mann, and Adam Mitchell for all of their great advice. And to my partners at Rodale, particularly Marisa Vigilante, thank you for believing in me.

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sounds the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost

Ive been a full-time student and teacher of spirituality and personal growth for 12 years. One beautiful benefit of having such a consistent spiritual practice is that Ive shifted the way I think about, recognize, and deal with something that often keeps us in a headlock: fear. Now, fear can be pretty straightforward and helpfulfor example, it helps to keep us from doing reckless things, like darting into the street. But theres a whole other kind of fear thats very layered and lives deep within our psyche: Its a belief system formed from stories of our past. Weve held on to these fearful beliefs for decades, and we project them onto the present and the future.

Recognizing and releasing fear is something I do daily. As a student and teacher of the metaphysical text A Course in Miracles, I know that when I catch myself detouring into fear, I can choose again. And I do it every single day. Im in no way immune to fear! Ive talked about my fears in my books, on both my blog and YouTube channel, and even on national TV with Oprah and Dr. Oz.

In the past 12 years, Ive learned something really powerful about myself, and I strongly feel that it will resonate with you, too. I believe that on some level, were addicted to our fearswe dont really want to live without them. Ive also learned that if we want to find true freedom and happiness, we have to release our resistance to these fears. Refusing to acknowledge fear only gives it more power. Freedom from fear becomes available to us when we accept that fear is normal, and that were not weak or weird for feeling it. When you recognize your fears, you can look at them from a place of love.

My friend Jim Curtis calls this more positive, loving relationship with fear creating vulnerability, and I was thrilled to read about this idea in the beautiful book youre holding in your hands right now. In many ways, Jim and I have traveled the same path. We have both experienced major struggles and overcome despair by finding our authentic selves. The work he has done with his Stimulati (the people and places that have influenced him), which he shares on these pages, reminds me of my relationship with John of God. In fact, its because of John of God that Jim and I met.

Jim and I share a very dear friend, Jenny. Jenny would talk to me about Jim all the time, and I felt like I was getting to know him, even though wed never met. Jennys stories about Jim were always in the context of the wonderful, loving, fearless experiences he would take on in his quest to find his authentic self. Of course, the Universe has a way of bringing together people who need to meet, and it did just that. John of God, an extraordinary and world-renowned spiritual healer, was holding a healing session for hundreds of people at the Omega Center in Rhinebeck, New York. It was incredibly peaceful. Everyone there was dressed in pure white, meeting each other and working in solitude, meditating and feeling his spiritual healing power.