Brian Luke Seaward - Stand Like Mountain, Flow Like Water: Reflections on Stress and Human Spirituality Revised and Expanded Tenth Anniversary Edition

Reaping insights from many pathsfrom esoteric wisdom, science, and clinical practiceBrian Luke Seawards comprehensive scholarship leads us on a transformational journey of self-discovery and self-development. Inspiring and practical, far-reaching and simple, full of compassion, love, and humor, and sprinkled with delightful stories and examples, this beautiful book demonstrates how we can simultaneously remain grounded in our everyday life while attaining fluidity and freedom. Stand Like Mountain, Flow Like Water can put us on the path of spirit in action and has the potential to help us transform stress into spirituality.

Patricia Norris, Ph.D.
coauthor of Why Me? Harnessing the Power of the Human Spirit

At this time in history we are experiencing another step in the evolution of our understanding of how the Psyche participates in health and illness and are now able to glean the original soul-full meaning of the word. Dr. Seaward is a pioneer, standing on the frontier and pointing us to a future that includes spirituality in our health and illness. I heartily recommend this marvelous book.

L. Robert Keck, Ph.D.
author of Sacred Eyes and Sacred Quest

If youve been searching for a spiritual primer with heart, youve just found it. Brian Luke Seawards reflections and stories resonate with ancient and contemporary wisdom. They shine with love and encouragement to help us all discover more of our own truths. This is a special book for these special times.

Susan Skog
author of Embracing Our Essence

Brian Luke Seaward has a great talent for making a connection between stress and its effects on human spirituality that I never before considered. The understanding he creates in this book is so universal, it makes you wonder how one could ever question the impact of the spiritual dimension on well-being. The positive energy that emanates from this book comes from the wonderful blend of his humor, sensitivity, and articulate flow. As you read Stand Like Mountain, Flow Like Water, you feel as though your hands are right on the pulse of the human spirit.

Donna Sullivan
coordinator of wellness, ConocoPhillips

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Seaward, Brian Luke.

Stand like mountain, flow like water : reflections on stress and human spirituality / Brian Luke Seaward. 10th anniversary ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7573-0547-4 (trade paper)

ISBN-10: 0-7573-0547-4 (trade paper)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7573-9897-1 (ePub)

ISBN-10: 0-7573-9897-9 (ePub)

1. Spiritual life. 2. Stress (Psychology)Religious aspects. I. Title.

BL624.S423 2007

204'.4dc22

2006037037

1997, 2007 Brian Luke Seaward

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

HCI, its logos and marks are trademarks of Health Communications, Inc.

Publisher: Health Communications, Inc.

3201 S.W. 15th Street

Deerfield Beach, FL 33442-8190

R-07-14

Cover photo 1996 Bonnie Montgomery
Cover and inside book design by Lawna Patterson Oldfield

OTHER BOOKS BY BRIAN LUKE SEAWARD

Quiet Mind, Fearless Heart: The Taoist Approach to Human Spirituality

Achieving the Mind-Body-Spirit Connection

Hot Stones and Funny Bones: Teens Helping Teens Cope with Stress and Anger

The Art of Calm: Relaxation Through the Five Senses

Stressed Is Desserts Spelled Backward: Rising Above

Table for Two, Please

Health of the Human Spirit

Health and Wellness Journal Workbook, 2nd Edition

Managing Stress: A Creative Journal, 3rd Edition

Managing Stress: Principles and Strategies for Health and Well-Being, 5th Edition

AUDIO (GUIDED VISUALIZATION) CDS
BY BRIAN LUKE SEAWARD

A Change of Heart

Sweet Surrender

A Wing & a Prayer

INSTRUMENTAL CDS

One Quiet Night (Eversound Music)

Stand Like Mountain, Flow Like Water (Eversound Music)

For the Divine Universe,
from which all good things come

have both lived and worked at the edge of life for many years. What I have learned there is that stress does not seem to be a question of overbearing bosses, ill-behaved children, the breakdown of relationships, or even significant loss. After twenty years of working with people with cancer, I have come to realize how much stress is caused by the sad fact that many of us believe in one way and live in quite another. Our stress may be more a question of personal integrity than time pressure: a function of the distance between our authentic values and how we live our lives.

Perhaps this explains why many people in the face of what one might imagine is the most overwhelming stress, life-threatening illness, often notice their stress level has actually diminished and they feel more joy. Certainly their disease causes them concern, worry, and often fear, yet they report that their lives are less stressful now than when they were well. Such people seem to have found through their suffering a profound sense of what is most important to them, and the courage to bring their lives into alignment with it for the first time. Rather than using their strength to endure situations and relationships that betray their deepest values, they have used their strength to make needed change.

In the midst of her treatment, a woman with breast cancer told me how surprised she was to notice this change in her stress level:

For the first time I am sailing my boat by my own star. My God, have I sailed it by everything else! And allowed everyone else to take a turn at the tiller. All of my life Ive headed against myself, against my own direction. But now I have a deep sense of my way, and I am loyal to it. This is my boat and it was made to sail in this direction, by this star. You ask why I seem so much more peaceful now? Well, I am living all in one piece.

Each one of us has such a star. It is called the soul. Unfortunately, it is often easier to see and follow it after it has grown dark.

Perhaps the root cause of stress lies not in what so many books tell us but in the loss of a sense of our soul. If so, all of the ways in which we have attempted to ease stress cannot heal it at the deepest level. Stress heals only through the recognition that we cannot betray our spiritual nature without paying a great price. It is not that we have a soul but that we are a soul.

There are many practices that can awaken us and deepen our sense of the soul, among them prayer, meditation, chanting, fasting, and ritual. One of the most surprising of these is the experience of loss. I have learned much about the power of the soul from people who have lost almost everything they once thought was important.

Some years ago, one of my patients, a woman with cancer, told me a dream. She was a self-made woman of considerable means. One night in the midst of her rigorous chemotherapy, she dreamed that she was watching a woman build a mountain. Sweating and straining, the woman put rock on top of rock, climbing as she went, working night and day until she had constructed a majestic snow-capped peak and stood on its very top.