May The Healing Begin

May The Healing Begin In this, what is called the "soldier" book, Walter Doyle Staples invites his readers to experience life as fully conscious, fully-functioning individuals. Dr. Staples presents powerful and life-changing ideas and concepts on how to transcend our ego-based state of consciousness to achieve peace, happiness, and inner joy. His book explains in detail how our attachment to our lower self or ego can only create dysfunction and suffering in our lives, resulting in emotions ranging from anger, guilt, jealousy, depression, and despair. He suggests we need to awaken to a new consciousness and experience a new beginning. Indeed, the book focuses on only drug-free and clinically-proven ways to manage and control our thoughts, mood and feelings. The book describes the three components of the cure for low self-esteem, stress, anxiety and depression, the first being Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), with the critical thinking it involves (an example of Western, left-brain analytical thinking); the second is practical spirituality (an example of Eastern, right-brain mystical thinking), and its self-image psychology component; and the third is mindfulness meditation (an inner body, contemplative approach designed to minimize and manage our internal thought processes in order to calm the mind), and how it connects us to the serenity and solace of our Source. CBT by itself has proven to reduce stress and anxiety, increase self-esteem, and overcome moderate to severe depression as effectively as anti-depressant drugs in numerous clinical studies conducted over the past 40 years. As well, practical spirituality and mindfulness meditation on their own have proven effective in helping people deal with these very same as well as many other related afflictions. Each of these approaches has an important role to play in helping sufferers move from resignation to revelation, from superficiality to substance. The book represents one journey, but it opens the door to a thousand joys!