Book review: "Awake & Aware - Top Priority: Self"

Review of the book "Awake & Aware - Top Priority: Self" by Cathy LaCounte
http://www.amazon.com/Awake-Aware-Top-Priority-Self/dp/1442196351/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245554471&sr=1-1

The title says much about what's in this book, but I'd say one main thrust of this book is Truth = Healing.

Many people in the enlightenment movement only want to look at the light and fluffy side of things. Doing so keeps us from moving forward. In order to heal ourselves, other incarnations, our ancestors and our world, we must be courageous enough to shine our Light of Truth into some rather dark places. Whether it's in our world or within ourselves, we must be willing to look into the dark side of things, into our "shadow" side in order heal our world demons and our own personal demons. The "light" side of things is getting plenty of attention with the spiritual people. This book does that also, but it also does something that many spiritual / self-help books don't. It shines the Light of Truth into some rather dark places.

Our "shadow" is the side of us that we don't let see the light of day. Period. We don't need to cast judgment, that's just calling it like it is. Sometimes the shadow is less-than-desirable personality characteristics no matter how you look at it, but oftentimes, that "shadow" is actually our strong points or at least a link to our strengths. We've allowed our culture at any and all levels, be it religion, geopolitical, and others, or even the Earth culture as a whole, to demonize parts of ourselves. There's so much talk from spiritualists about "integration" and "wholeness" and yet many won't look at these things. How can we be whole when there's one side of things we won't look at. What are we talking about when we say "integrate?" Integrate what? We cannot fully integrate and become whole if we aren't willing to look at and embrace the darkness. We may not care to camp out there, but by avoiding it we are essentially pitching a tent there. When going through hell, it's best to keep going. Personally, it'd like to move through that once and for all and I'm willing to face the dark to do so.

Those that aren't courageous enough to do so will sit back and scratch their heads and wonder why we, both individually and as the collective earth-based human race, keep repeating the same patterns over and over. We wonder why we haven't even healed from solar system catastrophes from 11 - 14, 000 years ago. It's the underlying wounds and lies that keep making our records skip, that keep us repeating the same patterns, that keep us camping out in hell.

This book looks at areas to heal from personal to global. It looks at perspectives getting closer to the truth of things at personal levels to global to solar system to galactic to cosmic. So much has been kept from us. It's time we sought the Truth then got down to the business of Healing.

This is a refreshing, real, and yes, definitely a "big picture" view of the human condition that shows the interconnection between many facets of our lives. It's exactly this kind of perspective that will turn our personal and world situation around to something better. Anyone who SERIOUSLY wants to heal themselves and this world has got to very strongly consider this material.

Thank you Brewster, I will look into this book! Sounds very interesting indeed. I am a true believer of "balance". The natural world speaks volumns to us about balance, but yet mankind just can't get a grip on this.
Hopefully it is readable friendly? I will get back to you on this.

This is a very awake and aware Joe Schmoe who sees the big picture, expresses it in plain English, is unpretentious, using common sense, yet no punches pulled with humor on top. I'd say it's very readable friendly. I've been looking for a book like this that gives the big picture interconnectedness with plenty of direction for more detail for those that want to be self-empowered, take the bull by the horns and get down to the business of healing and enlightenment. I talk about these kind of topics with people and they want me to tell them all that I've learned in many years and yet that's really not possible. No one can do that. Everyone needs to get on their own quest but this kind of book gives the overall picture with plenty of pointers to as much detail as the reader would like to pursue. It talks about personal / mundane level stuff, all the way out to left field or what the conventional people would see as left field. So many times I've wanted a book like this to put in many people's hands and let them loose to go as far down the rabbit hole as they dare.