The given self is behind every fight for the right of each of us to be who we are and is the way to personal and spiritual liberation. The Given Self is about taking back what we've lost: our selves, our hearts, our humanity.
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Mari has produced a masterpiece. I like this book so much because it speaks to my heart. It gives me words to understand myself and my own spiritual journey. -- Professor Monte M. Page, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Psychology, University of Nebraska
Mari presents her honest process in search for the authentic self - The Given Self. She accurately demonstrates that we cannot embrace an impersonal spirituality unless we integrate the personal self; without this piece,invalidation occurs which is a common trap for spiritual seekers. This book will help many learn to trust their authenticity - the path home to our Given Self. --Nouk Sanchez & Tomas Vieira, Take Me to Truth; Undoing the Ego. Nouk Sanchez & Tomas Vieira, Take Me to Truth; Undoing the Ego.
Mari Perron's book The Given Self came at just the right time--when I needed it. This is a book that allows you to move towards wholeness through your humanity, propelling an opening to what is divine about each of us. I have always known deep down that the only way towards unity is through who we truly are--through each of our contributions to being human. By embracing what is fragile The Given Self opens the door to greater insight. This is a highly personal yet universal story about how we all can get there. How we cannot surgically remove any part of our psyches, our hearts or our beings. It is profound and loving--a book that can make you laugh and cry simultaneously. It is a book that lifts you up when the chips are down--simply by finding who you were always meant to be. -- Mary Kathryn Love, Author of Grace Book II of The Grace Trilogy
Mari presents her honest process in search for the authentic self - The Given Self. She accurately demonstrates that we cannot embrace an impersonal spirituality unless we integrate the personal self; without this piece,invalidation occurs which is a common trap for spiritual seekers. This book will help many learn to trust their authenticity - the path home to our Given Self. --Nouk Sanchez & Tomas Vieira, Take Me to Truth; Undoing the Ego. Nouk Sanchez & Tomas Vieira, Take Me to Truth; Undoing the Ego.
Mari Perron's book The Given Self came at just the right time--when I needed it. This is a book that allows you to move towards wholeness through your humanity, propelling an opening to what is divine about each of us. I have always known deep down that the only way towards unity is through who we truly are--through each of our contributions to being human. By embracing what is fragile The Given Self opens the door to greater insight. This is a highly personal yet universal story about how we all can get there. How we cannot surgically remove any part of our psyches, our hearts or our beings. It is profound and loving--a book that can make you laugh and cry simultaneously. It is a book that lifts you up when the chips are down--simply by finding who you were always meant to be. -- Mary Kathryn Love, Author of Grace Book II of The Grace Trilogy
About the Author
Mari Perron entered the spiritual scene as the scribe of A Course of Love, (three books written in the voice and tradition of A Course in Miracles).
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A friend and her eleven-year-old daughter were over the other day. Allie, the daughter, was one of two students from Minnesota who wrote a letter to President Obama (as part of a school project) that was so good it was sent to him and even garnered her a reply. I asked her if she might want to be a writer. She said, "Yes."
Later she asked me what I write about. I'm a new grandmother, so I told her that in my new book I write a fair bit about my grandson Henry, and squirrels, and being who we are. "That's my main topic," I told her, "being who we are." I couldn't tell from her silence, or the look on her face, whether she is still too young to find that an issue or not. Her mom said, "I'm always telling her that. Just be who you are." It's got to be a universal mother message: Be who you are and everything will be fine.
When do those other messages start? Those that tell us we need to be other than who we are? It's hard to say. Whatever those messages are for each of us, getting beyond them, and back to our most natural, or given selves, is part of my passion as a writer and a person, a passion that feels as if it springs from my soul and needs to find expression. It seems as if just about all of us struggle to walk this path back to our most authentic selves. I've appreciated (that word "appreciated" doesn't feel nearly strong enough) so many authors who've helped me see my path more clearly, but the ones I love the most are those who've made me feel as if we're in it together, companions on the way.
It's in that spirit that I introduce myself and invite you to browse my books.
Having served as the writer for the books of A Course of Love, I've been blessed with correspondence from readers all over the world. Many of these readers have become friends. It's one of the graces of the experience: new relationships. There's a lot of talk within the Course of Love books on unity and relationship - that both/and experience of oneness and union "with," but sometimes it feels as if it's more comfortable, and just plain human, to talk of friendship. I'm big on simple humanity, which, of course, isn't so simple.
For those of you unfamiliar with them, you might want to know that A Course of Love came to me by way of an inner voice. I know this makes some people jittery. I get that. Then when I add that the inner voice is the voice of Jesus, I can understand if you might think that's too much and this isn't for you. All I can really say about that is that you might want to browse inside the books. If they speak to you, you'll know it. If they don't, they don't.
I was a Course in Miracles reader long before A Course of Love came to me, and I think ACIM and other heart-opening experiences prepared me to accept it. I forget sometimes that there are those who are as unfamiliar with A Course in Miracles as they are with A Course of Love, so I'll just tell you a little about my experience with it.
I read about ACIM in a newspaper article that did not name it as a book that came in the voice of Jesus. When I started reading it, I still didn't realize that it was, and when I became aware of it I didn't believe it. But by then I wasn't about to put the book down because I felt everything in it was Truth with a capital T. I felt this mainly because I was hearing the truth about "me." It was as if someone was able to look inside my head and see everything that went on in there. After a while I started to figure than maybe it really was Jesus. Who else could do that? Then the same thing happened with A Course of Love -- as if Jesus was peering into -- and describing, the very heart of me.
The way of thinking that was described so well that I could see it as my own is called "insanity" in both courses, and after a while you get to agreeing with that assessment and to letting yourself be led toward sanity.
Some call A Course of Love a sequel to ACIM; some deny it. I don't know that it really matters. All I can tell you on that is that I was asked to receive a new course in miracles that would be for the heart what the original is for the mind.
This is a really different orientation and it has an alarming affect. It really changes people, and you know how hard it is to really change. It's all about letting our hearts guide us back to our own true selves, and being our true selves in the world here and now.
A Course of Love was first published in 2001 (I know, I know...I get it all the time...why is it still such a secret?), and it wasn't until almost 2010 that I came out with another book, this one, The Given Self, written in my own voice. It's not a telling of the story of how ACOL came to me, but there's a bit of that, and a lot about how the experience affected me.
The long and the short of it is that what we're seeking isn't about mind alone or heart alone but joining them so that we're not caught in internal conflict all the time.
A Course in Miracles may prepare some readers for A Course of Love. Or it may be that some people need a course that is for their mind or intellect -- that's the way they learn, and some need a way that is for the heart -- basically an unlearning and a greater reliance on intuition and feelings and receptivity.
Receptivity is what I've decided is the key. It's as if A Course of Love gets into you, opens you up, and makes you more receptive. That receptivity is thoroughly you, unique to you, and what you gain comes from that. You gain insight into who you are and what your gifts are and you start to long to find expression for them.
The yearning for God (by whatever name) and for our own selves has always been pretty much the same thing, and you start to feel that and really follow that yearning, that longing, to know yourself and God.
I know I'm biased, but I feel that this course suits this time, as all prophetic messages do. We need the wisdom of our hearts now, and the world needs us to find expression for that wisdom.
I hope you'll join me on this great journey of discovery back to our true -- our given selves -- and forward to bringing your gifts to a world in need of them. ~ Mari
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Given Self,
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This review is from: The Given Self (Paperback)
Mari Perron is a mystic for the rest of us. Living a working class life in West St. Paul she has raised her children and has an intimate hand in raising her grandchild, Henry. She and her husband Donny struggle to make ends meet and face the same kind of crises we all face as our parents age and die and our children leave the nest and return. We think of mystics as people who seek solitude, and Mari does; but she has to find her solitude in midst of life. For those who have read A Course of Love and its accompanying volumes, The Given Self reveals what it is like to be the receiver of divine inspiration and then continue on, finding your own voice. But best of all in The Given Self, Mari shares in her clear and beautiful prose, a journey many of us are also on - the personal journey to find who we really are. This is a must read. Bob Veitch
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Given Self,
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This review is from: The Given Self (Paperback)
In The Given Self, Mari Perron tells me that I'm okay ... that I'm good just the way I am ... warts and all. In fact she assures me that I simply wouldn't be me without my warts. And whether I choose to let them fall away, or choose to keep them ... it's all good; and exactly what I need to see me safely on my journey home to a place of loving, meaningful relationship with all. As she describes it "... not a place of higher consciousness devoid of self, but a place of self imbued with higher consciousness." And so it is for every single one of us.
She writes of acceptance of all of ourselves ... not a passive helpless 'that's just me'; but a keen observation and understanding of what we feel most deeply; along with a flowing openness to the endless possibilities of choice we hold. Her writing is a breath of fresh air in a rule-based world too often raucously trumpeting "Just do that and you'll be perfect! Just do this and you'll be loved and accepted!" The Given Self frees us to quit denying our pain, and from the two extremes of striving for perfection or just giving up, Rather it invites us to stand still and look calmly into this moment to see and receive the beauty of who we already are - right here, right now ... no comparisons needed. Only then can we give, first to ourselves and then to a wounded waiting world, that precious gift that only we can give - the gift of our unique form of loving - our Given Self.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a fresh voice for living authentically,
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This review is from: The Given Self (Paperback)
Mari Perron shares a beautifully written and genuine account of living from her authentic core. She is the real deal and she isn't afraid to share very personal stories to illustrate her points. I was particularly inspired by this passage. "The idea of the given self is simple. It's the idea that you were born to be who you are.. You came into the world with a given nature. If you can live with it, and by it, you can make your peace with yourself, your creator, and your world. Maybe not perfect peace - but peace. It's an idea that says there is a unique purpose-fulness to your life, and it will only be found in your being precisely who yyou are and no one else."
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