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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Enlightening and divine, November 24, 2006
This review is from: If You Hear the Message Three Times, Listen (Paperback)
If You Hear the Message is a highly readable and inspiring account of Patricia Heller's transformation from living with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) to becoming a spiritual and self aware healer. She takes us on her journey from curing her `incurable' illness to investigating healing hands, past life regression, shamanism, manifesting greatness, automatic writing, heart centred transformation, her inner gypsy woman and many more. The book is actually an excellent survey of the healing modalities in America over the past fifteen years.
The title refers to what she calls "listening to the universe". When you hear the same message three times, it is time to pay attention. She gives several examples of when she heard messages three times before she got it. In a heart centred transformation centre in the Arizona desert she heard the teacher tell someone to move her energy to her heart and `let it go'. This didn't make any sense to her at all. The second time she was in awe standing over the Grand Canyon. She turned to her teacher and told her how it was so beautiful it hurt her heart. She was told to `let it go.' She looked at him as if he was an alien. Let go of what, she thought? During a full blown attack of CFS at the centre she was again told to `let it go' when the penny finally dropped. She realized that holding onto her anger was making her physically sick. She had to hear it three times before she was able to really hear it and `get it'. That was her last attack of CFS.
In case you are thinking there isn't a modality Patricia doesn't like, rest assured that she approaches them intelligently and with a healthy scepticism that is often absent in books of this type. The road she is on is long and winding, full of insights, pot holes, blind alleys and magnificent vistas. Patricia takes us on the tour with excitement, passion and humility, without trying to make us into converts or convince us that she has found `the path' to enlightenment. In a graceful and humble way, she describes what she found on her own quest for enlightenment and if there is a piece you can take away from it then she has done her job.
Readers are rewarded by Patricia's insights and warmth; she does an excellent job of writing clearly and extracting the meaning out her experiences. I marveled at her curiosity and capacity to absorb and integrate so many different teachings and to draw important lessons from them that have relevance for a general audience. This book is especially exciting for those who are or who are thinking of going on a similar journey of self discovery.
As a coach I am constantly reminded that it is not the events that shape our lives so much as how we respond to them that is what makes us who we are. This book demonstrates how a woman with spunk, determination, courage, curiosity, a great sense of humour overcame a seemingly hopeless situation and the death of her husband to arrive in a place of wisdom, compassion and happiness. You owe it to yourself to read this book!
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing! Inspiring and Heart-warming., December 18, 2005
This review is from: If You Hear the Message Three Times, Listen (Paperback)
It was a moving book and it really helped me to read something written by a person who started out a "non-believer", someone who wasn't spiritual at all. Step by step she discovered how to heart-center, how to meditate, how to heal with her hands... It made me feel hopeful that although I still feel like an utter beginner, that I too can become more psychic and centered, and connected to Source.
I bought the book at a store and it had a "Signed Copy" sticker on it. I thought nothing of it, until I began reading. I now feel so blessed to have a copy signed by the person who shared such an intimate part of her life with the world. Thank you, Patricia.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Too fluffy for me..., February 11, 2007
This review is from: If You Hear the Message Three Times, Listen (Paperback)
I bought this book when I was having a really bad week with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I have been exploring different modes of spirituality for 40 years, and I'm hardly a complete curmudgeon on the subject of mind-body connections. I did, after all, buy the book expecting a spiritual approach. But after trudging through the first two-thirds of it, I quickly skimmed the rest, and threw the book down in disgust.
Ms. Heller's idea of a cure seems to be attending several luxury spa spiritual healing conventions a year, and supplementing this with readings from a variety of spiritualists. If you want to know how to buy spiritual healing, this is the book for you. You may also pick up a few tips on what to wear while living the spiritual life - Heller's designer-nametag-dropping is incredibly irritating. To quote just one: "I wandered around my eight acres in my nightgown, coat, and beloved 'Ugg' boots..."
On a more serious note, Heller does not acknowledge any physical causes for CFS. (For comparision, my own opinion is that CFS probably has some physical causes, but it is definitely aggravated by stress and pent-up negative emotions.) Heller's belief is that we attract negativity to us because of the negativity inside us. (Either that, or our guides and guardian angels are trying to teach us a lesson.)
Obviously, emotions like hate and anxiety do make people sick all the time, but I would warn potential readers that in this book, that's the only explanation you're going to get. You will get Tarot, auras, automatic writing and finding your animal totem. You will NOT get stretching, diet, environmental stresses, etc. (At least, I don't think you will. As I said, I skimmed the last third of the book, and there is no index or bibliography...)
I gave this book two stars only because many of Heller's stories about getting past her emotional "stuck spots" are interesting and helped me to some insights about my own emotional blind spots. Bottom line, this may be an interesting book on one woman's spiritual journey, but it's of very little use to most CFS sufferers.
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