Legacy of the Heart: The Spiritual Advantages of a Painful Childhood [Paperback]

Wayne Muller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1993

A gentle, entirely new approach to uncovering a source of spiritual strength hidden in the scars of childhood. Wayne Muller brings together the teachings of many different religions and spiritual traditions in a healing program that will appeal to readers of The Road Less Traveled and Homecoming.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this gentle book, therapist Muller explains that the private place to which a traumatized child flees remains the adult's spiritual home.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone; First Edition edition (February 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671797840
• ISBN-13: 978-0671797843
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #67,593 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #83 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health > Abuse & Self Defense > Sexual Abuse
  • #87 in Books > Parenting & Relationships > Family Relationships > Dysfunctional Relationships
  • #88 in Books > Self-Help > Abuse

More About the Author

Wayne Muller has been a therapist, minister, community advocate, consultant, public speaker, and bestselling author of Legacy of the Heart and Sabbath, among others. A graduate of Harvard Divinity School, Wayne spent the last thirty-five years serving thee abused, bereft, sick, and oppressed. He founded Bread for the Journey, a network of ordinary people who volunteer in neighborhood philanthropy. Wayne listens primarily for what is beautiful, strong, and true within us, to learn to find nourishment as our lives unfold in new, unexpected directions. He was Senior Scholar at the Fetzer Institute, Extended Faculty at the Institute for Noetic Sciences, and has received several awards for his work with those in need.

He currently works with select individuals as a private spiritual director and mentor.

You can contact Wayne at www.waynemuller.com

"Wayne Muller gently moved me beyond the questions of Why? and Why me?, helped me step over the barriers of guilt and shame and encouraged me to look through my wounds as through a window that opens to a new view of who I am and where I am called to go." - Henri Nouwen, "The Wounded Healer"

"Wayne Muller gives us the license, the encouragement to take that single, mindful breath which puts our busy lives in perspective and helps restore our souls." - Fred Rogers, of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Overflowing with wisdom and inspiration!, September 2, 2000

By 

Marion "[e-mail]" (Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Legacy of the Heart: The Spiritual Advantages of a Painful Childhood (Paperback)

I once heard Oprah say that we need to nurture ourselves the way we might nurture and care for our best friend. . . and that really blew me away as I have always been very hard on myself. This book gave me the tools to begin to learn how to do just that. Part of me will always be the frightened little girl that grew up in a houseful of alcoholics, trying to make everything that was topsy-turvy seem somehow normal, but this book has helped me to let go of and learn from that painful part of my past.

I've practically underlined the whole book, it contains so much wisdom and excellent advice! I want to highly recommend it to anyone who has suffered a painful childhood. It fills you with hope and gives you the courage to look at the garbage from your past, toss it out and get on with your life.

To quote part of the Publisher's Weekly blurb on the back of the book, "Like a lullaby, this gentle book soothes the spirit, reaching out to the inner child and reassuring the wounded adult..."

46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely best book of its kind--start here, July 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Legacy of the Heart: The Spiritual Advantages of a Painful Childhood (Paperback)

As a survivor of a very dysfunctional and abusive family and as someone who suffers from depression as a result, I can say that Legacy of the Heart is without doubt the single best book I have ever read on the subject of childhood trauma and abuse. It is vast and open, appropriate for so many different wounds we confront as adults. More importantly for me (since I am a professor and an "intellectual"), this is not the vapid New Age, psychobabble that is so often dished out. This is substantive, thoughtful, thorough, articulate. If you like Thomas Moore's books, you will love Wayne Muller! If I were to give only one book to a suffering friend, it would be this one.

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Life-saving, Life-altering and Life-affirming, December 7, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Legacy of the Heart: The Spiritual Advantages of a Painful Childhood (Paperback)

Wayne Muller's gentle approach to the reader's taking ownership of his pain without allowing victimhood to take ownership of the reader is the most valuable non-fiction I ever have read. Muller takes the reader through spriritual practices that promote growth from experience of ever the most hurtful sort. He uses ample and varied examples to show how we repeatedly shoot ourselves in the foot. Better yet, he helps change thinking patterns to avoid those life-laming foot-wounds.

Everyone has some sort of pain from childhood. Some pain can cut more deeply and last longer than others. Muller validates all pain and all the scars it leaves. But, he takes the reader through the pain, without denying it, to a plain of coping with it. And, he helps the reader climb a mountain from which he can view the pain that helped shape but no longer defines the reader.

Muller's book is a gift to every person who reads it. The author combines eastern, Indian and Christian beliefs and practices to produce life-saving, life-altering and life-affirming practices and phiolsophy.

Thank you, Wayne Muller!