"By the time you finish this book, there will be nothing holding you back." —from the Introduction
Most people have a vision for their lives that they're not pursuing, half-heartedly pursuing, or pursuing with all their might yet somehow falling short. This vision can be modest or grand. It may involve breaking free of a destructive habit or finding a truly healthy relationship. It might have to do with making a real difference in the world or helping to lead a company to extraordinary success. In The One Thing Holding You Back, Raphael Cushnir, a leading voice in the world of personal and professional development, reveals that whenever people aren't living their dreams it's because they're not yet willing and able to feel specific emotions related to those dreams. Once we access and understand these emotions, our dreams can and will come true.
Cushnir asserts that mere emotional awareness, commonly referred to as emotional intelligence, is not enough. For maximum benefit we must directly and consistently connect with our emotions. In particular, we need to connect with the emotions we routinely avoid, resist, or attempt to dismiss. It's these emotions that possess the key to our greatest goals. And learning to connect with them is another rarely taught but essential skill.
The One Thing Holding You Back provides real solutions that can be implemented immediately and without external support and includes true stories of people who have put Cushnir's process to work and transformed their lives. Delivering a step-by-step program in accessible language, this landmark book will turn the obstacles in front of us into tremendous opportunities for achieving the life we always wanted.
Raphael Cushnir is a leading voice in the world of emotional connection and present moment awareness. He has shared his unique approach to personal and professional development with millions of readers in O, The Oprah Magazine, Beliefnet, Spirituality and Health, Psychology Today, and The Huffington Post. He is the author of five books, lectures worldwide, and is a faculty member of the Esalen Institute, the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, and the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, In addition, he coaches individuals and teams at Fortune 100 companies, governments, religious organizations, and leading non-profits.
Cushnir's first book, Unconditional Bliss: Finding Happiness in the Face of Hardship (Quest), was nominated for the year 2000 Books for a Better Life Award. It introduced a simple yet profound process called Living the Questions. You can learn more about the book and the process here.
Cushnir's second book, Setting Your Heart on Fire: Seven Invitations to Liberate Your Life (Broadway Books/Random House), was published in 2003 and is currently used as a major teaching text at spiritual centers around the U.S.. The book's Seven Invitations comprise an invigorating, step-by-step process for reopening and reawakening even the most wounded of hearts. You can learn more the book and the invitations here.
In 2005, Chronicle Books released How Now: 100 Ways to Celebrate the Present Moment. This gift book, with 20 full-color photographs and a highly accessible version of his core principles, quickly became Cushnir's bestseller. A companion card deck soon followed. How Now was chosen as one of the Best Spiritual Books of 2005 by Spirituality and Health Magazine. You can learn more about the book and deck here.
In January 2009, HarperOne published Cushnir's book, The One Thing Holding You Back: Unleashing the Power of Emotional Connection. This project brings together all of Cushnir's insights, principles, and practices regarding the realm of emotion and it's key role in every form of well being and success. It introduces the "2 X 2 Process" and its encapsulation as "emotional surfing." You can learn more about the book and emotional surfing here.
In July, 2009, Chronicle Books published Cushnir's latest book, Surfing Your Inner Sea: Essential Lessons for Lasting Serenity. (Note from author: If you wanted the best book with which to start exploring my work - it's this one!)
Cushnir grew up in Northridge, a San Fernando Valley suburb. He entered college at the age of sixteen, attending the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, followed by Reed College and UCLA, where he graduated at the age of nineteen. After working his way through school as a teacher and a storyteller, Cushnir redirected his energies as an activist for the environment and human rights. He devised innovative media campaigns that included such celebrities as Madonna, Pearl Jam, Demi Moore, and Michael J. Fox.
His passion for filmmaking led to a decade-long stint in Hollywood. He wrote, directed, and produced a Showtime movie, Sexual Healing, starring Helen Hunt, Anthony Edwards, and Jason Alexander. The film was nominated for two Cable Ace awards and won Grand Prize at the Houston Film Festival. Designed by Cushnir as a not-for-profit venture, it raised over $30,000 for the Minority AIDS Project.
Cushnir has also written scripts for the Geffen Company, Warner Brothers, and Columbia Pictures. In addition, his articles have appeared in Mother Jones and LA Weekly, and his children's book, The Secret Spinner, was published in 1985. With the advent of multimedia, Cushnir co-designed the $5 million techno-spiritual odyssey, Obsidian, which Gamezilla magazine called "the very best game in any genre."
In 1996, both his career and his marriage fell apart. "It was a classic dark night of the soul," he remembers. "Many people experience something similar in their own lives. The particulars are always different but the essential experience is the same - a deep, depressing, gut-wrenching pain. In my case, everything I thought I knew about life went completely out the window."
Then, luckily, one of Cushnir's mentors convinced him to embrace the pain instead of turn away from it. He suggested that, in fact, this was a perfect opportunity to "wake up."
Cushnir took his mentor's advice and ran with it. Over a decade later he's waking up still, one moment at a time. Helping others do the same has become his new life mission.
This review is from: The One Thing Holding You Back: Unleashing the Power of Emotional Connection (Hardcover)
It's taken me some time to grasp the simplicity of what Raphael Cushnir is sharing. This "technique" is not about bringing up old emotions-- as another reviewer stated-- but more aptly about finally allowing the current emotion, and there's always a current (pun intended), to be experienced. And past issues emerge in the current moment, so as you meet each scary emotion, you are finally allowing the past its life--which includes its decline and death. I have, since reading his work and seeing him live, permitted myself to face the whorling/crashing/sledgehammering of emotion that at times takes me over and paralyzes me. I let it cycle through and then I open my eyes and it's like I have moved through the eery eye of the storm and survived. How clear the air is, how crisp the colors are around me.
My take-away is that I am able to expand what I am capable of experiencing so that I don't live by avoiding what brings up those emotions, emotions that I am too scared to really experience. Hello, life obligations that I feel incapable of meeting? Hello every creative technique of avoidance and procrastination that time and money will afford, hello guilt and self-blame. I have known them well.
I am in touch, in a sentient way, with the borders of my self. It's a kick if you are someone who is used to hiding out from your own self. And I say this as someone who has read alot, workshopped a lot, and searched alot for what would deliver me from my demons. I have learned immensely from all the modalities I've explored, but Raphael has helped to clarify and lovingly simplify. I finally sense that I can meet my demons (scary feelings) and sit with them. And they're not demons at all, just perhaps life as it was meant to be. Maybe the point of life is to know the contours of the human experience, and to do as little harm in that as possible--just a thought I play with. And it's all just one moment at a time.
We have been taught what to do ie, "feel your emotions" but few have taught us in detail just "how" to do that. This book is just that primer.
Thanks Raphael.
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This review is from: The One Thing Holding You Back: Unleashing the Power of Emotional Connection (Hardcover)
This is just an amazing book. It gets to the heart of the matter, guiding you through the finer arts of "getting in touch" with the emotions you are trying to bury. Who doesn't have those? Through this process of "surfing those emotions", you come out the other side, much more alive, able to feel and connect with others. The things that were holding you back before seem to vanish.
All the ways we've been taught in school, or the ways we have lived in families who didn't want to hear what we had to say....those experiences teach us to squelch our feelings and "overcome" our negative emotions by bucking up and ignoring them. Instead, Raphael Cushnir, leads us through ways to get in touch with anything that brings up an emotion, and to actually try and feel whatever that is, until is softens. Through this process, you begin to see that emotions are your friend and that by feeling them, you actually release them. This begins to bring you clarity in life, and anything is possible. I think this is one of his best books.
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This review is from: The One Thing Holding You Back: Unleashing the Power of Emotional Connection (Hardcover)
I could tell just from the title that this book would be powerful for me! Raphael Cushnir has the ability to describe what to do in terms that are easy to understand and implement. I have read "The Secret" and many other good books but this one has definitley given me the "how to" break through what was still keeping me stuck. How liberating! If you are unhappy, overweight, financially strapped or just at your wits' end, GET THIS BOOK!!
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