Promise of the Soul: Identifying and Healing Your Spiritual Agreements [Hardcover]

Dennis Kenny (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 18, 2002

"Promise of the Soul is a spiritual workbook. Through simple, accessible exercises and reflections, Kenny offers us practical and proven methods that have enabled thousands of his counseling clients to relinquish their separation from God s love and live from the heart.... Step by step, Kenny s approach shows us how we can release ourselves from self-imposed limitations and lifelong feelings of inadequacy to live a more soul-infused life. It is impossible to read this book without finding yourself somewhere in its pages and setting yourself free. It is a real opportunity." --From the Foreword by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., author of Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather s Blessings

"An excellent resource for creating a new covenant that will enable you to expand your belief system and your life." --Bernie Siegel, M.D., author of Love, Medicine and Miracles and Prescriptions for Living

"This book, like the topic itself, is beautiful and enchanting. This spiritual light is steeped in the great traditions, yet its presentation is original, creative, and brilliant. An essential key to making peace with God is identifying and healing your spiritual covenant and realizing the promise of your soul." --Harold Bloomfield, M.D., author of Making Peace with God

"Promise of the Soul is an exceptional guide to examining the spiritual promises or covenants we make with the sacred. Whether we are Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, or of any other faith, this book transcends all paths and beliefs to help each of us identify which sacred promises are limiting and which are beneficial to our spiritual unfolding and inherent well-being." --Angeles Arrien, Ph.D., author of The Four-Fold Way and Signs of Life

"By bringing to light our basic beliefs about how life works, Dennis Kenny gives us room to breathe, to change, to be liberated from prisons of our own making. As a skilled chaplain and teacher, he shows us simple ways to become larger, happier people all that God really wants us to be. This book might just set you free." --Wayne Muller, author of Sabbath and How, Then, Shall We Live?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Kenny's book is based on an unarguable premise and illustrated by case studies drawn from his clinical psychology practice: people have self-limiting beliefs rooted in childhood experience. From there the hospital chaplain and founding director of the California Pacific Medical Center's Institute for Health and Healing builds a system of three personality types, each of which bases choices and actions on an implicit and conditional bargain ("covenant") with God, a bargain that may not fit an adult as well as it does the child who first makes it. The novice author provides exercises to help the psychologically curious identify their "covenant style" in an effort to make that style conscious and then to change it by adding other characteristics and behaviors. None of this is really new. "Covenant" is reminiscent of the "agreement" popularized in Don Miguel Ruiz's successful book The Four Agreements, which offers another system for behavior guidance and change. And typology is certainly as old as the enneagram or ayurveda, the ancient Indian system of human-constitutional types. The material that is new recent studies yielding interesting evidence for mind-body connections and implications for health is cursorily treated in one chapter. At best, Kenny's work can be helpful in reframing information for self-analysis; at worst, it's one good idea drawn out to make a book.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The director of the California Pacific Medical Center's Institute for Health & Healing in San Francisco, Kenny calls the "promise of the soul" that potential we all have to live in the fullest and most satisfying way possible. He holds that, consciously or unconsciously, we have made spiritual agreements (or "covenants") with a higher power, or with life itself, which reflect our assumptions about our lives. He suggests that new covenants can help people promote their own happiness and overall health. Kenny shares firsthand accounts from his 25 years of experience as a caregiver of patients who were spiritually and physically healed, often through a renewed sense of community. His approach shows readers how to release themselves from self-imposed limitations and lifelong feelings of inadequacy through simple, accessible exercises and reflections. The ease of these exercises, plus the quality and support of the approach, makes this work highly recommended for all public library self-help collections. It is also recommended for academic libraries and medical professionals seeking to advance healing in the body-mind-spirit connection. Leroy Hommerding, Fort Myers Beach P.L. Dist., FL
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (January 18, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471418331
• ISBN-13: 978-0471418337
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,015,562 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Promise of the Soul, January 31, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Promise of the Soul: Identifying and Healing Your Spiritual Agreements (Hardcover)

Don't miss this enriching, soul-filled book. Dennis Kenny, a leading expert on spiritual-body connection, identifies that every individual has a secret agreement with God. In these pages you'll learn how to use your agreement and integrate it into a positive, healthy balance. Promise of the Soul offers spiritual truths that will help anyone seeking a change or a closer connection to God.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully healing self help book, December 18, 2007

By 

Alice Sparks (Eugene OR) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Promise of the Soul: Identifying and Healing Your Spiritual Agreements (Hardcover)

I am really enjoying this book. It's not a book that you just read and put away. I guess you could, yet, it wouldn't be as helpful. It's an interactive book. You actually work in it. It explains so much about our patterns and why we have developed them. It really makes a lot of sense, and clears up why I react the way I do to certain situations as well as why I react to certain situations with my children in the way that I do, and have all their lives. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to heal, and have a better understanding of themselves.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Promise of the Soul, March 12, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Promise of the Soul: Identifying and Healing Your Spiritual Agreements (Hardcover)

This special book showed me how I can heal my convenants with God in order to have a more positive, fulfilling life. I found the quizzes and exercises to be extremely helpful -- they really showed me how to put my new knowledge to work.