24 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Enlightenment ... erratic ..., September 28, 2004
This review is from: Your Road Map to Lifelong Happiness: A Guide to the Life You Want (Keyes, Jr, Ken) (Hardcover)
I only bought this book because I was curious to find out what happened to Ken at the end of his life. I immediately notice on the back flip cover that he was married to Lydia, much younger than Penny. In his autobiography "Discovering the Secrets of Happiness" Ken wrote on p.167 that "I felt that Penny's refusal to share adult films with me" was already the seed for future divorce.
In this book, as far as I can tell, he wrote only one paragraph about his 3rd ex-wife Penny on first page of ch.21 p.225: "Life still sends lots of 'hurricanes' to test me. My wife with whom I wanted to live the rest of my life decided she had another agenda. A training I had set up to teach the Living Love System fell apart. People I thought I could count on let me down. my personal curriculum at the University of Life is frequently enriched."
In his first Appendix subtitled "Inventory of Childhood Survival Strategies" he almost got the same conclusion Werner Erhard of EST and that I redefined as 'fall from heaven story' (see 'all my review' for examples and please find your own -- to find what's clipping your own happiness wing)
Although this is one of his fattest book, it's an easy read. He has some interesting & enlightened claims:
p.66 (again part of my #)- "Sex is a crucial area that is often complicated by a parent's false-self adaptations...
One out of every three women in the US have experienced some form of sexual abuse before age 18...
For childhood survival, we had to perfect our performance of the strategic, false-selves required by our caregivers...every five-year-old deserves an Oscar. We had to learn the 'right' lines provided by our caretakers. We had to convince everyone (including ourselves) as we automatically responded to life situations using our false-selves."
p.67 "Many of us, in varying degrees, have lost our aliveness and spontaneity. We have become depressed, unhappy, and desperate. We can become alive again and free from depression and anxiety when our self-esteem is based on the 'authenticity' and 'wholeness' of our true-self feelings-and not on the 'performance' of false-self adaptations that helped us survive childhood. When we reclaim the anaesthetized true-self parts we had to disown, WE FEEL WHOLE. We experience that we are ENOUGH. It is interesting to note that the enlightened state of consciousness is often described as transpersonal, timeless, and being aware of what's here and now."
His definition of childhood abuses from the list on p. 87 include parent(s) that - physically leave you - is so busy that you get little quality time together - don't model their own emotions for you - don't affirm that it is okay for to have strong emotions... - use you to take care of their own unmet needs or desires - use you to take care of their failing marriage - hide and deny their shameful secrets to the outside world, and you have to protect these hidden issues in order to keep the family balance - do not give you their time, attention, and direction - act shamelessly with physical violence, incest, verbal abuse, etc.
On both 2nd page of his introduction & p.85 Ken quoted "50% of female murders in the US are by husbands or ex-husbands!" and he wrote
"The MOST DANGEROUS place for any child IS THE AMERICAN FAMILY...every year in the US, about 2,000 children are killed yearly by their parents - and millions are psychologically crippled."
To be fair to the whole human world, I will take 'the' out of "in the US" out and replace that with simply "in US" to be closer to the truth.
On p.91 as example of LOVE-BASED PARENTING Ken only had one example of a lighted candle & small statue on a low table and a 1-year old moving toward the table 15-20 times and her mom rushing to lovingly pick him up and say something like "you could get burn by the candle". Ken was impressed by the mom's patience & skill.
That is a mistake, what the mom did was still based on fear of the child burning his hand, thus not unconditional love. I would either shift the candle & statue away or gently let my son touch the flame of the candle.
The latter is what I chose to do with my 1+year old son with the fire on the oven, his automatic reflex is to recoil his hand from the heat and I said 'hot, hot, hot'. So my son experienced and understood from then on, what 'hot' is, and at the same time he didn't get burn. That is growing with understanding & gentle guidance and is a very simple example of unconditional love.
The problem is that Ken is trying to 'do' unconditional love while I am coming from unconditional love or 'being'. That's why he's 'erratic' in happiness while I can be 'consistent' most of the time. A by-product of this is, he wasn't fully aware of his own 'fall from heaven story' as I do.
Ken in his autobiography "Discovering the Secrets of Happiness" didn't say anything negative about his childhood or parents and there was a lack of authenticity about it. In this present last book before he passed away on Dec. 1995, Ken only has one example beginning p. 177 subtitled LOVE IS BLIND about his mom & his 2nd wife Bonita as "My mother was a dramatic, fiery redhead who hurt me by either criticizing or becoming sullen and withdrawn to coerce me doing what she wanted".
He wrote only one story or a whole chapter 10 on Lydia. He was able to shift his perception of his wife Lydia as inconsiderate to considerate. That is a very good example of Jerry Jampolsky's 'Love is letting go of fear' or I would say "where fear exist, unconditional love can't exist".
The synchronicity in that story is that it had to do with an apple tree, just like in the garden of Eden.
Although I gave this book 5-star, there is simply NO ROAD MAP TO HAPPINESS since happiness can't be found out there, like unconditional LOVE it can only come FROM WITHIN every ONE.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
hope by the lighthouse, April 6, 2011
This review is from: Your Road Map to Lifelong Happiness: A Guide to the Life You Want (Keyes, Jr, Ken) (Hardcover)
I found the book when I was in great difficulties because one of my family members was suffering serious mental illness. Although she was getting better and better with the help of her psychiatrists, I was still frustrated in how I CAN HELP HER FULLY RECOVER after she was discharged from hospital.
Past experience has told me that doctors or psychiatrists mainly take their responsibilities in hospital with no more than providing medicaions. The fact is that medications can never guarantee all the time if the person with mentel illness does not know what caused the illness and how to escape. When I finished reading the book YOUR ROAD MAP TO LIFELONG HAPPINESS, I believed and still belive that I have found my lighthouse with hope.I've got the way how to help my relative heal.
The author is very skillful in telling us about how our brains evolved with some limitations (he called quirks)and how these limitations work to make people sick or trapped in some way in life. The author also points out that our brains have developed to such a level that people can learn how to deal with the limitations.They can make a good use of their relatively highly developed brains by looking after themselves like a well-informed parent protecting and calming down their children when they found themselves in some separate and negative emotional situiation.As long as people master the approach, they can keep themselves unified and happy for ever..
This book is actually a very practical psychological book. I have read some other books in this field but this book has really given me a map to how to find happiness both physically and spiritually. With the newly learned knowledge I have helped my relative step on the journey to recover much more effectively. The book has also saved my family all. I am very grateful to the author Ken Keyes,JR.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No