Legacy of the Heart: The Spiritual Advantage of a Painful Childhood (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Every one of us felt some pain as a child..." (more)
Key Phrases: habitual mind, judging mind, family sorrow, Thomas Merton, Kisa Gotami, Maha Gosananda (more...)

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 Description

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.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Fireside (February 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671797840
• ISBN-13: 978-0671797843
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #57,221 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 45 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 (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Amazon Verified Purchase

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..."

33 of 34 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

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.

30 of 31 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

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!