Product Description
We seek unlimited peace, love and joy in an uncertain world where suffering is inevitable. Because we manage our pain poorly, we get into trouble. The wisdom of the ages, taught by the world's diverse religious traditions, offers a solution to this dilemma by pointing out the connection between pain management and the cultivation of spiritual qualities. When we develop a spiritual practice, we learn how to transform our suffering into spiritual power.Dr. Shapiro describes a self-help method of ten steps that propel spiritual evolution. The ten steps teach us how to expand our healing power, improve our pain management skills, and cultivate spiritual qualities. The central premise is that life, through a series of painful lessons, teaches us that the peace, love, and joy we seek in the outer world can and must ultimately be found within.Dr. Shapiro elaborates twelve spiritual methods derived from the world's great religions. These methods help us unlock healing and spiritual powers inherent in the body. Detailed instructions explain how these methods help us cultivate peace, love, joy, strength, and courage in response to any pain of the body, mind, or soul. These qualities are the jewels of this life. They are healers. They help us eliminate or endure any painful condition of body, mind, or soul. They are more powerful than any barrier or challenge we may face.We encounter trouble no matter which route we take, but the way offered here is the path of least resistance, the way through our pain to peace, power, and strength. As we move forward through the steps, we find ourselves living the richest possible life, a journey where our spirit is in charge and we are ready for anything!
About the Author
Dr. Phil Shapiro has had a 30-year career as a clinician, teacher, and administrator in public psychiatry. Work has taken him from the streets to the boardroom, from the inner city to the Alaska bush, from holistic to addiction medicine, and from the head office of a state mental health division to 100-year-old state hospital wards.In 1974, he worked in one of the first interdisciplinary holistic clinics in New York City. In l983, he became the Director of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities for the State of Alaska. Following that, he was the Chief Medical Officer at Oregon State Hospital and then Clinical Director of Forensic Psychiatry at Western State Hospital. He has been a surveyor, reviewing quality of care in hospitals and clinics throughout the country. Dr. Shapiro received his medical degree in l969 from the University of Illinois Medical School, where he was a member of the medical honorary society, Alpha Omega Alpha. He trained in psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Downstate and Kings County Hospital in New York City and received a Masters Degree in Public Health from Columbia University. Dr. Shapiro has been on the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University and is currently an Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Oregon Health and Sciences University.Dr. Shapiro lives in Portland, Oregon happily married to Sharon Whitney, author and playwright. They have two sons and five grandchildren. He works for a community mental health center where his understanding of suffering and the magnificence of the healing power continues to evolve.