This book is a clarion call for an expanded vision of human possibilities. The 50 essays that make up Oaths Beyond Ego apply transpersonal thinking to individual growth, psychotherapy, meditation, dreams, psychedelics, science, ethics, philosophy, ecology and service. The result is an integrated and comprehensive overview of the many dimensions of human experience.

One of Graham Greene’s characters famously said, “I suffer, therefore I am,” suggesting that pain is an inescapable, and perhaps incurable, part of the human condition. But must this be so? Ellen Macfarland argues otherwise in The Sacred Beyond Trauma. Through the use of mythology, stories from film and fiction, real-life examples, and her personal history, Macfarland shows that healing trauma is indeed possible, using rich resources near at hand, in nature. The book explores major symbols of healing nature that can provide an impetus for personal transformation. One of the case studies profiles Monty Roberts, a well-known horse trainer who overcame significant childhood abuse by working with horses and eventually fostering some forty children alongside his own biological family. The key, says Macfarland, is using these and other natural symbols such as yin yang to balance the tension between trauma and numinosity (sacredness, transcendence), resulting in the creation of a new way of being in the world. Understanding this and the book’s other nature-based symbols can turn the distressed mind into a fertile field of spiritual awareness, empowerment, and lifelong growth.

Drawing inspiration and knowledge from a range of cultures and religions, Awakening Power synthesizes ancient and modern knowledge in a format that is easy to read and understand. Offering clear explanations and simple steps for daily life, this book will guide you towards a liberating transformation of the self.

Through his simple yet profound message in The Uncommon Path, author Mick Quinn offers a compelling guide to uncovering and growing beyond concealed conditioning on the road to awakening our full potential. Clearly exposing the kaleidoscope of metaphysical distractions orchestrated by concealed conditioning that keep us well clear of an authentic path, Quinn directly points us to our next level of individual and cultural development.

A dive into the less-known and undesirable side-effects of meditation and mindfulness. Researcher Anna Lutkajtis investigates why these negative ramifications of meditation and mindfulness, which are well-known in spiritual and religious traditions, have been ignored in contemporary secular contexts, such as Western psychology. Lutkajtis' research reveals that while meditation is commonly portrayed as a practice that is overwhelmingly positive, a growing number of research studies and anecdotal reports suggest that meditation can also have negative effects. Some meditators believe that these adverse effects are a normal part of the contemplative path and a welcome sign of progress. For others, such effects are completely unexpected and can be psychologically harmful.In religious traditions like Buddhism, difficulties associated with meditation are acknowledged and are usually viewed as milestones on the path to enlightenment or the result of an unbalanced practice. In such traditional contexts, meditation teachers are equipped to deal with adverse effects if and when they arise. However, in the modern West, meditation adverse effects have been overlooked, under-researched, and generally misunderstood. Given the current popularity of meditation, Lutkajtis argues that it is important to understand why meditation adverse effects have been ignored in contemporary secular settings.

If every person is unique, why do coaches use the same worn-out methods for everyone? Employees seeking performance improvement require a coaching approach tailored to meet their specific needs and preferences. In Adaptive Coaching, Second Edition, executive development experts Terry Bacon and Laurie Voss draw from over 2,000 case studies of Fortune 500 employees to show how people prefer to be coached — and the powerful results coaches can achieve by being adaptable. This essential handbook offers the key tools and techniques that coaches require to identify clients’ real needs, negotiate expectations, adapt to different working styles, and help clients change. Bacon and Voss also include numerous examples of coaching dialogues that illustrate how to initiate coaching sessions, build rapport, ask probing questions, give feedback, challenge clients, and effectively close coaching sessions. With four new chapters, Adaptive Coaching, Second Edition explores new coaching techniques for encouraging transformative change in your clients. It is the perfect companion to your creative, unique coaching sessions, teaching you to master the on-going and ever changing dialogue between coach and client.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A remarkable fusion of Eastern wisdom and Western practicality that offers strategies for clearing away the obstacles to love your life, for restoring the boundless soul of love, and for finding romance that will last a lifetime. Drawing on the Vedic texts of India and other great wisdom traditions, Dr. Deepak Chopra describes the seven stages of love, beginning and culminating in ecstasy. At each stage we hear stories like those of Clare, who only falls in love with unattainable men; of Frankie and Della, whose eight-year-old marriage has become a battleground of distrust; and of Gail and Jarrett, who near retirement without understanding how they will fit together into their new lives. As we see these couples overcome their obstacles, and as we work through a series of specific exercises, we anchor these lessons in our own experience. We all know the only way to enjoy the ecstasy of true romance for a lifetime is first to discover love within ourselves, but this task has often proved too difficult. Until now. In The Path to Love, you will find an astonishing blueprint to the uncharted territory of your own heart. First, Dr. Chopra orients us with timeless wisdom and contemporary real-life examples, then guides us step by step on the path to love. And once we discover the love inside ourselves, we start to see it everywhere—in lovers, husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends—until our own lives become self-sustaining acts of passion, romantic and fulling and miraculous.

Using formal assessment instruments in counseling and psychotherapy is an efficient and systematic way to obtain information about clients and to subsequently tailor a counseling approach most likely to serve clients optimally. The more information a counselor obtains during the initial interview and first sessions, the more likely the client will be deeply understood by the counselor, which in turn increases the likelihood that an appropriate course of counseling will be taken, and ultimately leading to a more successful outcome. The Integral Intake is an idiographic, biographical, multidimensional assessment instrument based upon the Integral Psychology pioneered by Ken Wilber. From the perspective of Integral theory, comprehensive and holistic conceptualization of clients seeking counseling and psychotherapy includes knowledge of four distinct perspectives (quadrants) of each client: the client’s experience (the individual viewed subjectively/from within), the client’s behavior (the client viewed objectively/from without), the client’s culture (the client’s system viewed subjectively/from within), and the client’s social system (the client’s system viewed objectively/from without). The intake form is designed to provide the practitioner with a range of background information that can then be used to more quickly and effectively formulate a counseling/treatment approach. The assessment form and accompanying materials will be included on a downloadable resource, formatted to be printed and reproduced for use with each new client. The book will provide an overview of the Integral Psychology model, describe the development of the assessment form and its use, and provide general guidelines for the evaluation of responses and planning for an appropriate counseling approach. A series of case examples, based on actual completed intake forms, will provide insight into the use of the Integral Intake.

What is wisdom and how is it cultivated? These are among the most important questions we can ask, but questions that have been routinely ignored in modern times. In the twentieth century, the search for wisdom was replaced by a search for knowledge as science and technology promised answers to life's ills. However, along with scientific achievements came disasters, particularly the devastation of the planet through the accelerating use of modern technology. In an era drenched in data, a desire for wisdom has been reborn. Where can we go to learn about wisdom? The answer is clear: to the world's great religions and their accompanying philosophies and psychologies. The World's Great Wisdom makes these treasuries available. Practitioners from each of the great religions—as well as from Western philosophy and contemporary research—provide summaries of their traditions' understandings of wisdom, the means for cultivating it, and its implications for the modern world. This book offers distillations of the world's accumulated wisdom—ancient and modern, religious and scientific, philosophical and psychological. It is a unique resource that for the first time in history brings together our collective understanding of wisdom and the ways to develop it.

At the center of a constellation of key ideas in East Asian philosophical traditions, there lies a conception of oneness among human beings. Human beings are intricately and inextricably intertwined and share a common destiny with other people, creatures, and things. The ramifications of this idea are wide-reaching, and resonate with important debates and concerns in contemporary Western philosophy, but many at the forefront of their fields in the West are unaware of the fundamental shift in perspective that might be available to them. One of Ivanhoe's aims in this work is to challenge the dominant paradigm of hyper-individualism, which still enjoys a commanding position in a great deal of contemporary theory and practice in the humanities and social sciences, and to describe and advocate for an alternative conception and sense of self, world, and the relationship between them. In particular, Ivanhoe, who has an extensive background in and has published influential work on virtue ethics and Asian philosophy, investigates the implications of oneness for conceptions of the self, virtue, and human happiness. Through the lens of oneness, he explores topics such as conceptions of the self, selfishness and self-centeredness, virtues, spontaneity, and happiness, drawing support from wide-ranging, interdisciplinary sources. Rather than starting from the standpoint of Western philosophy and then reaching out to Asian philosophy from a distance, Ivanhoe advances a thesis drawn from East Asian sources and explicitly challenges the theoretical asymmetry that is characteristic of most comparative study, which often simply applies Western theories to non-Western material.