Transforming Trauma: Uncovering the Spiritual Dimension of Healing

For anyone who has worked to overcome, but still can't get to the root. As someone who has worked to overcome post traumatic stress disorder, this book/lecture has been a gift. After 3 years of therapy and huge spiritual and emotional changes, this provided the tools to actually move forward instead of feeling like a failure for not being able to let go. Caroline Myss and James Finley are amazing.

Caroline Myss and James Finley couldn't be more dissimilar in their delivery -- Myss is edgy and off-the-cuff, Finley is gentle and deliberate -- but these two teachers compliment each other brilliantly in this program. Myss is a wonderful "big picture" teacher, and here she presents a macro-level view of trauma, using her well-developed critique of contemporary spirituality to explain why healing from trauma is primarily a mystical experience, not a rational, linear process that one can engineer through superficial New Age means. She then wisely hands the reins over to James Finley who proceeds to present a highly detailed, multifaceted spiritual road map for how to approach healing trauma through contemplative practice. (Be prepared to review this portion of the program several times -- the information is extremely complex and cannot possibly be absorbed in a single listen.) The program wraps up with final thoughts on trauma, mysticism, and healing from Myss.

So many people trash Caroline Myss because of her strident tone, but people have got to take into account the junk-food spiritual culture of our times and the delusional mindset of the majority of her audience. The New Age has perpetuated so many psychological and spiritual falsehoods over the last several decades that the ground has to be cleared for any kind of meaningful teaching to get through, and Myss does a fantastic job of this.

Carolyn give us a remarkable insight into trauma, how it is a normal part of life and how all of us will suffer trauma at some time in our lives. Whilst supporting mainstream counseling Carolyn gives us reasonings as to why counseling can often leave us needing more. Her unique methodology challenges the old school methods by taking us to a new level of awareness of how trauma can catapult us into an evolutionary transformation that will change your life forever. Carolyn's passion for what she teaches can at times sound a little harsh however it's the strength of her conviction that makes this ideology so successful.

High Spiritual Truths articulated with astonishing clarity.

If like myself, you've been listening or reading Eckhart Tolle and Caroline Myss (wonderful spiritual teachers that they are!), you'll know there's many common threads weaving throughout both their works, but with astonishing clarity, James Finley manages to express these same truths and more, with such a sincere heart and with such a brilliantly intelligent choice of words, you get it like never before - you really do 'evolve' with each listening!

Mr. Finley has raised his consciousness to a level where he has become extraordinarily adept at using his mind to translate that non-languaged experience of being, Soul communications, into plain English, well, more like plain-poetry, if you get my meaning! Because what he says, is like the experience of reading poetry, but unlike poetry, there's very little ambiguity.

It's a tremendous pleasure to have the ‘unlanguageable’ experience of spiritual truth, somehow brought down into words, so you can find the help you want (and need!) for your own spiritual work to progress.

High levels of understanding you get in flashes, not thoughts, flashes of truth you don’t have to turn back into words to know that you just had your consciousness raised. Where your heart floods with the awe that comes with understanding, and the understanding that you just evolved! And you can never go back to the way you were! Wonderful!

I'm so grateful for this wonderful audio book! And I am so grateful for the effort Caroline and James have made in their lives to grasp these truths and pass them on in a way where many many people get the benefit of their very hard work.
What a great blessing for all that get the chance to listen to this... what a blessing.

none for Myss

James Finley's audio programs are among my favorites -- and this more personal exploration of trauma in a spiritual healing context is equally excellent. Whether you seek "healing" or more of Finley's well-digested spiritual insight or both, his 5 hours of this program are well worth the download.

While I have in the past gotten something out of Myss's books, there's nothing new here - in fact, I found both her content (because it repeats what she usually says) and especially her delivery annoying. I don't like her speaking style at her best, and this is the worst I've heard her.

That said, the download is worth it for Finley. His calm, measured, organized delivery may not appeal to those who like Myss's circular off-the-cuff new agey style, however.

Finley's section (the five middle hours of 8)are worth replaying many times. This is a man who is not an industry, producing many books and audio porgrams, but when he speaks, it's worth listening, and more than once.

Much better than reading is the intelligence and great kindness of James Findley. Myss is characteristically 'in your face', but the grace of her honesty is compelling and captivating.

The steps as laid out by Findley provide serious steps for serious seekers.

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I have been pursuing the steps and appreciate the wisdom they seem to pull from that deeper place inside. I was hesitant at first to purchase, did not know of Findley, and do not have a direct trauma experience. As an RN and a counselor, I have been witness more than traumatized. I love the understanding that has come as I explore the gift of the sublime difficulty of life overall as trauma....

If Carolyn had edited the talk - to just include the most important points about how to transform trauma, the information would be practical and applicable.

To not include statements like "you will be retraumatized... you will experience trauma again and again and again".

To focus on heart centeredness - and deliver the talk from there, and slow down enough to choose words carefully, and allow the listener to fall into the softness of what they are hearing (which is healing) - instead of be walloped by the blows of Carolyn's unedited mind ramblings.

Carolyn frequently went on and on about material that seemed to be very much about her personality in how it showed up in the delivery of this material instead of focusing to the point of what actually does transform trauma.

For myself, someone who experinced a lot of trauma, and has worked through much of it... it only restirs the nervous system to hear someone go on about how we will experience trauma over and over, or to include any other graphic illustrations regarding trauma.

I didn't yet get to James in his narration, but I would have chosen different words rather then a different narrator.