"If you wish to learn to care soulfully for yourself," writes Paula M. Reeves, a therapist in private practice in Atlanta, Georgia, "you will want to note that your brain strives for dominance while your heart seeks unity. Your brain is relentlessly evaluative while your heart is deeply relational." Contemporary culture exalts reason as ruled by the head above the discernment of the heart. People seem ill at ease with the idea and reality of looking within. The media are filled with stories illustrating heartlessness in all departments of human existence. More than ever we need tutoring in heart skills like kindness, openness, intuition, compassion, and hospitality.
Reeves, who at one point calls herself "an embodied feminist," believes that we live or die according to our relationship with our heart. A well-known workshop leader who was mentored by Marion Woodman, she is on the faculty of the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology and the Wellness Institute. The intent of this book is to help readers "step into a deeper relationship with your own embodied soul — to delve into the untapped resources contained within your unlived life." In chapters on what your heart knows, wants, loves, lives, and when it is broken open and celebrates, the author spells out the amazing wisdom that all of us have within us. Reeves is quite knowledgeable about the work of Dr. Paul Pearsall, author of The Heart's Code, who contends that the heart thinks, feels, remembers, and communicates with other hearts.
Throughout the book, the reader will find soul-searching exercises called "Heart Notes. One of the best chapters is "When Your Heart Is Broken Open" which deals with the spiritual benefits that can accrue from grief and deep loss. Read this book, and you will tap into a more vital and enriching relationship with your knowing heart.
