From The Inside Out Mag.
For Personal Healing, Spiritual Growth & Development

An Author’s Book Introduction 

More and more people are wanting to embrace conscious living—being mindful, thinking positively,  living in the present, being authentic.  This is good, but as a psychologist of 18 years, I know that we cannot be conscious unless we are relatively clear of the UNconscious.  Putting positive thinking on top of emotional pain can and often is a kind of denial of one’s authentic feelings, and this is not really conscious living.  I disagree with those who think that facing anything “negative” is somehow not spiritual; in fact, the reverse is true.

It is also true that life is hard.  Many people grew up with familial abuse.  Others had good families but because of sexual orientation, cultural-ethnic group, religion, and yes, gender, experienced cruelty during formative years that got internalized in some way.  Many strong people have survived, but the ways people cope as children are not always adaptive for adults with choices.  Many who survived difficulties of different kinds have issues that prevent them from being authentic with themselves, and these issues deserve better than to be denied and slapped down.  The way to consciousness is to explore that which is not conscious, to face it.  True positive thinking is saying to oneself that it is possible to go beyond.  When we make a mental space for our true feelings, we find we can be in the moment.

Many spiritual, high-functioning, and achieving people have issues of shame, perfectionism, and control.  Instead of enjoying their successes, they feel they are treading water to simply be good enough.  I have seen many of them for depression or anxiety, and I know achievements and excellent coping, while wonderful, do not heal those wounds.

In my ebook, Fear of the Abyss: Healing the Wounds of Shame and Perfectionism, I guide the reader to facing underlying feelings that were fearsome before.  With case examples and exercises, the reader is gently encouraged toward more self-awareness and authenticity, opening the way for true consiousness.   

Read Anna McKee Book Review of Fear of the Abyss: Healing the Wounds of Shame and Perfectionism

in this months is of From The Inside Out Mag.com

image: livelighter.org 

By Aleta Edwards Psy. D

I am a licensed clinical psychologist who has been in practice for over 18 years.  I love helping people and have worked with people from all different backgrounds and ethnicities.  I have much respect for different cultures, sexual orientations, and spiritualities.  I personally believe that we all have life lessons and that when we learn them we move on.  I am also fluent in Spanish.

Fear of the Abyss: Healing the Wounds of Shame and Perfectionism, published in 2011, is my first ebook.

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