Trafford Publishing: Getting to the Heart: A Journey of Soul Transformation and Enlightenment

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Getting to the Heart: A Journey of Soul Transformation and Enlightenment

by Athene Raefiel

143 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-0174; ISBN 1-55395-811-X; US$19.00, C$21.50, EUR15.50, £11.00

Getting to the Heart is a profound how-to book of inner change and spiritual enlightenment. A fascinating and experimental journey of personal awareness

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about the book about the author sample excerpts or Table of Contents catalogue info

About the Book

Getting to the Heart is a book filled with information that helps individuals understand the soul's journey and it's importance. Many spiritual and personal growth topics are explained in short excerpts that can be easily read and understood. The main theme of this book is to transform soul consciousness through understanding and using the Aura and Chakra centers. This unique book gives a complete explanation of what chakras are and how to align and activate them to help oneself. Getting to the Heart also explains the Art of Meditation, the Astral Plane, The Souls Journey and so much more. This book embodies teachings of Spiritual Initiation and Empowerment.
Part two of Getting to the Heart is an amazing workbook designed and filled with exercises that walk individuals through step by step processes for clearing old emotional baggage and creating new feelings of love and joy in life. These powerful exercises cover Forgiveness, Affirmations, Re-Programming, Self -Dialog and Visualization. Rarely can one find all of these tools melded together to show how they work hand in hand with one another. Getting to the Heart is a must for those wishing to explore and expand consciousness.

About the Author

Athene Raefiel is a teacher of Mysticism and Enlightenment. For two years she hosted her own radio talk shows, one on Wale 990 in Rhode Island and one in Phoenix Arizona with KFNX 1100. She has been writing and publishing articles in metaphysical journals, newsletters and web sites for the past 15 years. She wrote her first book Changing Ourselves, Our Attitudes and Our Lives, in 1994 but never had it published, she revised and re-wrote the book in 1997, calling it Getting to the Heart, subtitled A Journey of Soul Transformation and Spiritual Enlightenment. She then had it printed and sold 500 copies to her clients and friends.
Hearing from those who had read the book how it changed their lives, she decided in 2000 to update, revise, expand and publish Getting to the Heart, so she could begin on the next awaited book by those she knew. Athene also decided in 2002 to start recording the guided mediations she has taught in her classes and workshops for over 19 years, so people could have the help they needed to go within. She now has recorded 10 new CDs that she currently sells herself and is also planning to release later.
Athene is a Clinically Certified Hypnotherapist who received her training and degree from the Transpersonal Hypnotherapy Institute of Boulder Co. in 1996. She also completed Mediation training with CDR Associates of Boulder Co. in February 2002. She lectures and teaches Spiritual Growth seminars, Living your Spirituality, All About Angels and Spirit guides. She has an international client base from her individualized clairvoyant readings and intuitive counseling.
Visit Athene's website at www.AtheneRaefiel.com

Sample Excerpts or Table of Contents

Message from the Author
We are entering a time of great-accelerated growth and development as a planet and a species. Tides are changing and earth changes amass. Daily living has become stressed and personal identity is no longer easy to define. We are shifting into a time of great spiritual conception.
No longer can we live in harmony with the earth or one another. No longer can we pretend everything is all right when it is not. No longer can we deny our own soul and spirit essence if we are to sustain life upon this earth our homeland.
This is not a book of doom and gloom but one of understanding how to restore the love and harmony needed to renew us, to renew the planet. We are all part of the greater life plan; all we need do to fulfill our part is to recognize it. The roles of life that we have playing are of no important consequence when not played in conjunction with the divine role.
In order for us to recognize ourselves as being mind, body and spirit, we need tools for change and evolvement. Taking the initiative to become aware of all the aspects of life and self will aid in each person's development. Whether you are just beginning or already advanced, this book shares insights and tools for all to create a better more fulfilled life.
As we begin to open our minds and our hearts we find that the meaning of life has not really been hidden from us but simply covered up. We discover within us the ability to perceive what we thought to be impossible thereby allowing light to shine into our lives. This is the only role in life that the Divine requests of us in order for us to fulfill our destiny. It is a simple role yet so few truly seek to actually achieve this task.
We need to open ourselves to the process of discovery and quit thinking that we know everything. The only true knowing that exists is that there is always more to learn and discover.
Each of us are a Universe unto ourselves, as such we are infinite. This being true, self-discovery goes on ad infinitum.
Become an explorer as you read and use this book. Allow yourself to glean a new array of gems and pearls of wisdom as you open to enlightenment. Let this book become a friend that shares with you a new way of seeing yourself and your life; a friend you go to in time of need and comfort; a friend that offers you tools for changing old belief patterns and worn out behaviors. With the aide of your new friend you will discover that there are momentous treasures buried within you that will bring you true empowerment.
In Loving Light,
Athene Raefiel
Letting Go
We have been taught to believe, that letting go means to push away or suppress. However, true letting go is a process of integration and healing.
Letting go can be a misleading statement because it gives the impression of separation. By integrating a situation that involves you, another person, or a circumstance in life, means to come to terms with it. We can only come to terms with something when we understand it. When we understand the purpose of our life experiences we are able to accept them, thereby releasing our emotional attachment. Learning to embrace our issues in this way allows us to take them within ourselves and integrate them.
Once our emotions are understood and integrated our judgments about ourselves and others begin to dissolve. Where there is clarity and understanding, problems can not germinate.
What we see on the outside of ourselves is a reflection of what is happening on the inside. Interacting with others is always a way of interacting with ourself. When interaction brings up feelings within us that we do not like, we should search inside to see why this is occurring. We should view others in our lives as our mirrors.
Many people distance and isolate themselves from others, creating emotional isolation.
Finding ourselves disoriented and disorganized, using the outside as a reflection of the inside, shows we are feeling how on the inside?
Realizing that you are the only true problem in your life allows you to realize the truth of who you are. Only through self-examination can emotions and feelings be healed and problems solved.
Our habits accepted beliefs and behaviorsæour inner wallsæall play a part in who we are. Take for example, the critical part of our self, which loves to run rampant. This part of self is continually judging and criticizing self and others. This behavior can become quite destructive. It often leads to an out-of-balance, superhuman, perfectionist complex. It has become the norm to single out what is imperfect about another or oneself rather than identifying what is unique and special. This commonly leads to pettiness and competition.
We find it is much easier to accept others when we like and accept ourselves. Being critical and judgmental are roadblocks in the path of learning to love.
We can require that others honor us in the same way that we honor our self by treating them as we wish to be treated. As we become honest with ourselves and reflect our own attitudes and actions, we see the mirrors that others play in our life.
Forgiveness
The past, present, and future exist within one another. They are interconnected within us and are what make up the picture of ourselves and life. We cannot leave behind the past simply "not thinking "about it. We believe we can put something out of our mind by stuffing the emotion of it deep inside somewhere. Stuffing our emotions year after year can cause one to feel alienated and distant. It's all right to put our feelings on the back burner for a little while but too often we forget to bring them back to the foreground. We can now lose perspective on how others around us might be feeling as well.
How well we process and understand our feelings determines our emotional health. Due to the emotional distress most individuals have suffered in their lives they believe themselves unable to trust their feeling self.
When we push the emotions deep into the recesses of our being we isolate and insulate, losing our ability to deal with the intimate emotional situations in our personal lives. This in turn causes us loss in our ability to use logic and reason to resolve emotional situations in our lives.
In order to achieve good health or peace of mind it is necessary for us to bring our emotions into balance with our reason. Denying how we feel about different situations in our lives can be very self-destructive. We think and have been shown that by stuffing our emotions they will go away. In truth the emotions then simply lie beneath the surface smoldering, waiting for an opportunity to emerge. Unexpressed and repressed emotions will eventually find a way of showing themselves. They can cause an angry explosion, an unexpected show of emotion like yelling or crying for no apparent reason. Mood swings, suicidal or homicidal thoughts; depression, anxiety, stress, uncontrollable laughter and crying. Most people believe they are manic or mentally ill when in reality they simply need to acknowledge and integrate all the past memories and feelings associated with them.
Often repressed emotions manifest themselves through physical illness, such as heart disease, arthritis, obesity, cancer, diabetes and so many other imbalances. Sometimes the result of repressed emotions is terminal illness and death.
Forgiveness is the most powerful tool we have for dealing with repressed emotions. We all feel victimized by the seeming injustices that take place in our lives. Few of us know how to react to or process these feelings.
By learning to forgive yourself, other people, and the circumstances that have occurred in life, your experience of life becomes transformed. This transformation takes place not by us paying lip service to forgiving but by seriously delving within ourselves to admit that we are the one who has been repressing our emotions. We must each make a conscious effort to do whatever it takes to make peace with ourselves and the past.
If you carry a feeling of hatred around inside of yourself for twenty years or so. It eats away at you daily; not the others you believe you hate. By harboring this intense feeling of hatred, you begin to attract others into your life who are nursing the same problem. Together, you now feed off of each other*s hatred and begin finding fault with one another. This happens because like energy attracts and sooner or later you will find a reason to hate everyone you come in contact with. When we feel victimized by life and hold onto this emotional energy, we then attract other people into our lives who also are victims. By feeding off of each other*s emotional energy we eventually become one anothers victims. This is the law of universal attraction in action.
Some people feel it is easier to forgive another person for a wrongdoing than it is to forgive their self, while others find it easier to forgive their self. True emotional healing can take place only when we are willing to forgive both the others involved and ourself. We cannot only tell ourselves that we forgive; we must know that we have forgiven through the balance in our feelings.

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