Finding Your Way Home: The Psychology of Place Inside and Out

Bruce Stewart and Lou Danielson Stewart
Inner Arts Press (2005)
ISBN 1594575819
Reviewed by Christina Gonzalez for Reader Views (1/06)

In Finding Your Way Home: The Psychology of Place Inside and Out, the authors have created a very unique blend of psychological principles to help the reader find his or her Core self through Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) techniques, and, with Feng Shui techniques create an external environment that reflects that Core and truly create a sense of “being home” both inside and outside. This is highlighted with interested mind- body-soul techniques including reflective exercises, partner exercises, techniques from Aikido martial arts, and much more.

In reading this book, as a psychotherapist myself, at first I was taken a back by some of the foreword from Grandmaster Lin Yun and his poetry and thought “what am I getting into?” as this was obviously something far removed from my own training and experience. Each page that I read, however, led me almost voraciously to the next and then the next and the book flowed smoothly and easily. I found myself not only reading the book to review it and to see potential applications for others but also found myself stopping along the way to do most of the exercises presented in this book, underlining many passages and actually taking some notes in my own journal. Not to mention the fact that I also completely rearranged my bedroom and de-cluttered one corner of the room. I felt I could not continue reading without doing something physical in my own environment.

If concepts like NLP, Aikido and Feng Shui are foreign to you, this book does a great job of introducing how borrowing from various traditions can help to create a sense of “home” both within and without and help people release themselves from the physical and the emotional clutter that often times keeps us “stuck”. This book might open a new world to some and might spark a desire for further reading about these topics. Even for those well versed in these fields, the exercises, thoughts, and quotes presented present a very innovative and integrating approach that is sure to offer some useful techniques for anyone who is open to receiving them. The book is sprinkled liberally with interesting anecdotes, thought-provoking quotes from many traditions, and a bit of the authors’ own sense of humor that makes it a delightful and an interesting read.

The exercises at the end of the book in particular convey some very powerful techniques that can go a long way towards helping people become “unstuck” and are probably best done with a supportive partner. In fact, this whole book would be a great “buddy read” for two like-minded individuals to serve as support during the exercises and to discuss the exercises. While all exercises can be done easily in a journal or a notebook, the authors also have a workbook which I didn’t review but would probably be a very beneficial with this process.

This book is highly recommended for anyone who is feeling “stuck” in some area of their lives and is committed to following through on the exercises, particularly if they have a supportive family member, therapist, friend, or other “buddy” to help support them through the exercises. Reading the book alone will not only change lives or environments, but the topics presented along with the exercises can substantially improve the resources, tools and even major areas of lives for the open-minded reader.

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