Master Your Storms, Master Your Life: Mindful Journaling and Sketching for Wisdom and Well-Being

By Teri B. Racey

Are you experiencing a challenge related to a health, personal, professional, or relationship issue? In Master Your Storms, Master Your Life, author Teri B. Racey helps you understand and deal with the challenge calmly and effectively through mindful journaling.

Racey discusses how mindfulness is a discipline that can assist you in becoming more aware of your current ways of interacting with your world and being more present to each moment of your life. She also demonstrates that journaling is a powerful tool to facilitate that self-discovery. Master Your Storms, Master Your Life combines these in an easy, step-by-step approach to help you achieve mindbody harmony in everyday living. It gives you the skills to decode the language of your dreams and to access the wisdom of your subconscious mind through the writing and sketching process.

Through this six-step method, Master Your Storms, Master Your Life empowers you to work out any personal or professional challenge and leads you to a fuller understanding of yourself and your situation so you may advocate effectively for your needs and desires.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9781475911572

Teri B. Racey

Teri B. Racey earned a master’s degree in spirituality and healing in medicine from the University of Detroit Mercy in Detroit, Michigan. She is a physician assistant and has over three decades of clinical and teaching experience. Racey opened Illumined Heart, a health consulting company, in 2003. Visit her online at www.newmindnewbody.org.

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Copyright © 2012 by Teri B. Racey, PA, MA

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The information, ideas, and suggestions in this book are not intended as a substitute for professional advice. Before following any suggestions contained in this book, you should consult your personal physician or mental health professional. Neither the author nor the publisher shall be liable or responsible for any loss or damage allegedly arising as a consequence of your use or application of any information or suggestions in this book.

The book’s purpose is to provide you with a means of gaining self-awareness so as to promote deeper levels of self-knowledge which will allow you to make wise and informed choices as a partner in your health care.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-1156-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-1157-2 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 05/11/2012

Contents

Acknowledgments

Gratitude and Encouragement

Master of the Storm

How You May Benefit from Using This Journal

Introduction

What Is Mindful Journaling?

Transform Your Mind, Transform Your Body

How to Begin Mindful Journaling

Give More Power to the Process

Six Steps to Success

Eagle in a Storm

Master of the Storm

Step One: Become Aware

Step Two: Observe and Understand

Step Three: Own and Choose

Step Four: Look More Deeply into the Nature of Your Storm—Embrace the Full Chaos

Step Five: Demonstrate and Celebrate Your Commitment to Change

Step Six: Walk Your Path with an Illumined Heart and Mind

Addendum I Cultivating Mindfulness

What Is Mindfulness?

Establishing Your Time and Location of Practice

Highlights of the Mindfulness Sitting Meditation

Mindfulness Sitting Meditation: Instructions

Post-Meditation Reflection

Mindfulness in Your Everyday World

Addendum II Four Qualities of Mindfulness

Addendum III Illumined Heart Deceleration Walking Meditation

Addendum IV Reading and Resource List

Websites

About the Author

I express my deep gratitude to all teachers who have shared their wisdom with me—whether that wisdom was shared through experiences of pleasure or pain. I am indebted to them because they have helped me become a stronger and wiser person.

Acknowledgments

My first and finest teachers were my parents, Chris Battersby and Helen (Buckley) Battersby, and my grandmother Winifred (Mullally) Battersby, all wonderful beacons of love and wisdom. My brothers and sister also shared their wisdom through the everyday joys and challenges experienced in our large and dynamic family. I express my love and gratitude to my sister, Pat, who is my best friend and lifelong counselor; my loving, strong, and steady husband, Joe, who consistently supports my dreams; my amazing daughters, Cara and Andrea, who are loving and wise beacons of light in their own right; my incredible son through marriage, Bryan Fenster; and the entirely wonderful Battersby and Racey clans of which I am so fortunate to be a part.

Special thanks to my personal editorial team: Melissa Cooper Sargent, Cara Fenster, Pat Battersby, and Kevin Witenoff. Special thanks to Chris Elliott for his Illumined Heart drawing that touched the core of our message: walk your path with a wise and loving heart and mind.

Gratitude and Encouragement

I am deeply honored and grateful that you have chosen to invest your valuable time and energy in the use of this journal as a tool for your personal transformation work. May it awaken you to your wise, loving, eternal nature and your fluid connection to universal wisdom.

Master of the Storm

She watched the tornadic winds with awe and fear.

Away from its grip she