Reviewing books for empaths, guest post and food for thought

Birrell Walsh, writer of fiction, non-fiction, and book reviews

Blog-Buddies, in the age of Amazon, book reviewing has assumed new importance. An informative, fair review scores credibility with readers. Any review carries influence, both what it says and what it doesn’t acknowledge.

Yesterday I received notification of a review by an influential writer and empath, Birrell Walsh. With his permission, I quote his review of “Become the Most Important Person in the Room: Your 30-Day Plan for Empath Empowerment.”

Unlike the Amazon review page, which offers no space for rebuttal, here I just might add a comment or three. Sweet though Birrell is, and despite his helpful intent, some of his words really stung.

Will you agree with him or me? Either way, today’s post may take you one step deeper inside the hidden innards of book reviewing. Also maybe inspire you to follow up with Amazon reviews of your own! Read More »

Cut cords of attachment, don’t just forgive

Amy Dickinson, advice columnist

“How to Help Others Forgive?” is the topic of an advice column by Amy Dickinson. She’s at the top of her field, at the top of her game. So I couldn’t wait to read how the author of “Ask Amy” would answer a reader’s question from stepfather Tom about his stepdaughter. (I’ll call her “Gladys.”)

Gladys already sees a psychotherapist. Yet she is unable to forgive her birth father, and Stepdad Tom wanted to help.  Would Amy recommend a book on forgiveness?

Wise forgiveness advice, yet so second millennium

Amy Dickinson began her response, “There are many, many books about forgiveness, and every one I have ever read says: Forgiveness is a choice. Forgiveness is a gift you give to yourself. Forgiveness equates with freedom from the shackles of anger and resentment.”

Then she goes on to recommend “Dare to Forgive: The Power of Letting Go and Moving On,” by Edward M. Hallowell.

A thousand years ago, even a hundred years ago, this advice would have been fine. Okay, it would also count as anachronistic advice, since 1,000 years ago you couldn’t recommend Hallowell’s book (published in 2006). 

To be clear, I think Amy Dickinson gives topnotch advice for mainstream American thinking today. I just wish she knew about…  Read More »

Autism Researcher Fred Volkmar

Dr. Fred Volkmar, Autism Researcher and Molecular Empath

Autism is hardly rare. Not today, and especially not among male children. Yale professor Fred Volkmar is a leader in autism research. He is also a molecular empath. Meet him first on this YouTube Video about autism, if you like.

Today’s post explores what makes him so special, courtesy of a Skilled Empath Merge. Created for you Blog-Buddies as an unusual tribute to Mother’s Day, tomorrow’s holiday, since 1 in 100 male American children is born on the autism spectrum. Like the son of a dear friend of mine, Tracy Monson, who actively works as an advocate for autistic kids. Or the daughter of another dear Blog-Buddy, Row Beatty, who is one fast grower.

Personal growth for such a family is hard but fast. Reason to celebrate around the Mother’s Day holiday.

As for us parents who have not had this highly evolutionary calling, to parent such a child, on Mother’s Day we are just thankful we have had that much an easier job.

Fred Volkmar, who can be trusted for Skilled Empath Merge

So for us, also, reason to celebrate…. Read More »

A trust workaround on the path to Enlightenment

Trust springs up like... spring flowers

Regarding trust, I would like to suggest a little workaround that can be useful on one’s path to Enlightenment.

In my experience, we have a fair amount of choice about whether we live in the present or take little trips down memory lane or give ourselves urgent conference calls elsewhere… into energy or What Would Jesus Do or seeking guidance from angels (approaches I summarized at the start to our last Blog post on trust, mostly written by JILL).

If you find yourself doing one of these things, when you become aware of it, in that moment you have a choice.

For pity’s sake, move back into the present.

Rather than dwelling on the old pain, come back into the NOW. Not shoving yourself back. Being gentle with self is always recommended.

What does that workaround  have to do with trust? Let’s explore.

Nobody is that good at multi-tasking

Oh, how clever we may think we are, multi-tasking.

Oh, the secret thrill! There you are, talking with JOE. Unsuspecting man, he doesn’t get what’s really going on.

He thinks you are just talking with him. Really, you’re checking out his energies, trying to decide what is secretly going on with him. Read More »

How to help children keep clear perception, Guest Post by Grace S.

Okay, that title is mine. The Guest Post to follow does come from GRACE S.

Context is a recent thread begun by another Blog-Buddy, SY, who sent a fascinating link. Click at will to see how the sort of image we take for granted has been retouched.

You know if you’ve seen resources like this one, just how profoundly shocking it is to see how commonly images are tweaked. The vanity surgeries and makeup and lighting aren’t enough, evidently. Nor is it enough to select uncommonly “perfect” looking candidates for being celebrities and models.

Retouch? Really so wonderful?

My opinion, Blog-Buddies, is that retouching is one more way to be out of touch.

• Out of touch with reality, where human beings look the way they do without having to plasticize themselves.
• Out of touch with inner life, which suffers with every stroke of the vanity surgeon’s knife, every tweak of an image accepted as normal.
• Out of touch with a person’s true gifts of the soul. Although photoshopping an image won’t affect that person’s soul, cosmetic surgery can. Not necessarily in a bad way. But often the shift takes the unfortunate client towards greater mediocrity.

Face reading, done for 10,000 years, reveals the recpirocal relationship between the soul (the inner person, in vivid and very human detail) and the sacred spiritual symbol of human life, the physical face.

We disrespect that value of the natural face… and we can slow down our spiritual evolution, limit our authenticity. A perfect valid choice to make with free will, and one that can win popularity points in today’s society! But is it worth the inner price?

A thread developed about responding to today’s vanity culture, especially if raising children. The words below come from GRACE S., the headlines and a bit of copy editing mine. You go, GRACE! Read More »

Does Trust Change in Enlightenment? a Guest Post from JILL

Is your life a trust exercise?

How does JILL handle trust? Is it all about staying positive, as so many people have been taught in New Age?

• So many hard-working spiritual seekers today are working diligently to stay positive, avoid negative people, identify psychic vampires and narcissists.
• Or is it more as Fundamentalist Christians feel, knowing they have been saved, so nothing can hurt them now? (And yet perpetually wary of being tricked by Satan.)
• In my work with clients, I continue to meet folks who have developed a spiritual addiction related to guidance, whether healers or seekers or Christians or New Agers.

Whenever possible, they are paying attention to signs, synchronicity, energy, or external validation.

If there’s a conflict, they ask for guidance. What would Jesus do? Where are the signs and meaningful coincidences? Will it be possible to wait until the clock shows precisely 11:11:11 so that thinking will be inspired? How will energies alert that seeker to the presence of danger?

Seeking so hard to find Cosmic subtext, disturbing patterns develop within that hard-working individual, something very problematic at the level of auric modeling.

Working so hard in one of the three ways noted here, the person has withdrawn from human life, become ineffective and weak as an earth personality. It’s like wearing a sign on the level of auras, a sign that reads “Excellent victim potential.”

Paths like these express great trust in angels or God or Jesus. Partly (to my thinking) something else is displayed as well: An extreme lack of trust in their own human intelligence and street smarts.

So I was very curious when, yesterday, a question about trust came to the blog. What about trust on one’s path to Enlightenment? Would trust change along with all the other aspects of consciousness? Read More »

Why do cords of attachment stay cut?

Rose Rosetree definitely cut her cords to these two characters

Yes, here’s a photo from four years ago, bearing witness to the “Practice What She Preaches” Dept.

Of course I have cut all my cords of attachment to the characters in “Finding Nemo.” Joke. It’s the relationships with husband and son that have gained extra stabiity and sweetness, and why? It’s because I don’t lug around my one-time cords of attachment to them.

Cords of attachment aren’t like fingernails, often needing a trim.

Nor does each cord of attachment work like a lasso, waiting for some restless cowboy to fling it towards you during an idle moment.

There are good reasons, ample reasons, why Gladys’ cord of attachment to Joe will never return for the rest of her life. Nor will it or be replaced by a new, improved, more disgusting cord. Nor will any cord of attachment that has been properly cut ever grow back… perhaps like bedbugs after an unreliable fumigation.

This article helps you to understand a topic that may have seemed worrisome. Or perhaps you’re just curious. Why does a cord of attachment stay cut?

And, by “this article,” I mean the lead article in my free monthly newsletter, “Reading Life Deeper.” To subscribe, click onto The Official Rose Rosetree Website and scroll down for the signup.

No spam ever from this newsletter. That’s a promise.

Subscribe in advance of this Monday, May 7, so you will be sent your copy by email. (At least, that is when I aim for delivery. Not a promise.) Comment below. Happy read!

Face Reading Toni Morrison

Not the version of Toni Morrison's face we will be reading

We have actual photos, not just this amazing Toni Morrison grafitti from Vitoria, Spain. But I wanted to lead with this visual symbol of Toni Morrison’s reach. How appropriate that Ms. Morrison would have written a novel called “Beloved.” And, yes, I do plan to read her face. The real one.

To know the work of Toni Morrison is to be impressed. Born in 1931, she has become the first African-American woman — and only the eighth female writer on earth – to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. All the following works are to her credit (and no, I haven’t read a single one of them yet, but am I ever planning to Morrison up at my next library trip).

Read More »

365 Ways to a Stronger You — interact with the book

365 Ways to a Stronger You

Blog-Buddies, before it turns midnight I want to finish up some smashing of words. Specifically, I am smashing words up into an ebook, via a service called Smashbooks.

Seemed like fun to start with my simplest nonfiction book, format-wise. Plus this one has a better title, perhaps, in its ebook edition.

  365 Ways to a Stronger You:

Balance Your Human Life with Helping Others as a World Server

Yes, that’s the reincarnation of a daybook first published in 2005 as…

Let Today Be a Holiday: 365 Ways to Co-Create with God

Comment here, you interactive person! Read More »

The perils of having a pure heart

Looking at the world through Rose-Rosetree-colored glasses

Hope so. Hope you are willing to see the ugliness. Especially if you have a pure heart.

If not willing, you risk finding bogus ugliness in others and yourself.

Seeking beauty is a great lifestyle. But seeking ONLY beauty makes a lousy requirement for life, a wretched way of attempting to live one’s ideals.

Could be, aiming to find only sweetness and light counts as one of the slowest and most difficult paths to Enlightenment.

Sure, I know this attempt is part of New Age Litany and much Christian culture, like the custom we have light-heartedly debunked previously, blessing people you really despise.

Ugliness remains a fact of life. Beginning, middle, end — you can encounter pain in any phase of a relationship. End-type ugliness hurts particularly.

By the end of your friendship with JOE, it can be tempting to revise the history (even the beautiful parts) by blaming JOE for being a narcissist or toxic personality or a negative person.

What would work better? Read More »