You a Spiritual Being on a Spiritual Journey

“Your Self is always vibrating at a frequency that evokes your highest truth. Therefore, anytime you Connect, Listen, Trust, and Act from your Self, your Actions will always unfold your life alignment with your best life. What you will confront is the Mind's drive to keep you in the logic and fear the Mind presences to keep you acting from the Mind. But from your Self, it is the Trusting of what you get to Act on that becomes the catalyst for your best life.”

The language of the soul, written well, is a transcendent experience. A good author can make a boring topic become marvelous, fascinating and hard to put down. A bad author can obscure the beauty of the most profound ideas. This book, unfortunately, is very hard to read because of its abstract wording, lack of metaphors, visual imagery, or other sensory cues. I struggled to understand the ideas– I even took notes!

The glossary consists of common words we all know like “awareness” and “frequency” used in a non-standard ways that need redefinition. It is difficult at first to grasp what the basic concept is. The same ideas repeat over and over with only a trance-inducing variation in the word order.

From what I could gather, the premise of this book is to provide exercises that assist the person reading this self-help book to get in touch with their “Self” (the term used to refer to the person's soul.) Although not overtly stated, the philosophy falls in the vein of the “New Thought” movement. In this movement, humans are seen as divine beings embodied who have chosen the lives that we are leading. According to this philosophy, if we are not living up to our full potential it is because we are listening to our Mind, rather than following the guidance of our Self. We are asked to accept that “all is well.”

The distinction of the Mind versus Self could be described as are you hearing positive or negative thoughts when you “Connect.”  Personal statements from people using this system describe how they applied these exercises to their lives. The common theme among them is that by not pushing things to happen as their mind desired, everything fell into place.

“In the current paradigm you cannot tell the difference between what the Mind is saying and what your Self is saying.” p.19

I had trouble understanding what the author was saying! The reader is continuously encouraged to disconnect from the Mind because the Mind is misleading. The Mind is merely a necessary tool for the eternal journey of the Self as it is housed in a body. The Mind is focused on issues of survival in this paradigm (the reality perceived by the Mind.) The disconnection from the Mind through “Connecting” exercises is supposed to put one in touch with the wisdom of the Self. Following the intuitive guidance of the Self is supposed to change your life for the better. Chapters focus on how to Connect, Listen to, then Trust this “inner knowing” and finally Act on the guidance received.

“Choosing to know who you are as your Self is a decision to claim your Self as your reality, distinct from your Mind. The redefining of your Self as who you are is a new pathway to a new paradigm for life to exist in.” p. 71

Very broad statements are made without evidence:
“Imagine lawyers, Connecting, Listening, Trusting and Acting. Imagine politicians Acting from their Self. Imagine teachers and parents Acting from their Self. Imagine spouses Acting from their Self. In this paradigm wars cannot exist because it will be impossible to fight another from your Self. This is the new reality unfolding.” p. 144

With mention of past lives, experiences stored at the DNA level, the book sits firmly in the New Age category.  The author states that these exercises came to her via personal revelation.  Ms. Dyal Dominguez indicates in her autobiography that she has been coaching people in workshops for 20 years. This may be what she does best. The contemplative quality of these exercises may help the high strung business people that pay for her workshops slow down and relax. However, if you are looking for a guide that will connect you to a faith tradition or give you something more than what you can find already within yourself, you will have to look elsewhere.

~ review by Larissa Carlson

Author: Indira Dyal-Dominguez
Turning Stone Press, 2014
pp. 215, $19.95