This book arrived into my life through a kindred spirit (you know who you are!) and I have not been able to stop reading it since. It is an amazing book, a gift really, that speaks of what it is to be fully human. Lesser speaks of how we (most of us anyways) walk around denying our full humanity. As if to admit and talk about our depth of experience diminishes us. As if to talk about our troubles and fears, our deep pain and sorrows...somehow makes us less human, unworthy. As if we have to present this facade of "perfectness" to the world while inside we are anything but. This book presents us with the keys to unlock these fears, drop away these pretenses and presents the radical notion that it is exactly these vulnerabilities that gives us our depth and beauty; our soul force. We are, each of us, given different lessons to work through in our lifetime. The events differ from person to person-anything from divorce, bankruptcy, ill health, the loss of loved ones...of dreams...of how we thought our lives should be....Sure we can become bitter, angry...close off our heart to life, to ourSELF. Yet we have a choice... it is what we learn from these experiences, how we deal with them that transform us. Like a "phoenix rising from the ashes" ...we leave the old self and become the person we are meant to be...humble, vulnerable, changed...human. I know this is all kinda' deep for Monday morning! Sorry:)