The Wisdom of Letting Go: The Path of the Wounded Soul

by Leo Booth

Overview

How do we let go of the thousand and one situations that create unhealthy baggage that weighs us down in life; stopping us living the moment?  This book seeks to be an answer.
About the Author
"Find the 'You' in Spiritual!" Challenges Father Leo Booth.
Author, workshop facilitator, Episcopal priest and recovering alcoholic, Father Leo believes passionately in helping people discover their own specialness and dignity.
Booth makes a careful distinction between spirituality and religion. "Spirituality is a healthy relationship between body, mind, and emotions that empowers choice, responsibility, and change. Unhealthy use of religion often separates people from themselves, others, and God. Spirituality always unites us."
His work as both a priest and a certified addictions and eating disorder counselor focuses on the sources and symptoms of wounded spirituality. He challenges the traditional "body-mind-spirit" model of spirituality, insisting that we cannot create spiritual wholeness using a model which puts spirituality in a separate compartment and leaves out the emotions. He has created a new spiritual model for the treatment of depression, addictions and low self-esteem that teaches how to strengthen the spiritual connection between body, mind, and emotions so that they are better able to connect and relate to the world around them. His books, videos, and audio cassettes have become part of the curriculum for treatment centers and therapists.
He knows from personal experience what it is like to live with no self-esteem. Born in England, he was educated at King's College in London, England. Driven and ambitious, he became one of the youngest rectors in England. He also became an alcoholic. After a drunk-driving accident in 1977, he entered treatment for his alcoholism, and has since been dedicated to working with people suffering from any addiction or compulsive behavior.
As he worked with recovering addicts of all kinds, he recognized that negative, unhealthy religious messages play a major part in creating ingrained guilt and shame. His book, When God becomes a Drug, is a comprehensive examination of the sources of religious addiction and abuse, the effects on religious addicts and their families, and solutions for attaining healthy spirituality.
His book, The God Game - It's Your Move, offers a provocative look at how unhealthy beliefs keep people stuck in a childlike, disempowered relationship with God that doesn't change even when they change religions or external belief systems. He offers a new understanding of the relationship between spirituality, God and religion that helps people move into an empowered, mature relationship with God.
As an authority on spirituality and recovery from addictions and religious abuse, he has appeared on such national television shows as Oprah, Sally Jessy Raphael, Geraldo, and others.
* Father Leo is the Program Consultant for Bellwood Health Services in Toronto, Canada. His newest book is called, The Wisdom of Letting Go.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780757394973
Publisher:	Health Communications, Incorporated
Publication date:	01/01/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	375
File size:	454 KB

About the Author

Leo Booth is an internationally acclaimed author, lecturer, and trainer on all aspects of spirituality and recovery from depression, addictions, or compulsive behaviors, and low self-esteem. He holds a Masters degree in theology from King's College, London, England, and is a Certified Addictions Counselor and a spiritual consultant to several treatment centers.

Read an Excerpt

Love
Sometimes you must love somebody enough to let them go.

I was telling my mother the friendship had given way to not caring. There was nothing more I could do for him; he had hurt me so much in recent years. I wanted out!

My mother said, 'I know how you feel. That is how I used to feel about you!' She went on to share what it was like living with me, as a mother, when I was drinking. Then she stated powerfully: 'This love requires distance.'

There is a point in 'tragic love' when we need to pull back, separate the dysfunctional behavior from the individual we love, and create a powerful moment of distance. In this sense we 'let go.' And we do this not because we do not love, but because we love.

Nobody can change another person, or get another person to behave in the way we want them to behave. When those relationships become really—I mean really—painful, we must pull away and let go. Sometimes nothing positive happens, and the person simply gets worse.

But there are times, creative moments, when the separateness produces a miracle: we have given them the space to change—the donkey is drinking the water!

Prayer
Great Spirit: You who have given us the freedom to walk away from the pain that keeps on giving, may we see Your creative power at work in the separateness.

©2009. Leo Booth. All rights reserved. Reprinted from The Wisdom of Letting Go. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the publisher. Publisher: Health Communications, Inc., 3201 SW 15th Street, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442