Excerpt from "Rewiring the Soul: Finding the Possible Self"

Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose
courage in considering your own imperfections, but instantly set about
remedying them – every day begin the task anew.
St. Francis de Sales

This book was written for you. It’s no accident that you picked it up or decided to buy it. There are no coincidences and the fact that you are holding this book in your hands simply means that you have now come to a place where you can begin, should you so decide, to apply its information. Lest you are put off by its deceptive simplicity, each chapter contains, in distilled and synthesized form, teachings that will allow you to live a life filled with well-being and satisfaction that in most cases can only be understood after many years of searching. Often the ways by which I came to understand the information were very roundabout, and included not only experiential living where I took my share of emotional risks, but also a pursuit of knowledge and understanding that took me down many intellectual, academic and professional paths. Much joy but also heartache, pain and many tears went into what I’ve extracted into the essence of this book and I offer it from the bottom of my heart and with much love so that you, the reader, may apply it in order to make your own life rich, abundant, and filled with love, joy, peace, harmony, and inner freedom.

An extensive appendix and bibliography have been included with information about books, authors, films, videos, documentaries, and websites that have played an important role in bringing me to the place of understanding at which I currently find myself, for the reader interested in pursuing some of those paths, or even just for the curious reader who wants to compare my wandering with his or her own path. Whether what meant much to me coincides with your own steps towards growth and understanding is less important than the recognition that ultimately all roads truly do lead to Rome.

Each chapter can stand on its own, and can be read as such, and therefore it is not necessary to go through the book in chronological order. Many of the most important and key pieces of information that this book contains are repeated over and over again in different words and in different chapters, with slightly different twists, because they are all so interlocked. What affects one part of this soul we are trying to rewire in order to get closer to the place we intended ourselves to arrive at when we decided to come here, affects all others, and the method by which you achieve this merging with one part of your soul, automatically affects the other parts. This is the way I know how to do it. It is – by no means – the only way.

Throughout this book the path to resolving everyday life and its problems while simultaneously converging with the inner quest for connection with the soul is signposted. This process allows life to take on a revolutionary new meaning: resolving personal and interpersonal issues while keeping the inner connection to the soul in mind leads to unprecedented growth that is simply not possible if psycho-emotional matters and spiritual concerns are not combined. Only to grow psychologically and emotionally is not enough. And only to grow spiritually is not enough either. All three dimensions need to be developed in order to realize your full potential. If you are willing to assume total responsibility for the self and to start what is an on-going journey, you will quickly begin to glimpse the first fruits of the ultimate goal: inner well-being, freedom, peace, harmony and joy. This book sets out the pathway to self-mastery and self-discovery and walking that pathway will be the most exciting adventure of your life.

The main principle upon which this entire book is based, is the fact that if we do not begin our way back to our soul – our true core - within ourselves, from the smallest corners of our selves outward, in order to bring ourselves and our lives to a place where we are truly well, where we can love ourselves and then emanate this love outward, then we will not reach the goal, because we will have started the process from the outside in. If you want to play pro basketball, you are going to have to start by learning how to dribble. If you want to be a cordon bleu chef, you’ll have to learn how to separate eggs. And if you want to find your way back to your soul, you’ll have to learn how to love yourself, recognizing that this “self” that you are learning how to love is your inner essence, your soul, and learning how to love yourself is the foundation of each of the chapters of this book. Learning how to love yourself is a fundamentally underlying principle of all that follows, and conversely, all that follows is built on loving yourself. By loving yourself, all the other issues this book addresses can be resolved, and by loving yourself, your life will flow in ways you can now only imagine.

If you resonate with the talk about soul in this book, then you are in the right place. But if you find the talk about soul distressing, off-putting, ludicrous, or nonsensical, you may nevertheless find that there is so much other, more psycho-emotional material you resonate with, that the talk about soul is peripheral enough that you can allow it to rest on the sidelines and nurture yourself with all the other parts. It is understandable if you feel uncomfortable with talk about the soul because our society does not often take us there – although for those who are observant, it is happening more and more in books, films, documentaries – even in some weekly television series. But if you are uneasy with such talk, and yet feel pulled to continue with the book, think of the soul as your intuition, as the voice that sometimes speaks to you, and that you – probably – most often do not listen to. Think of it as a part of yourself that you have not yet discovered: that you have not yet become acquainted with.

Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul, writes:

Our soul often gets forsaken very early on. That doesn’t mean we can’t find our way back to it. We live our lives with stumbling blocks or pain and wonder why it appears that it doesn’t get all that much easier as time goes on. Or we see that we keep repeating patterns but we either still don’t learn, or else we think that we keep falling into the hands of people who make things difficult for us (I always fall in love with people who are not loyal to me; my friends always use me; my co-workers always steal my ideas; my children / spouse / parents / friends always disappoint me). Either way, things just aren’t working out for us on the outside and definitely not on the inside. So to begin to find our way back to our forsaken soul it helps to have a road map. Think of it as a treasure map where each clue leads you on to the next clue that will eventually lead you to the treasure you are so fervently seeking, and that treasure is you, your love for yourself, and ultimately, your soul, your inner connection – and rewiring - to your true self.

For that to work, you actually have to set out on the path towards the first clue. It’s not enough that you read about clues and how to best find clues, if you don’t, in fact, take that first step in the direction of the place where the first clue presumably will be found. And that’s precisely where many people – even highly educated people – fail. Because they don’t take that first step.

I call it the ‘I’ve been to all the seminars, and I’ve read all the books, I even had a therapist, but still nothing in my life has changed’ syndrome. People attend workshops and seminars, lectures and classes, they read all the right books, and they get very excited, even momentarily highly motivated, and yet, after the workshop is over, or after they finish reading the last page of the book, they feel a let-down, an anti-climax. And so, in order to feel the excitement again, to get the next fix, to find the next adrenaline rush, they book another weekend seminar, or buy yet another book, and the cycle is repeated over and over again. But nothing changes.

So what’s different about this book? Won’t it just happen again, as it has so many times before?

It might. You see, there really is no magic formula. No silver bullet. It’s a bit like the alcoholic who wants to stop drinking, but thinks it can be achieved by putting the addiction into the hands of a third party – like a clinic – where it will all be taken care of, or the cigarette smoker who wants to stop smoking, and also thinks it can be achieved by putting the addiction into the hands of a third party – like a hypnotherapist – who will take care of it. The clinic or the hypnotherapist can really only then be effective, when the addict has also taken the internal decision to put an end to whatever the addiction is. And in that case, the clinic or the hypnotherapist is in many instances, in fact, superfluous and no longer truly necessary.

In other words, for this book to work for you, you must take the internal decision to start walking your talk. It’s not enough to read. It’s not enough to attend the workshops, seminars, classes, and lectures; you have to start actually doing something.

I was already in my early 30’s when I realized this. I had gone down the road I’ve described above, and was sitting on my terrace in southern Spain reading yet another book that had raised my energetic frequency as I purchased it and began to read it, but as I got about halfway through, a sinking feeling started settling in my solar plexus. I knew I had not yet done anything the author suggested, nor had I taken any kind of steps suggested by a lot of the other information I had been receiving. Yes, numerous insights had come my way, and I now understood so much more than before, but understanding and actually applying this understanding to one’s life is not the same thing.

So the sinking feeling at the pit of my stomach had to do with the fact that I knew I was going to have to find another book or seminar to fill the void, once I finished this one. I needed the adrenaline rush of yet more information that could change my life so that I could get through my days. It had to do with the fact that I knew nothing had really changed, despite all the reading, despite this latest great book, despite all the workshops, retreats, and seminars.

And so I knew I had to do something different. And the something different had nothing to do with reading another book or attending another weekend retreat. It had to do with me. And suddenly I knew – as I sat there on my sun-drenched terrace with the open book in my lap – I simply had to decide to choose one of the dozens of techniques, philosophies, or methods I had been reading and learning about, and begin following its precepts. I knew as surely as I knew my name that it really did not matter which method I chose, as long as I began. The rest would fall into place.

And so I began.

Do you know why it’s not so terribly important that you choose the right method or the right technique that you learned somewhere? It’s because once you start moving, the very motion you create, the momentum of your own growth and self-discovery, will then move you to the next step and the one after that and the one after that.

As you walk though the dark forest that myth so compellingly tells us about, that Joseph Campbell (and T.S. Eliot) wrote about – the journey of the hero - the dark forest where you think you are lost and where you are, in fact, rather fearful, helpers appear along your path. Myth, folk lore, and fairy tales across all cultures and epochs speak of a seeker or a hero of some kind finding a magical potion that allows him to see in the dark, or he may be given a gift of a cloak that makes him invisible, he may find a staff that points him in the right direction if he doesn’t know which path to take. In real life our unexpected helpers come clothed in slightly different guises, but they come to our aid in similarly eye-opening ways. However, none of this will happen if you don’t begin.

And so the most important thing is that you begin. That you have the courage and the faith in yourself and your purpose to begin. Amazing things may then begin to happen and events and people will appear in your life to guide you to the next step. Finding a measure of inner joy, peace, and freedom – rewiring your soul – is a journey. It’s a process, and it can only happen if you take the first step. And you aren’t taking any steps by reading more books or going to more seminars if you don’t begin the inner process. Just make the decision to choose one of the ones you already have under your belt, and go with it. At least for that all-important first step. Somewhere down the road you may wish to correct course, get a better map, stop for a break at that lovely camping ground (or that five star hotel at the luxury resort on the Balinese beach), and so you may stop to read another book, or get more ideas at another workshop. But basically your main purpose is to continue the process, to follow the path you have embarked upon, in order to reach that goal.

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Gabriella Kortsch, Ph.D. (Psychology), author of Rewiring the Soul, is a practicing psychotherapist who works with an international clientele in Marbella, Spain using an integral focus on body, mind and soul. She has published a newsletter in English and Spanish since 2004, facilitates monthly workshops and broadcast a weekly radio show both locally in Spain, as well as on the internet for seven years. Prior to her work in private practice she was Director of Sales & Marketing at several luxury beach properties in Spain and Mexico and was married to a diplomat. She has three sons.