Gabriel Roth, conclusions

[dancerjodi]

I finished the Gabrielle Roth book today. I can't believe I'm reading things so quickly over my break.

Chapter four deals with seeing (rather than just looking at things. This involves finding our soul, and she describes this with a lot of theater imagery (pg. 142): "Live *is* a cabaret, and out challenge is to act out our essential self on the stage of the world". She notes how any life activity no matter how mundane is a way for full self expression. In order to do this though, we need to know who we are. Roth points out on pg. 147 that "It became clear to me that the first stage of self-mastery is determining who we are not. Only then can we be who we are. Likely who you are not is presently who you think you are". The ego is who we think we are - Roth suggests figuring out who our ego is by seeing what patterns are there. By recognizing the "actors" within our ego we can identify them when they show up, use them to our benefit, and reduce the negative side effects that they bring us. Understanding the ego allows us to get beyond it and find the true self.

Chapter five talks about the spirit of healing. Once we understand where we've come from and who we are we can move ahead with 'fixing' problems and building our life. This is done through various stages. Usually we are in a state of inertia but its important to get moving, then we try on different hats, personalities, roles, whatever through imitation. We get to a point where something clicks and we know what WE are (versus what we want to be, or think we should be) and intuition kicks in. Imagination follows giving ideas of how to be our true selves which in turn leads to inspiration (pg. 178): "We live on an inspired, ecstatic level = our moving, our singing, our writing, our acting - all our training and discoveries coming through effortlessly and unselfconsciously".

In the epilogue Roth sums up the ideas in her book, and emphasizes that everyone goes through these stages, though that "The road to the self is not a straight line. Its a continuum of circles, cycles and waves that are all interconnected" (pg. 211).

I think there is value to be gained from this book for those that have read Roth's first one, "Sweat Your Prayers" but I feel I was able to skim; that the material was in many ways a repeat of her previous book. It serves as a good reminder though, and offers tools for people to examine their own life, find clarity in who they are and what they want, and gives ideas for ways to achieve these things.

Next book: Blue Collar Roots, White Collar Dreams :)