Personal Growth & Transformation

The process of growth and transformation is unique to each individual. For some, the process is dramatic and cathartic. For others, there may be long stretches when it seems as if nothing much is happening, but when you look back, everything about your life has changed. Receiving Rosen Method is like that — sometimes dramatic, often very subtle. One way or another, it leads to growth and change.

Most of the resources of this page are not directly about Rosen Method, but simply things I recommend that have to do with personal growth and transformation.

Note that the links below will open in a second browser window.

Changing Course: A Leap from Law to Bodywork

Changing Course: A Leap from Law to Bodywork

One woman’s description of how her life was changed by Rosen Method Bodywork. The author, an Australian, studied at Axelson’s Gymnastica Institute in Stockholm. Rosen Method is much more widely known in Scandinavia than it is in the United States.

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Soul without Shame, A Guide to Liberating Yourself from the Judge Within
by Byron Brown

This is an unusually insightful and helpful book about the Inner Critic or internal Judge. It’s not your typical self-help book. The wisdom of this book comes from a spiritual practice called Diamond Heart or the Diamond Approach. This practice is very up front about the psychological obstacles we’re apt to encounter on a spiritual path. The Judge is one of those obstacles.

From the introduction: “One of the original functions of the judge was to act as your conscience. . [B]y using guilt and shame, it helped you as a child to behave and act appropriately according to that moral code. Unfortunately, this process suppressed your spontaneity, aliveness, and instinctual power in order to make you socialized and acceptable.”

Suppressed spontaneity is very much what Rosen Method Bodywork addresses. It’s rare to survive childhood without losing much of our innate aliveness. Rosen Method is a process for regaining what we have lost.

This book is a useful tool for those engaged in the process. It helps you recognize when your Judge is operating and suggests options for how to respond. There are many practical suggestions for negotiating self-defeating inner dialogues.

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Soul without Shame, A Guide to Liberating Yourself from the Judge Within

The Diamond Approach

The Diamond Approach

The Diamond Approach is a personal development program taught at the Ridhwan School in Berkeley. Check this website for Soul without Shame workshops, which Byron Brown offers occasionally in the Bay Area or at Esalen.

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You Already Know What to Do, 10 invitations to the intuitive life
by Sharon Franquemont

Sharon Franquemont is a Bay Area expert on intuition (she was a professor at JFK University) who has shared her abilities with the Rosen Method community. I like the underlying assumptions of this book. It contains many practical exercises for developing your intuition.

One that I found especially helpful involves creating a simple drawing with your current situation on the left and your changed, improved situation on the right. You are drawing on your intuition when you create these simple pictures. You date your future image and draw a visual representation that connects the old image to the new one. Then you simply look at it every day.

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You Already Know What to Do, 10 invitations to the intuitive life

Visioning: 10 steps to designing the life of your dreams

Visioning: 10 steps to designing the life of your dreams
by Lucia Capacchione

I like Lucia Capacchione’s work. She combines journaling and art work as a path to wellness and healing. The practice she describes in this book involves identifying a goal, collecting images, and making a collage.

The power of this book is in the structure and ritual she provides. It’s also in the stories she tells — they document how effective this process can be. She understands that the mind is extremely powerful when we learn to use it as our ally.

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I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was: How to Discover What You Really Want and How to Get It
by Barbara Sher

Most self-help books are like cheerleading — they only work while you’re reading them. I think Barbara Sher is one of the better authors in this genre. She seems genuine, authentic, and in touch with what inspires her. In addition I Could Do Anything, she has two other books:

Live the Life You Love: In Ten Easy Step-By Step Lessons and

It’s Only Too Late If You Don’t Start Now: How to Create Your Second Life at Any Age

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I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was: How to Discover What You Really Want and How to Get It

The Center for a New American Dream

The Center for a New American Dream

An interesting site. It emphasizes making changes in the way we consume in order to improve the quality of life, protect the environment, and promote social justice. There are a number of items of interest to parents, and there’s a page for reducing junk mail.

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Changing Course, Find Your Life Mission and Live It

Changing Course, Find Your Life Mission and Live It

The story of a woman who changed her life and turned changing lives into a career. I’m not endorsing this woman’s services, but she has some interesting resources. See, for example, her review of a program from the Institute of Children’s Literature on writing for children and teenagers.

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