The Way to Stillness by Anne Vincent

My Review: This book is a for those in the profession of helping others. In this book the authors discuss the Love Motif and work you through how to apply it in you life's work. Reading this book will impact your life and if you apply what you learn the lives of others. The theme is meditated stillness, prayer and mental well-being. The pictures are still life B&W pictures that portray quietness, tranquility, and stillness in one's life. It is an easy read 100 page book.


Read Author Interview here.

message from tour coordinator, Cheryl : Readers can follow Anne's tour all month long by visiting http://virtualbooktours.wordpress.com/

. They can also view a trailer on YouTube

.




As she approaches her 90^th year, Gayle Alexander, looks back over a career of service as a master counselor, gifted teacher, and minister. She was blessed to be mentored by some of the great souls of our time, Viktor Frankl and Norman Cousins as was her late husband by Mother Theresa.
She shares the Love Motif, her unique approach to connecting with others at a deep level, offering a practical guide that anyone might use as a manual on their spiritual journey.
Full of rich insight and profound and inspiring life lessons gleaned from 50 years of private practice, being a “companion on the way” to thousands of individuals, she offers powerful tools to a new generation of helpers. It is her hope that educators, clergy members, physicians, clinicians, therapists, counselors, and anyone involved in the mentoring process find their own Way to Stillness and pass it on.

The Story of Mike
Mike was a legally blind young boy from an economically disadvantaged home in the rural south. Somewhere in first grade the schools had given up on him. Students and teachers had pushed him aside saying, “Never mind Mike, he can’t read.” And Mike cooperated – if he “couldn’t read,” he wouldn’t read.
Dr. Kirk, a psychiatrist at Vanderbilt had worked and worked with this boy and had been unable to determine why he was not reading. She heard that I had a special gift for teaching kids to read, and asked me to assist.
Mike’s family drove him from Kentucky to Nashville to meet with me. Since it was all they could do to put together the gas money for the drive to Nashville, I knew I had to make every moment count.
We started talking and Mike expressed an interest in machines. I checked with his parents and took him down to the boiler room at Peabody College on the campus of Vanderbilt University, where we went in and asked to meet the engineer.
The engineer was a patient man with a wonderful heart, and Mike asked him all sorts of wonderful questions about the boiler and the heat it was radiating. The engineer allowed Mike to touch and explore the machinery – and I realized that Mike inherently knew more about science than he could learn from any book. He already knew more than many students at the graduate level, and here he was coming to me because his school thought him slow!
His parents found the gas money to bring him back again the next week and at the next session, I gave him an article on heat. I told him “Don’t read it. Just look at the words that you can make out.” He started picking out just choice words so that he could get the idea – and of course, he could tell I knew nothing about the subject. Here, in my complete ignorance of this subject, was a boy who knew so much.
I thought to myself “He is my teacher! Here I am with this treasure, this miracle in my hands!”
After some time his teacher from Russellville, Kentucky called me, amazed at his improvement, saying, “This boy’s never read before, and suddenly, he’s scanning the material in class and raising his hand to respond to my questions. The other kids just look at him now in disbelief. I have to look at the book just to stay ahead of him!”
It was disturbing to me because it happened so fast. These wonderful things were happening for Mike and I knew they were real; yet, it seemed like magic, and I had difficulty accounting for everything that was happening. I wasn’t completely sure what to think. I experienced great self-doubt because the results of my work with Mike far exceeded what I had believed possible.
One of the things that made me more comfortable with Mike’s turnaround was this: I had invited Dr. Lillian Bloeschl to come to Nashville. She was in charge of counseling at the University of Graz in Austria. I had met her there, and invited her to spend a month here in Nashville. Having sat in on one of my sessions with Mike she said, “You know, Gayle, you don’t have to know clinically what’s happening here – it’s enough to know that Mike is now reading at grade level and beyond.”
But I wanted to fully understand how I was able to achieve these results, and I couldn’t. “Lillian,” I said, “If I could explain this scientifically, it would be one thing, but I feel kind of like the medicine man at the circus or a magician at the carnival that magically unlocks the box through some kind of trick. What’s happening here that this boy can read?”
Mike’s success was not coming from me.

Anne Alexander Vincent, Ordained Minister of Pastoral Counseling, is the Owner of Cottage in the Woods, a licensed ministry center of the National Christian Counselors Association. She is completing her PhD in Clinical Christian Counseling through the NCCA. With more than 30 years of counseling experience, she has completed her 8th year of intensive training under Dr Patrick Carnes, PhD as a Certified Multiple Addictions Therapist and Certified Sexual Addiction Therapist and with the International Trauma and Addiction Professionals as a Trauma and Addictions Therapist.
A large percentage of Anne’s clinical practice serves professional and executive counselees experiencing issues in the workplace as well as those professionals recovering from impairment by chemical and/or process addictions. She has provided aftercare counseling and services for the Tennessee Medical Foundation, the Tennessee Dental Association, and the Tennessee Lawyers Assistance Program. She has decades of specialization in Codependency, Adult Children of Alcoholics therapy, and recently the Family Recovery Zone through Dr. Carnes.
In 1988, she began personal training with Dr.Otto Kroeger, international expert on Type Psychology and author of “Type Talk”. Since this time she has utilized the Myers Briggs Type Indicator as a Certified Type Practitioner with individuals, couples and team building with organizations and boards of directors. She has been interviewed about her work in both the New York Times and by Time Magazine. Though a native Nashvillian, her global work has included serving on the International Development Council of Ruschlikon Theological Seminary, (formerly in Zurich, Switzerland) graduate work and private training at the Jungian Institute of Zurich, and hands on mission work in Kenya.
She is the coauthor of the upcoming book The Way to Stillness, which was released in January 2010. She is a speaker, seminar leader and Divorce Care facilitator.
For the past 20 years, she has taught and co-written materials/for the Spiritual Journey program at First Presbyterian Church, Nashville. The current series is “Healthy Boundaries” based on the bestsellers “Boundaries” and “Safe People” by Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend.
Anne’s life includes one marriage of 22 years. She is a single mother of two wonderful adult sons ages 21 and 23.
You can visit Anne online at www.annescottageinthewoods.com.

About Co-Author Gayle Alexander

Gayle Alexander, now retired, has spent the last 50 years of her professional career as a master counselor in private practice, mediator, spiritual advisor, and educational consultant. A graduate of the George Peabody College for Teachers, a Masters program on the campus of Vanderbilt University, she worked with students and their families across the US helping them to find and develop their “best fit” with private secondary schools and college which she regularly visited personally. Whether in US or in Europe, she was a popular lecturer, speaker, retreat leader on college campuses. She served on the International Development Council of Rushlikon, Switzerland and regularly traveled to Vienna, Austria and Zurich, Switzerland.
A native of Missouri, she accepted a position as Youth Minister in Beaumont, Texas where she met and married her husband, David K. Alexander. In 1953, they came to Nashville to serve as chaplains on the campus of Vanderbilt University working with International Students. In 1956, they built the retreat center which would serve as location for her consulting firm, Gayle Alexander and Assoc. which would bless the lives of thousands directly and indirectly.
Gayle has always said “It is not what you know so much as the persons you align yourself with and learn from.” Years spent face to face with mentors such as Viktor Frankl, Elizabeth Kubler Ross, Virginia Satir, Norman Cousins, and John Claypool gave Gayle the tools with which to weave her healing approach—The Love Motif. The application and integration of this in her life has brought her authentic peace and harmony.
Gayle is also the creator of the Spiritual Journeys for Woman Program which is now in its 27th year at First Presbyterian Church of Nashville, TN. She has brought her knowledge, expertise, spirituality, and delightful humor to influence several generations. The Spiritual Journeys Program is carried on by her daughters.

Leave a comment telling me something you learned from the author's interview here or the author's web site here. Be sure to leave a way of contact. US/Canada Residents only please. I will draw a winner on May 1st.

Bonuses (first mandatory above must be accomplished)
You may leave all in comment if you wish.

one extra:

• follower

two extra:

• add my button to your page
• become a subscriber

five extra:

• if you blog about this book and link to this page
• add my 4 LOVE of BOOKS button to your blog page
  
• add my lighter side button to your blog page

to winner

A copy of this book was provided for review by Virtual Book tours
Visit Virtual tours here