Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #123811 in Books
• Published on: 1998-12-31
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Synopsis
Advocates a new approach to intimate relationships that requires a willingness to let go of old patterns and draw on a new kind of honesty and awareness to embark on a path of personal and spiritual discovery.

From the Author
How I wrote Journey of the Heart
Journey of the Heart explores a new vision of conscious love, of intimate relationship as a path of personal and spiritual transformation. And it also shows how to put that vision into practice. It includes chapters on bringing greater consciousness, compassion, and awareness to such areas as passion, commitment, surrender, sex, marriage, gender issues, as well as to working with fear, anger, vulnerability and uncertainty. Writing this book took me ten years, as I worked to craft it in a lyrical, literary style that would stand the test of time. That has certainly been true so far, as many readers continue to regard it as a classic of its kind. I have received countless letters from people who consider this the most profound and far-reaching book on intimate relationship they have ever read.

This book grew out of my search for a whole new vision of intimate relationship— a vision that would address the great challenges and difficulties facing couples in our time. What I wanted to write was the kind of book I never found myself, one that recognized the real-life psychological complexities of relationship, but which also looked much deeper, at the larger spiritual challenges of intimate relationship. In spite of my training as a psychotherapist and clinical psychologist, I was as ill-prepared as anyone to face the challenges I faced after intially getting married and then divorced as a young man, without ever really knowing what had hit me.

I knew that the vision of relationship I was seeking had to be rooted in the powerful spiritual energy that is released when two people connect deeply with each other. Yet when I began the book in 1979, I found few sources of wisdom or guidance to draw on. Even my most respected teachers had their own share of marital disasters, and could not provide a model for me in this area. I sought in vain in the fields of psychology, philosophy, and spirituality, East and West, for a teaching that would illuminate the subtle, multi-dimensional play that happens between two individuals who, each in themselves, are a mysterious blend of body, mind, soul, and spirit. I realized I would have to forge my own path, and develop my own understanding of this whole area, which had never been fully explored or articulated before.

This project turned out to be the most difficult thing I have ever done. It gradually took shape out of my own personal explorations, my work with couples and psychotherapy clients over the years, endless talks late into the night with friends, lovers, and colleagues who were also passionately interested in unraveling the mysteries of relationship, my years of meditation experience, and, at the end, my second marriage with my wife Jennifer, who helped me bring it to fruition. With each successive draft, I realized that I still needed to go one step further, one level deeper into my subject matter. As I proceeded, I began to realize why there were so few satisfying books on the subject. The love between man and women at first appears straightforward enough, but the more one looks into it, the more it turns out to be a complex labyrinth that threatens to swallow up anyone who would attempt to explore its innermost reaches.

So instead of being an armchair exercise, this project became a journey I had to undergo. It forced me to keep probing ever more deeply and personally the questions I was trying to get a handle on. If I was trying to understand the anger between men and women I would soon find rages arising in me that I had never faced before. If I was looking at why we have such a hard time with the needy places inside, I would inevitably have to face and deal with my own need in unexpected ways. In this way, every question I pursued would soon turn around and confront me face to face. I found that to really address my questions about love meant that I had to work further on the source of these questions— myself.

I also came to realize that the writer who decides to address certain difficult questions invokes some kind of genie, daimon, or protector spirit, beyond his conscious control and intention, who compels him to undergo certain experiences that test him, try and season him, until he is able to speak with a voice of authenticity and authority that comes from having so thoroughly lived the subject matter. The daimon I had apparently invoked by taking on this project really seemed to have it in for me. The Greeks named this protector spirit of love, Eros. As I wrestled with him, it felt like I was being bent and shaped to become a more suitable vehicle for his purposes. All in all, this genie proved to be a most demanding teacher who would not permit any easy solutions and answers that might diminish the depth, beauty, and mystery of his realm. He was bent on teaching me respect and appreciation for the role of the unknown and the unsayable, which lie at the very core of intimate relationship. And above all, he required that my language and presentation matched the subtlety and beauty of love itself.

That was my task. Now as I look back at Journey of the Heart, I feel a deep sense of satisfaction that my efforts have turned out to be of real help to so many people, on both the personal and the spiritual level.

Customer Reviews

Very inspiring book.
This is one of the best books I've read. It has helped me to understand very clearly the dynamics within relationships. It has been groundbreaking to see conflict form a different perspective; as a tool for growth and this has turned my relationships around.

A real understanding of working at your relationships
The best book I've read so far about making relationships work. The author shows that every relationship goes through hard times but it is by facing them head on with gentle honesty and openness that things can be resolved. He shows that if we have the courage to be present with both our innermost feelings at difficult times, we actually build a closer bond. It is about looking at self as well as understanding the other. He shows that conscious working at loving produces a stronger, more powerful and satisfactory relationship than a relationship which is only guided by initial attraction or aversion feelings. I very much recommend for anyone who wants to get away from the instant coffee relationship culture.

True spiritual, inner connected relationships exist!
John Welgood expertly, encouragingly teaches us to be whole individually, to be connected spiritually with one another, and to be "in relationship" with our partners in a spiritual sense, trusting in love and the process leading to growth, healing and development that necessarily occurs by the nature of being human and our contact with our higher power which can be explored and experienced on the path of human intimacy.

He speaks of the razor's edge in relationships and staying on the periphery of emotion to observe it rise and fall in the Zen art of watchfulness. And, he cajols us kindly to be patient with each other, holding our love before any issues, situations or circumstances, letting go of critical voices that insist one chooses one path or another, rather than maintaining an open, loving presence.

Perhaps being perched on this edge is best characterized by the word surrender, but he admonishes us this patient waiting, presence with our beloved, and watching of life does not mean submission to another person. Deeper surrender individually and mutually leads us to true intimacy and nips the problem thorns we all encounter.