Activate the True Power of Your Shadow
Michael J. Penn
(Illustrator)
GoTracee Publishing (Apr 15, 2017)
Softcover $16.95 (234pp)
978-0-9963907-2-9
Heal Your Soul History will resonate with those interested in a life of peace and wholeness.
Tracee Dunblazier’s Heal Your Soul History is a unique take on walking through the modern age with energy, self-esteem, and an open heart. Her message to readers? Slay the demons that beset you.
While the book belongs on the spiritual self-help shelf, Dunblazier offers many personal stories from her life, both before and after she embraced her work as a spiritual empath. Throughout the text, she employs the notion of “slaying demons”—and she literally, for the most part, means demons, or low-vibration entities that latch on to people energetically and bring pain and strife.
Though these notions require a degree of credulity, those with firm beliefs in the spirit world will have no problem picking up on their meaning. For others, the text still well promotes the idea that ridding lives of suffering is an active process.
The book’s five parts each begin with a story about one of the author’s past lives, as experienced and processed in her present lifetime. Though interesting—and beautifully rendered, with five color images—the stories feel extraneous to the rest of the sections’ content.
Though it is made clear that the past-life stories should resonate with the guidance offered, all five narratives are intense, even melodramatic, and are difficult to relate to. The result is that the organizing structure of the text is not particularly effective, especially when juxtaposed with the richer material that follows.
All five sections end with excellent suggestions for rituals, like the use of home altars, that can help people actively work toward desired changes. Specific, heartfelt affirmations are given to help enrich the process.
Passion over the subject matter is evident throughout. The resultant tone is empowering and conversational. Some notions are striking, particularly fresh ideas about the worth of tears, the potential power of negative thinking, and the process of depression. The inclusion of topics such as bigotry and cultural isolation is also refreshing.
The volume’s focus is often unclear, and discerning its ultimate meaning is not easy. The “shadow” of the subtitle is only referred to once or twice, which will disappoint those who want a more thorough exploration of the subject and what it connotes in archetypal psychology.
Toward the end of the book, movements between brief sections that offer advice, tell a story, or share a personal anecdote become frenetic. Headings stop connecting with the content that follows. Inconsistent organization presents an additional challenge.
Though slaying literal demons is not for everyone, Heal Your Soul History is an unconventional blend of memoir and self-help that will resonate with those interested in crafting a life that is moving energetically toward peace and wholeness.
Reviewed by Margaret Fedder
October 30, 2017
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The author of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the author will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
