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Jana Wilson, the founder of Emotional Healing Systems, explores her childhood trauma and her subsequent aspiration to bond with and heal her inner child in this empowering, confessional, and prescriptive memoir. At age twelve, during a raucous, disturbing fight between her alcoholic father and codependent mother, Jana had a mystical experience that clarified her human connection to a spiritual source. When she ran outdoors to escape the violent chaos and pray for help, she had an out-of-body experience: “I looked around and saw that I was floating in the cosmos—nebulas, galaxies, and star nurseries were all around me…. In that moment, I felt more love and peace than I had ever experienced.”
This deeply moving book is a courageous exposure of Jana’s deepest wounding and her struggles and successes in integrating all the loose ends—and dead ends—of emerging selfhood. While the narrative has some uneven, uncertain moments at the outset, it ripens and brims with compelling prose and authenticity as it unfolds. The author candidly shares how her long exposure to childhood abuse and neglect left her susceptible to more unsatisfying relationships in adulthood, even with her strong desire to transcend childhood conditioning. While reaching outward to develop skills to support herself financially and extricate herself from toxic or unsatisfying circumstances, Jana also continually looked inward. She learned how to be her own best friend and protector of her wounded inner child as her informal and formal education progressed. She dreamed too of finding a soul mate, working hard to create the peace and balance in her life that allowed her to marry a man who also engaged in self-discovery and healing. Readers in similar circumstances, such as divorced single mothers, codependent wives, or women disconnected from their authentic selves, will find solace, wisdom, and opportunity in Jana’s narrative.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review