About the Book
Don't let fear stand in the way of experiencing your authentic self. In this courageous, non-dogmatic guide, spiritual rebel and internationally renowned teacher Jac O'Keeffe offers the keys to moving beyond the limited perceptions you have about yourself and toward boundless, fearless freedom.
Do you ever feel flawed, anxious, or afraid-like something might be wrong, but you're not sure what? The truth is, we all feel that way sometimes (or even most of the time!). We're trapped by a limited sense of self, held back by our own anxieties, fears, and compulsions. Mindfulness can offer intermittent relief from these contrived narratives, showing us how to be present, open, and available in the moment by observing our thoughts and feelings. This is all wonderful-until the fears and doubts rush back in.
How to Be a Spiritual Rebel offers more than simple mindfulness. Drawing on spiritual practices and recent findings in neuroscience, this groundbreaking guide will help you examine the psychological barriers that block your spiritual growth and keep you from embracing true liberation. You'll learn to cultivate courage, view your thoughts and feelings without letting them define you, and find guidance and support as you navigate the route to boundless freedom without fear or self-limiting attachments.
If you're ready to take mindfulness-and spirituality-to the next level and experience true freedom and fulfilment, this candid, entertaining, and jargon-free guide will help point the way.
About the Author :
Jac O'Keeffe experienced a spontaneous awakening in 1997. This gave her access to powerful intuitive and healing capacities and influenced her change in career, from pioneering community arts policy at the national level in Ireland to opening a healing practice. She worked closely with a team of medical doctors researching the spiritual causes underpinning clinical depression. Findings culminated in a residential program that O'Keeffe developed which successfully treated depression. In 2003, she left Ireland to deepen her spiritual practice. After a two-year period of no thoughts, the
self-referencing mechanism that creates the sense of a personal "I" had dissolved. O'Keeffe began to work as a spiritual teacher in 2008. She now guides others in her teachings and publications in order to share what she has learned, and assists others to transcend both dual and non-dual perspectives. She also prepares spiritual teachers for liberation.
Review :
"How to Be a Spiritual Rebel illuminates a clear and practical pathway for breaking out of automated mental patterns, and finally living an authentic life. With fierce honesty, courage, and palpable care for her reader, Jac shares potent turning points in her own journey into practices that will serve any lover of the Truth to cut through subtle deception and find their way to Freedom."
--Miranda Macpherson, contemporary spiritual teacher, author of The Way of Grace and Boundless Love, and founder of OneSpirit Interfaith Foundation (UK) and the Living Grace Sangha--Miranda Macpherson
"How to Be a Spiritual Rebel offers potent truths about how mindfulness and compassion can bring greater happiness, health, and freedom into our lives."
--Shauna Shapiro, PhD, professor in the department of counseling psychology at Santa Clara University, and author of Good Morning, I Love You--Shauna Shapiro, PhD
"From the moment of our first breath, we begin a long and at times arduous journey of mental conditioning, one of creating our individual and social selves. In How to Be a Spiritual Rebel, Jac O'Keeffe astutely guides us how to leave this conditioning and its endless searching behind for a new life beyond boundaries, beyond limitations. In such a life, each moment is lived not by conditions of the mind but rather by your inner spiritual nature, which guides you in an ongoing and ever-blossoming transformation of openness to and participation in life itself. Freedom for its own sake and authenticity are the hallmarks of a life lived free of the conditioned self."
--Paul J. Mills, PhD, professor in the department of family medicine and public health, director of the Center of Excellence for Research and Training in Integrative Health, and chief of the Behavioral Medicine Division at the University of California, San Diego; and director of research at The Chopra Foundation--Paul J. Mills, PhD
"In How to Be a Spiritual Rebel, Jac O'Keeffe provides a deeply wise, kind, and practical guide to untangling yourself from limiting beliefs and habits, and points to the intrinsic freedom of the heart that is available to us all."
--Hugh Byrne, PhD, senior teacher with the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, and author of The Here-and-Now Habit--Hugh Byrne, PhD
"Jac O'Keeffe has brilliantly deconstructed her own deep spiritual process to provide clear, simple guidelines and practices for all others who long for psychological and spiritual freedom. She provides tools to prepare us for living the deepest Truth, free of personal clinging to false identities. Using her own internal journey as a template, she offers a path to freedom and teaches us how to change neural pathways in the brain, freeing consciousness from the conditioned restraints and limitations caused by self-referencing thought and emotion. This unique, modern book on non-dual awakening and beyond will become a classic for those who seek realization."
--Bonnie Greenwell, PhD, transpersonal psychotherapist and non-dual teacher; and author of The Kundalini Guide, The Awakening Guide, and When Spirit Leaps--Bonnie Greenwell, PhD
"Jac O'Keeffe is one of the rare presenters of prior-to, without, or beyond consciousness and non-duality. This provides a context making her unique as both a teacher and educator."
--Stephen H. Wolinsky, PhD (Narayan), disciple of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj--Stephen H. Wolinsky, PhD (Narayan)
