So many of us have experienced different forms of sexual abuse and have never had a safe opportunity to reveal it or heal it. Your writing opens the door for the journey through abuse as a human script that demands embracing, while giving voice to the painful scarring that occurred. Then allowing the vulnerable healing space and grace for healing provides validation to step forward in transformation. Amazing the healing gifts we human beings can be for ourselves and each other. ~ Sylvia Sultenfuss
Thank you for blessing me with the book. I never make time to read but last night I read about half. So interesting and readable. Congratulations on sharing real human feelings and experiences to help and guide others. ~Lee Ann McKale
A friend recommended this book to me. We have long been into Self-help books. Read many beginning in the 80's. I had, had a very difficult childhood, as have many people, and struggled to deal with the fallout. For many years my favorite song was, "I Am a Rock" by Simon & Garfunkel. Fortunately, I have always been strong willed with an excellent survival instinct & pushed through whatever came my way including pushing down whatever inconvenient emotions might arise. Emotion equaled weakness to me. Self-help books helped me to realize the need to look within rather blaming others, past & present, for my uncomfortable life situations. My point here is, many people want to improve any number of issues in their lives and I know many books/teachers help in that regard but this book is truly unique.
The first half of the book is so personal & awe-inspiring. A true testament to the human spirit's ability to rise above, transform and grow to it's true potential. This book shows one how to accomplish this through guided self discovery exercises. They are simple in presentation, easy to follow, and not lengthy. In the first exercise, Getting to know breath, I was quite surprised that I could actually begin to tune into how my body tries to speak to me. I did not think that would be very easy for me since I tend to ignore bodily complaints. There's work to be done! Or, I'll deal with that later like Scarlett O'Hara. What really separates these guided exercises are the follow up questions to ask yourself and advice such as how to know who is speaking to you - the right or left brain. How to know if the information you are receiving is correct or is it just the ego taking over again - thinking and not intuiting. ~CMS
These words taken from a page of Dr.Toni's first book, The Propelled Heart, explain how she works, and writes. She absorbs from her experiences and teachers, she feels her reactions, she experiments, she allows herself to change. Then she comes to be what she says. She wrote this book to take the reader with her through the passages she so warmly but yet with masterful simplicity explains and generously shares. One can feel that she wants you to learn in order to facilitate living your life.
This is a book with many lives! It introduces to the lives of a person who could be you, but it is Toni who is able to sit still, go inside to express the deepest sentiments regarding the moments that forged her life. In many years of talking while sitting through her healing processes, I didn't get near the depth of her life discovered now by reading her book. Toni listens and her special and unique way of listening becomes teaching. She wants to help, she gives guidance. But you don't know this, until it becomes clear reading this book.
Her personal story is and isn't like other life stories, but she was able to tell it with simplicity, just as if you were sipping a cup of tea together. Her personal life is clearly the vehicle through which she learned to be a healer. Even when she is able to laugh about some life experiences one feels the depth of her struggles and desire to understand. Her writing style is the mirror of who she is. Direct, elegant, careful, deep and childish too.
I was enchanted reading the first part, so lively, true, uncensored, direct, all together fascinating. It all comes together when, in the second part, she shares with great generosity what she has learned while making it sound as the simplest process to anyone willing to discover oneself and heal his or her wounds. ~ Patrizia
It's taken me some time to read this book- time well invested. I'll spend more time re-reading it, slowly, a little at a time, adapting the exercises to my own experience and needs (they're really well-structured for that.) It's not a "long read' (<200 pages) nor is it a difficult read. But it's a *thoughtful* read. I found myself closing the book, setting it my lap, and thinking "Toni's experience with this, resonates with my experience with that, and what can I learn and deepen about my experience, from hers?"
As someone who's spent a fair chunk of my life feeling plagued by various physical ailments and body dissatisfactions, the last couple of years using Toni's techniques of communicating with my body, learning to decode its wisdom, and coming to love it in all its amazing beauty and complexity, I can say simply "this works."
Even if you're not someone who takes readily to non-mainstream approaches to health, these techniques represent simple, minimal-risk investments in linking up the physiological and psychological factors that influence somatic symptoms. So much of mainstream medical intervention is predicated on applying a sledgehammer where perhaps a gentle push will do. And on treating the symptoms, rather than the causes.
Toni connects the gentle and practical "how tos" of the exercises with powerful and well-written revelations from her own experience. ~ TygrBright
What a powerful book! The beginning chapters of Toni's abuse experience were so helpful, since written from a child's view and feelings, in eliciting words and feelings from my own personal experience of early abuse, which I have worked on releasing for many years. I revisited it with the eyes of my child and had such a visceral response to her prose, that a deeper layer was able to rise to the light of day and be released. Toni's willingness to be vulnerable in her story telling was beautiful, refreshing and helped me release on many levels. The exercises are supportive,easy to follow and have assisted me in trusting more in my own intuitive process.More personal work to be done; and the second half of the book is my companion. I have been a seeker of my own wholeness in body, mind and spirit for many years and I like to do visualizations and guided imagery not only at times during the day, but also to help me go to sleep on a positive note. Toni's book has become my personal bedside Treasure. I am looking forward to her next book and workshops. ~ Nancy M. Altman
Toni Luisa Rivera, Doctor of Chiropractic, Certified Rubenfeld Synergist, author, and workshop facilitator. Born and raised on Air Force bases until her father retired in Puerto Rico when she was eleven years old. Horses and sailing were her early passions. Graduated Life Chiropractic University in 1985 and returning to Puerto Rico to open her first chiropractic office in the rural area of the island where there were no alternative options for healthcare.
Dr. Toni discovered the vital role body, mind, spirit, and emotions play in healing while attending to the many people seeking care. Wanting to explore healing methods that incorporated all these aspects of a person, she moved to Santa Fe, NM in 1994. Taking up dressage riding, hot yoga, motorcycles, snowboarding and marimba music, she has basked in the variety and magic of the southwest.
Having trained with Ilana Rubenfeld herself, founder of the Rubenfeld Synergy Method (RSM), Dr. Toni has become a master teacher, focusing on teaching clients about self-healing and teaching other practitioners intuitive listening to themselves while working with their clients. She has discovered a passion for writing and is launching a new workshop series, Intuition Mastery.
The Propelled Heart: Injury to Insight begins with a prologue that describes a sailing trip when I was 18 years old and compares that trip to the journey each of us takes in life - how facing fear with calm and choosing to rise to face any challenge. The rest of the book consists of two parts.
Part One, entitled 'Injury to Impasse' is autobiographical and recounts my childhood wound of sexual abuse and my Mother's reaction when I told her what had happened. There are chapters on connection and relationship with others, and some recounting of memories and the way they came to me.
The autobiography continues with stories of turning points:
- When chiropractic came into my life
- When the 'monster' office I created needed to be escaped from.
- How Rubenfeld Synergy and the integration of myself into my own life evolved my work with others.
The cyclic pattern that has reoccurred over my life is recognized and there is understanding of the meaning and significance for myself and others.
Included is a chapter with a 'message from spirit' that details how each of us needs to maintain a connection with spirit. My current work and mission in life is detailed in the last chapter of Part One.
Part Two, entitled 'Impasse to Insight' includes teachings on the metaphorical quality of physical symptoms, recurring emotional states, recurring situations in life, and organ dis-ease. There is discussion of self value and self-respect and how these are related and required for a full expression in one's life of their unique Self. There is a dialogue on the duty of each person to live their individual lives to the fullest and debate over the presence of judgment and betrayal between people and within one's self. In conclusion, there is a transcript of a sample conversation with the authors' inner child.
Each chapter in Part Two includes exercises to allow the reader to explore their own life, their own feelings and situations. The hope is that this book will allow others to see the wounds in their life as portals to the gifts they may share with the world due to the insight gained through their journey. The introduction of exercises to explore various metaphorical aspects of life are provided to encourage seeing the struggles of everyday life as opportunities to learn and grow.
FROM THE AUTHOR:
Life is a great dance. We dance, we evolve, whether we are realizing it or not. Much of my life was without seeming intention to me. Yet, looking back, it seems life has held an intention for me. It has been said that we have the particular experiences we have had in life in order to evoke specific feelings. These feelings allow us a chance to grow and learn. If we don't get the learning, some other experiences happen, to allow us the opportunity to again experience the feelings, many times very similar, though the evolving experience may seem different on the surface.
Repeating patterns are the tap on the shoulder asking us to look at our reactions to the world. "Here you are my child. What are your lessons from this experience?" The Cosmic Beloved seems to be forever patient, ever willing to allow us to repeat opportunities, so as to experience and learn.
I am still on my journey to be sure. Some things have been learned, some still on replay. Till the words and music are learned well, and the pieces can be woven into a new score.
In my private practice in Santa Fe, New Mexico my clients enjoy exploring their world with me. Some are more interested in the physical side of life, of their body and it's workings. Some are intrigued by the metaphor the body represents, the story to be told by the body.
“I don’t need anybody!”
“I will never let them see how much they hurt me!”
“Never, never, never!”
BUY THE BOOK TODAY AND
GET A FREE SEAT AT DR. TONI'S
ONLINE WORKSHOP ON FEBRUARY 18, 2016!
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Just enter your information into the form to the right
and join Dr. Toni for a 2-hour workshop:
DISCOVER YOUR HEART’S MESSAGE
with Toni Luisa Rivera, DC
Thursday, February 18
Your heart can be your closest friend and confidant. The heart wants to share the secrets and personal truth vital for living your full potential. In this two-hour on-line workshop you will discover the language of your heart and establish a lasting connection to this fount of inner wisdom. Teachings and exercises will be shared, allowing you to develop a unique connection to heart. Sign up now to enjoy the creative, easy way Dr. Toni teaches this useful information. Space limited. Two-hour course ($40 value); video conference or call in available.
FREE for a limited time with the purchase of Dr. Toni Luisa Rivera’s first book:
The Propelled Heart:
Moving from Injury to Insight
