Your Ultimate Life Plan: How to Deeply Transform Your Everyday Experience and Create Changes That Last by Dr. Jennifer Howard is a book that teaches people how to transform their lives by dealing forthrightly with their past experiences and the inner workings of their own identity.
Howard challenges each of us to deal forthrightly with our identity. In doing so, there are basic questions which must be resolved. For instance, think about whether or not you are industrious or lazy. Are you contemplative or do you react to people extemporaneously? These are the types of questions which define our identity, as well as the perceptions others have of us.
Howard believes that relationships and intimacy are the building blocks of existence. The author challenges us to analyze our relationships to determine the important elements, the stressers, repeating thoughts and the beliefs we tend to develop from repeated exposure to our friends, relatives and associates.
Howard explains that we have three selves. These are the real self consisting of our own notions of how the world works, our thoughts, feelings and experiences. The false self is who you think you should be or a product of the expectations of others. The true self is transpersonal or the embodiment of our spirit or union with a higher being or purpose.
Howard transcends the traditional view of the ego into a theoretical container holding our individuality, personal experiences, unresolved pain and the sense of "I - ness". Psychologists hold that the ego is made up of your past, your unique identification to your body, as well as personal inner thoughts and feelings.
Howard spends a lot of time developing the concept of our inner voice. The inner voice consists of things like intuition, gut instincts, experiential wisdom and the divine core which consists of the deepest held feelings or convictions.
Howard presents an interesting portrayal of life's dimensions. These dimensions include the action-physical, formation-emotional, creation-mental and the emanation-spiritual which houses the true self. This is the complete nested hierarchy of human consciousness.
Your Ultimate Life Plan is an important book which teaches how to navigate the most complex areas of human identity in order to find meaning in life.
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