The Deep Heart

October 7, 2019
Psychotherapist Prendergast (In Touch) lays out a strategy for readers to make “a spiritual pilgrimage from the head to the heart” and escape the ego’s endless “agenda for self-improvement” in this inviting inquiry. He provides meditation exercises and examples taken from his psychotherapy practice to explain how the heart can be a “center of extraordinary sensitivity in the center of the chest that has infinite depth” and the “most common, central, and easily accessible portal to true nature for most people.” Arguing that “the ordinary mind is a good servant but a poor master,” he instructs readers to detect and effectively question “core limiting beliefs” by meditating, asking oneself difficult questions (such as, how will I feel “if I have the right job or career?” or “How do you adapt to defend yourself?”), and doing one’s best to “let it in.” Prendergast asks readers to “re-inhabit” themselves (driven by “affectionate, non-judgmental attention” to one’s own needs) and their own experiences (as opposed to quickly moving on to the next experience). Readers who enjoyed Helen Schucman’s A Course in Miracles will appreciate Prendergast’s enthusiastic take on deconstructing self-imposed limitations.