Open-Secrets

Month: March 2011

  • Geneen Roth Bounces Back from Madoff

    What Geneen Roth Learned About the Past & Money

    Geneen Roth Lost and FoundYesterday, on the flight from Detroit to San Francisco, I read Geneen Roth’s new book – Lost and Found – Unexpected Revelations About Food and Money. The book is an eye-opening exploration of how the past and our unconscious attitudes about money can wreak havoc in our lives.

    Geneen pulls no punches in the book. From “grovelling for dollars” to “Madoff rage” to the “specter of homelessness,” Lost and Found is a candid revelation about what Geneen learned by losing her life’s savings in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme. The book gives us insight into Geneen Roth’s open-ended inquiry into her relationship with money, her unconscious attitudes toward money, her life habits around money, and how she has begun to free herself from it all through awareness & inquiry.

    It takes a lot of courage to reveal so many personal and intimate details as Geneen has in her book. The gift of it for the reader is that we can connect with her and her experience in a real way. Lost and Found isn’t a dispassionate treatise on the effects and insights of falling victim to one of the greatest con men of all time, nor is it a tale of “woe is me.” Lost and Found is more a journey of revelation from a person responding to a “wake up call” from reality.

    We are fortunate to have a person like Geneen Roth who can show us the beauty and power of bringing awareness and inquiry into all of our life.

    (BTW – The magazine cover is wishful thinking, though
    I hope to see Geneen Roth soon on the cover of Time!)

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  • Point 8 (eight) on the Enneagram

    The Redemption of Point Eight

    enneagramYears ago, I submitted an article to the Enneagram Monthly on point eight. Recently, someone asked me about my enneagram fixation (point 8 ) and I thought it might be interesting to post this article on enneagram point eight on this blog.

    Shortly after the article appeared in the Enneagram Monthly, a man (point 8 ) from Atlanta emailed me to say that he started reading the article at work and had to go into his office and close the door for privacy. The article brought a rush of emotion and tears to him as it touched something deep in him.

    Perhaps it will serve other 8’s on the enneagram, perhaps it needs updating or critique. You tell me.

    Footsteps on the Path to the Pearl Beyond Price

    I have lived most of my life under the delusion of point eight.

    I would like to share some of my experience and journey toward becoming a human being. I want to talk about the enneagram – how it’s been useful and how I see it being used to perpetuate the incarceration of the soul. I want to address compassion, humanness & vulnerability, integrity, and the Pearl Beyond Price (personal essence).

    Read the full article – The Redemption of Point Eight

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  • Revisiting Paramahansa Yogananda

    Meditation at Song of the Morning

    On Saturday, a friend and I drove over to the Song of the Morning spiritual retreat center near Vanderbilt, Michigan for a 3-hour meditation. The retreat center is located on the Pigeon River amidst 800 acres of beautiful woods.

    Song of the Morning was founded in 1971 by Oliver Black (Yogacharaya), a disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda. (more…)

  • Is it ME or YOU?

    Is it me or you that is bumming us out?

    The other day, I was at a Home & Garden Show in Petoskey, MI. I specifically wanted to talk to some plumbing contractors about water systems for the house. Northern Michigan has hard water, so I need to soften it up – just like me! I also want to install a reverse osmosis system for the kitchen. (more…)

  • Geneen Roth – Lost & Found

    Lost and Found: Unexpected Revelations About Food and Money

    Geneen Roth Lost and FoundGeneen Roth’s new book will be released on March 22. I pre-ordered mine on Amazon yesterday. You may recall that Geneen was one of Bernie Madoff’s victims, but instead of playing the victim role, Geneen took a serious look at her situation, what got her there and did what she always does – started looking into the depths of her psyche and behavior to understand herself better.

    As she was exploring her patterns an beliefs, she managed to release her best selling book to date: Women,Food & God. The book took off like a rocket, hopefully helping her to reverse some of her financial misfortune.

    I’ve been looking forward to her new book ever since she told me she was writing it about a year ago. Here’s what the publisher says about Lost and Found: Unexpected Revelations About Food and Money:

    When Geneen Roth and her husband lost their life savings, Roth joined the millions of Americans dealing with financial turbulence, uncertainty, and abrupt reversals in their expectations. The resulting shock was the catalyst for her to explore, in workshops and in her own life, how women’s habits and behaviors around money-as with food-can lead to exactly the situations they most want to avoid. Roth identified her own unconscious choices-binge shopping followed by periods of budgetary self-deprivation, “treating” herself in ways that ultimately failed to sustain, and using money as a substitute for love-among others. As she examined the deep sources of these habits, she faced the hard truth about where her “self-protective” financial decisions had led. As in all her books, Roth relates her personal experience with irreverent humor and hard- won wisdom. Here, she offers provocative and radical strategies for transforming how we feel and behave about the resources that should, and ultimately can, sustain and support our lives.

    I think Geneen Roth is taking her work and writing to a whole new level.

    Links of Interest

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