Foreword

While the book you are about to read is quite manageable in terms of page count, it is generously massive in terms of wisdom. In fact, this book is entirely reflective of the author’s approach to counseling, which is to cut through to the heart of any issue and heal it using the most profound-yet-economical processes.

Every time I read Dr. Trish Whynot’s writing, I’m taken aback by “her ability to see through the chaos of life’s web and identify the root cause of any problem.” That’s a quotation from an article I wrote about Trish more than 12 years ago, and it’s still the essence of her work from my perspective. She has the natural ability to see past the smokescreen of drama, chaos and emotion and recognize the true origin of our physical, mental, social and even financial issues. Once identified, healing those issues is pretty straightforward, although not necessarily easy. According to Trish, the “easy” depends upon your willingness to accept responsibility for your life and then your willingness to allow it to change.

Accepting responsibility for our life is a big part of Trish’s work. In her counseling and in this book, she pinpoints exactly how to own the responsibility of our problems—removing blame and victimhood from the equation—so that we are empowered to actually create change. This is critically important considering that we have no power to change others. So waiting for others to change before we can be healthy, happy or successful can be a long, arduous wait. Instead, Trish provides a gentle and loving approach that allows us to accept responsibility for our circumstances and then move beyond them with joy and inner peace. And this can all be done with remarkable swiftness.

I first became aware of Dr. Trish Whynot in the year 2000 when I interviewed her for an article I was writing for OfSpirit.com Magazine, where I’m the editor. She absolutely blew my mind during that interview, so much that I began seeing her for transformative therapy myself and have recommended her to my audience, my family members and my friends ever since. Just this month, now twelve years since I first met her, I referred another friend to Trish.

I had a significant, spiritual awakening that took place around the time that I first met Trish, and the paradigm shift that I gained from what she taught me was instrumental in this awakening. What she taught me is what she teaches in this book, and I’ll mention just a small sample here:

• Our life circumstances, our relationships and our bodies are trying to teach us something; that is, our illnesses, accidents, coincidences, social interactions and even our pets are attempting to guide us toward the experiences we came into this life to comprehend.
• Every day is a new opportunity to create change in our lives. And with the proper awareness, we can either glide with the flow of life or struggle against its current.
• Our ability to forgive, which is as important for our own inner peace as it is for those we forgive, is one of our greatest challenges. And the depth of rewards that come from forgiving is in direct relation to the level of difficulty it is to forgive.
• At the root of everything is our relationship with our selves and our relationship with Source (God, Creative Intelligence, the Universe).
• A spiritual approach to any pursuit—including weight loss, making money or sports—always brings us to a deeper perspective.
• When we are ready to own our choices and the results of those choices, we are ready to transform our lives with increased love, joy and compassion.

I’ll give you an example that I like to share when telling people about my past experiences with Trish. I went to see her in my late 30s because I noticed that whenever I saved some money, some event would occur (sometimes a series of events) that quickly depleted my savings. My car would break down. My dog or cat had to visit the emergency room (where fees were a lot more expensive than at their normal veterinarian office). Or I had to pay taxes or buy a new computer or something of that nature. Whatever it was that happened, the end result was always the same—before I knew it, I no longer had any savings.

In my work with Trish to understand this recurring experience, I recognized that I was repeating a pattern that I’d learned in my youth. I discovered this when Trish had me meditate with the intention of recalling events throughout my life when this issue first appeared. In this meditation, I saw myself at three different ages as a boy having experiences that created this undesirable pattern.

At the earliest age, around twelve, my father took me to the racetrack. I was always pretty lucky at winning things and that night I won $150, which I put into my piggy bank. A short time later, my parents borrowed that money in order to pay some bills; and because they were never able to get ahead financially, they were never able to return it. At a later age, around fourteen, I sold my drum set in order to buy a better one. But before buying the new drum set, my parents borrowed the money to pay some bills and, again, were unable to ever return it. In the third memory, which took place around the age of sixteen, I sold my motorcycle. And, again, in the weeks that followed, my parents had to borrow the money and were never able to return it.

Following the meditation, Trish helped me to process these memories, specifically this recurring pattern that had been created around money in my youth. She taught me to understand how my anticipation of that recurring outcome (that saved money disappears) could lead me to recreate that in my adult life. If you understand the law of attraction and how we attract what we expect from life, it makes perfect sense that I could manifest these events that depleted my savings whenever I began to get ahead financially. And bringing this realization to my awareness was all I needed to interrupt the pattern. From that day forward, I have been able to save money with ease.

But Trish didn’t stop there. She taught me how to heal this issue at a much deeper level, which meant making sure that I didn’t feel negativity toward my parents for what happened and making sure that I didn’t feel victimized by their actions. She aided me in understanding the financial struggle my parents had while raising my sister and I, yet without ever making us feel their plight. My father was a truck driver and my mother stayed home to raise us kids. And because money for rent and utilities was often tight, my parents had to meet their financial demands with whatever was within their reach. And sometimes that meant borrowing money from their kids. How were they to know what subconscious lessons they were teaching by not having the means to pay us back?

In the end, Trish walked me through some steps to have compassion for my parents who were just trying to provide our family with the best life they knew how to provide. Trish reminded me that it was my soul who chose these two people as my parents in order to provide the early experiences I intended to have in life. And this was my opportunity to forgive my parents for these three experiences around money that I had as a boy. Taking it one step further, this allowed me to feel gratitude for the lessons this issue taught me as an adult, especially the valuable lesson about the power of our mind to create life as we expect it. In the end, my work with Trish not only ended my life-long pattern of not being able to save money, it also taught me to feel a newfound compassion, gratitude and love for my mother and father.

I’ve only touched upon a small fragment of the wisdom this book offers, because the potential it holds to improve your relationships, your career, your health and, yes, your happiness is exceptionally difficult to communicate. Yet Trish has an extraordinary knack for explaining complicated subjects and making them easy to understand. Better yet, she’s provided case studies—real stories with actual clients—that spell out exactly how we can apply the lessons that she’s teaching.

I love books like this that lend themselves to reading from the first chapter to the last OR reading chapters in random order without losing any comprehension. This is one of those books that allows you to pick it up, choose a random chapter, and see what lessons are in store for you. If you trust in this process, more often than not you’ll pick a chapter that is exactly what you need to be reading at that moment.

If what you read in this book resonates with you and you want to take your personal growth to a higher level, I highly recommend working with Trish one-on-one. Since she can just as easily work with you by phone as she can in person, private sessions are the perfect way to apply the brilliance of Trish’s philosophies to your individual life and situations. But begin by reading this book first, because you might be one of those people who instantly grasps Trish’s way of thinking and can apply it to your life without assistance. If so, you are going to see your life improving in new directions that you might never have considered. I know I’ve had a great deal of growth that I can directly attribute to what I’ve learned from Trish. And I’m thrilled that she has now written this book in order to share her wisdom in this way.

Bob Olson
OfSpirit.com editor
Kennebunkport, Maine
September 2012