blog book tour: ten zen seconds

“i am free of the past”

this is one of the “incantations” found in eric maisel’s new book, ten zen seconds. in this book, dr. maisel suggests combining incantations with breathing techniques, and in this way to find one’s center. his ideas are useful for everyone but particularly for artists – dr. maisel works predominantly with creative people, and the vast majority of examples in his book are drawn from painters, actors, writers and other cultural workers.

eric maisel and his little community have launched a blog book tour, and i’m happy to be part of it. the idea of a blog or virtual book tour is not new (i found the first reference to it in vagablogging, in 2003), and i’ve had the good fortune to participate in something similar last year, for one of jay sennett’s books.

this one here is interesting because it is a series of interviews with dr. maisel, lasting for about six weeks, one blog a day. i’ll host the tour on may 31.

on sunday, brenda johima from the beautiful comox valley, launched the tour with some interesting questions. for example, my ears pricked up when i saw her asking how maisel’s suggestions might work for people with chronic pain; as someone who has worked a lot with people with chronic pain, i was quite intrigued by that.

i also liked how they talked about helping new writers:

brenda johima: i believe that everyone has at least one book inside them, waiting to be expressed, waiting to be written, whether for publication or for personal development and creative expression. eric, you are a prolific writer, and successful author of 30 books. how might someone who wants to write and publish their first book use ten zen seconds to assist in their creative writing process?

eric maisel: there are several different ways. first, they need to really believe”not just superficially believe”that they have it in them to write a book, and using incantation 3, “i trust my resources,” can help deepen that belief and their self-confidence.

they also need to banish old, harmful messages from the past, maybe that remark made by their third grade teacher or their mother about their writing, and they can use incantation 7, “i am free of the past,” to quickly help banish thoughts of that sort as soon as they arise.

throughout the process, whether it’s the writing process or the selling process, they need to recognize not just what a challenge confronts them but that they are equal to this mighty challenge, and here incantation 10, “i am equal to this challenge,” can prove really useful.

interested in the rest of the blog tour? here is the schedule.

isabella mori
moritherapy
counselling in vancouver

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