Jossey-Bass
RRP $35.95
When I first picked up Finding the Deep River Within I wondered if it was going to be another self-help book centred very much on the individual self but found to my surprise that it wasn’t.
Seixas remains focussed as she encourages women to recover balance and meaning in their lives and she draws on wisdom from different religious traditions, including Christianity making this book more ‘spiritual’ than ‘religious’.
I was drawn into the very practical nature of the book – the giving of information and then the offering of some exercises to practise the concept being presented.
What Seixas offers is not new but it does make sense and is a good, clear reminder of our need to slow down in the fast-paced world of today.
As I was reading I found I made connections to time-honoured prayer practices, taking time to connect to the source of life within us (which Seixas calls the ‘deep river’).
Just some ways of reaching this place are through doing something we love, turning off the internal critic and allowing this place to remind us of how we are loved, making boundaries, being present in the present moment and facing what we feel instead of running away from our emotions.
At the end of the book, Seixas reminds her readers that accessing this deep well of life within them will have flow-on effects in the rest of their lives.
Here she very clearly moves out of the centredness on self (necessary in this instance to teach the practices) to state how being centred and grounded in the ‘deep river’ causes us to be more compassionate and loving towards others.
For me this has strong echoes with being grounded and centred in God.
I would recommend Finding the Deep River Within to both men and women.
Review by Melanie Perkins, a Minister of the Word candidate studying at Trinity Theological College
2010-06-02
