It’s not a simple task to clear a new pathway in a familiar forest, but that’s exactly what Norm Shealy has accomplished with this new book by introducing a word not often considered in the health arena: conscientious. As every reader will discover within the opening pages, this word comes with a substantial cache of power skills. It is not an ordinary word. Labeling a person as “conscientious” is a compliment that recognizes him or her as organized, reliable, dependable, and highly responsible. It took Norm’s genius to focus on this particular power attribute in order that it might be recognized as having a core influence upon an individual’s quality of life and health.
We have for decades written about, lectured on, and discussed at great length what it means to take personal responsibility for oneself in life. People are always saying, “I have to own that I did or said that,” and such statements are accepted as admissions of responsibility. We have highlighted responsibility because over the course of the past six decades we have placed an increasing emphasis on the power the individual has to determine the quality of his or her life, health, and healing.
After reading this book, I felt that Norm had accomplished a milestone in terms of offering readers a much-needed guide in how to advance our understanding of responsibility; that is, there is a profound difference between the vague concept of wanting to live more responsibly and actually having a handbook that offers a person the essential directives on how to accomplish that goal. He has identified this life-changing choice as the decision to live a conscientious life. This has far-reaching benefits to an individual, as Norm points out in this wonderful book, not the least of which is that a conscientious person is more likely to live a happier as well as healthier lifestyle. As the reader will discover in the chapters of this book, Norm envisions health as inclusive of every element within our living environment.
Having taught in the field of consciousness and health studies for almost 30 years, I can honestly say that I have rarely heard mention of the word conscientious at all, much less used as a power skill. I have not, for example, ever done an intuitive reading and later told the person that he or she was depleted energetically as a result of living an “unconscientious” life. I have, however, suggested to many people throughout the years that they felt ungrounded. In general, the symptoms of someone who is ungrounded are these: unable to fulfill professional or personal commitments, difficulty with handling finances and often ending up in debt, the tendency to be renters and not landowners, the tendency to make endless promises but keep very few, and little capacity or desire to grasp the serious consequences generated by their lack of being grounded.
It is often especially challenging for ungrounded individuals to follow through with a creative idea, though not for lack of talent or genius. Rather, they find waiting for anything a near impossible task. Everything must happen now, all at once, or they move on. This is the same pattern of instant gratification that they bring to relationships, which explains why a long-term commitment with an ungrounded person usually ends in heartache.
We can agree that being ungrounded is obviously a challenge, an obstacle to a person’s health and happiness. And to be clear, being ungrounded is not a choice. I think it is important to note that this particular type of “psychic suffering” is relatively new to the human experience. That is, more and more people today either feel completely ungrounded or go through periods in their life when they feel as if they have been uprooted from familiar earth. We are, in other words, experiencing new health challenges not only in the form of viruses such as HIV, but also in how we experience inner turmoil.
Looking back, I wish I’d had Norm’s book as a guide to hand to these many individuals who knew they had a problem with being ungrounded but could not figure out how to navigate a positive route into a more stable emotional and psychic state. If any of them asked me now, “How do I break through this pattern of just quitting all the time?” I would hand them this book. I would introduce them to the idea of becoming a more conscientious person. Even as I write this, such a suggestion strikes me as a gentle and compassionate response, wise and nonthreatening. Norm has, in effect, written the perfect guidebook for people who feel as if they are disconnected from their physical or creative skills, or even their common sense. He has provided a type of anchoring system for individuals going through ungrounded cycles in life, which happens to all of us. We are living in a different world now, essentially a psychic one. Being “grounded” will soon become a standard setting on the medical dial.
I find that once again with this book, Norm has broken new ground. He never ceases to amaze me. I am sure that he will have that effect on you, too.
Caroline Myss,
Oak Park, IL
March 2013