The author of this book is an established well known radio show host, transformational coach, and best-selling author of the books, You Can Have What You Want, Supercoach, Feel Happy Now, and several others.
There are many books and seminars out there that claim to offer the secrets of living a more authentic, a more empowered, a more stress free life. I have read many of them and have attended a few of the seminars over the years. Each have a couple of things in common: focusing on developing a positive mental outlook, and putting into play many new external transformative action habits. What makes Michael Neill’s book unique and distinctive here is his approach. Inside out understanding is what he describes it as. A descriptive quote by his mentor, Syd Banks, about the approach is the following: “The difference between riding on and down a twisting, jarring roller coaster and floating down a river.”
Michael Neill had this to say about our societies outside thinking mindset:
“The prevailing model in our culture is that our experience of life is created from the outside in - that is, what happens to us on the outside determines our experience on the inside. People or circumstances ‘make’ us happy, angry, sad, fearful, or loving, and the game of life is to find, attract, create, or manifest the right people and circumstances in order to have more of the good feelings and fewer of the bad ones.”
Author Neill bases his writing on what he calls The Three Principles. They are:
1. Mind.
There is an energy and intelligence behind life.
2. Consciousness.
The capacity to be aware and experience life is innate in human beings. It is a universal phenomenon. Our level of awareness in any given moment determines the quality of our experience.
3. Thought.
We create our individual experience of reality via the vehicle of thought. Thought is the missing link between the formless world of pure potentiality and the created world of form.
Remember- and this is very important - you’re only one thought away from happiness, you’re only one thought away from sadness. The secret lies in Thought. It’s the missing link that everybody in this world is looking for.
This last point is the secret missing link that bears repeating again. We have a selective choice by way of thought whether to experience happiness, something positive and meaning ful, or, negative and sad, dragging you down emotionally. The element of thought is one of interpretation. What we choose to do with potential by then giving a form to it.
I loved this next quote by Neill’s mentor, Syd Banks that has to do with that transformative moment: “When you are ready, you will find what you’re looking for. I don’t care who you are. I don’t care where you are. If you’re in the middle of the Sahara Desert...and it’s time for you to find the answer, the right person will appear in the middle of the desert and let you know.”
At the end of each chapter, Michael Neil summarizes the points of that chapter. At the end of chapter eight, The Paradox of Results, he synthesizes what he has written about into these five points.
√ The moment we see that every feeling is just the shadow of a thought, we stop being scared of our feelings and just feel them.
√ We’re playing with the house’s money. There’s nothing real at stake. The only thing we have to loose is the illusion that something outside us can make us happy, safe and secure.
√ When you’re playing to play, being alive is the best game in town.
√ Humility isn’t thinking less of yourself; it’s thinking of yourself less.
√ How things ultimately turn out isn’t up to us. It never was. But if we do our bit and play our part, it’s remarkable how far we can go.
The difference in making a change in one’s mindset in how we view things can indeed unchain us from limitations we bound ourselves up in. The following observation by Ludwig Wittgenstein offered in the book is a sublime one. “A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that’s unlocked and opens inwards as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.”
I loved the simplified teachings of this book. Much of what Michael Neill writes about in The Inside Out Revolution has resonated for me in my journey as a family caregiver. Our strengths and attributes are to be found within, not externally.
If you are a voracious reader as I am, move this book to the front of the line as the one you read next. Simple is often profound and transformational.
Jeff Dodson
July 22nd 2013
FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from Hay House Publishing for this review. The opinions expressed in this review are unbiased and reflect my honest judgment of the product.
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