Doreen Virtue

Yesterday I wrote a little bit about seeing Doreen Virtue in Tampa, and how I enjoyed her lecture there, as well as the readings she did for people in the audience. I also enjoy her weekly radio show on Hay House Radio. She is smart, articulate, and fun to listen to.

I only recently discovered Doreen. A couple of months ago I had a sudden urge to read books about angels, and Doreen has written many. Based on the Amazon reader reviews, I chose her book Angels 101, which as its title suggests is more or less a basic primer. It's a quick, breezy read, but it's a pretty book with a light, positive touch.

Although I enjoyed the book, I was not an instant Doreen Virtue fan. However, about a month after I read Angels 101, I saw her being interviewed in Louise Hay's You Can Heal Your Life DVD (which I rented from Netflix). Something she said in that movie really struck me, and has stayed with me ever since. She was talking about listening to divine guidance, and how that comes through. She said it is a step-by-step process, and the guidance usually directs you one step at a time. When you complete one step, you receive the next step. Eventually the steps lead you to where you need to be.

This immediately made sense to me, and really helped me to relax and focus on my own intuitive next steps, and not think and worry so much about where I'm ultimately going. I suddenly became very clear on exactly what I needed to do with my life, and it got me to the point where I feel very happy with what I'm doing, rather than worrying about what I "should" be doing, or what I'm not doing. Thanks to Doreen for the great advice!

By the way, if you're interested in the You Can Heal Your Life DVD, I strongly recommend that you rent the "expanded version" and skip Disc 1 altogether. Just watch the interviews on Disc 2. Not only is each interview fascinating and engrossing, in total they cover all the principles covered in the actual movie (and more), without the rather irritating narrative intercut throughout the movie about an anonymous every-woman in the process of changing her thinking.

Back to Doreen, if you have an interest in angels, by all means check her out. Personally I struggle a bit with admitting my fascination with angels. Some harsh part of me says that angels are nothing but childish fantasy. Yet the wiser part of me knows that angel consciousness is a very loving, healing, and protective energy to bring into your life and into the world. It is powerful.

Hay House

I love Hay House, the publishing company and so much more, founded by the great Louise Hay). Before I go on, I want to be clear that I am not an employee of Hay House, nor am I affiliated with them in any way whatsoever (although honestly, I wish I were). I must be their ideal customer though, a paragon of their target audience. They are an amazing organization. Here are a few reasons why:

*the books they publish are consistently excellent

*they attract the very best New Age/spiritual authors, even those that have previously published multiple best-sellers with other publishing companies

*they sponsor fantastic events, seminars, and workshops by the authors

*they have great on-line radio programming (Hay House Radio)

I came to truly appreciate Hay House only recently, when I decided to attend one of their events. I was looking to see if Caroline Myss Caroline Myss would be speaking in my area because I am currently working the exercises in her excellent book, Entering the Castle (which, incidentally, is NOT published by Hay House). I noticed on her web site that she would be speaking about Entering the Castle in early October at the Hay House event called "I Can Do It! - Tampa". When I looked up the details of this four day event, I found that in addition to Caroline Myss, several of the authors that I have happened to read recently or have otherwise admired over the years were participating in this conference. I knew I had to go.

I was beyond excited when I registered for the conference, but being there actually exceeded my expectations. Every speaker was phenomenal and extremely inspirational. Not surprisingly, I most enjoyed Caroline Myss - she was, after all, the primary reason I was there. But that in no way diminishes the excellent workshops and lectures I attended, with speakers including Sonia Choquette, Colette Baron-Reid, Marianne Williamson, Doreen Virtue, and several others. It was New Age nirvana!

I plan to write more in future postings about these great authors, but the point here is that it is so impressive that Hay House is able to bring together such a group of brilliant, smart, incredibly talented individuals and then promote them not only through their books, but through live events and programming as well. It amazes me.

If there is a shadow side to Hay House (and just about everything casts a shadow), it is that they are a commercial enterprise after all, and this New Age marketing machine powerhouse takes every opportunity to pummel their patrons with advertising and cross-promotions. It is so tempting for people like me to buy piles of books, attend zillions of workshops, download their podcasts, on and on and on, but as Caroline Myss pointed out during her talk at the conference in Tampa (somewhat ironically), reading a book or attending a workshop does not make a person "spiritual." To be spiritual requires carefully directed thought, action, and especially discipline. With all that said, still I am so grateful for the information and opportunities that Hay House provides.