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    Pilgrimage Toward Freedom: A Woman's Intimate Journal <Br>Of Self-Discovery
    Pilgrimage Toward Freedom: A Woman's Intimate Journal <Br>Of Self-Discovery
    Pilgrimage Toward Freedom: A Woman's Intimate Journal <Br>Of Self-Discovery
    Ebook123 pages1 hour

    Pilgrimage Toward Freedom: A Woman's Intimate Journal
    Of Self-Discovery

    By Nancy Kautz

    ()

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    About this ebook

    There comes a time, often in mid-life, when the years of accumulated life experiences come together in a crescendo of personal change: shifting values, disorientation, insecurity, feelings of solitude and often a deep questioning of identity. The transition is rarely graceful and easy. It soon becomes clear that some kind of surrender is required, but how to actually "let go"? What are the obstacles in the way, and how can one begin to overcome them?

    Sadly, our Western culture typically regards such life transitions as abnormal, even "sick," and the common advice is to "get treated," suppress the symptoms with drugs, and just try to cope. These changes are rarely seen as an important opportunity for expansion and self-understanding.

    This little book is one woman's intimate record of her struggle through this maelstrom. It is unique and powerful, mainly because of the internal guidance process she relied upon to help her through it: a lively and compassionate dialogue of her inner-self talking with her outer-self. In the intensity and stress of modern life, few of us take advantage of this powerful approach to self-inquiry. With intention, practice and a purpose, it may serve as strong mental nourishment and trustful guidance-as it did with Nancy. She shows you here how it works.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateMar 8, 2005
    ISBN9781462065363
    Pilgrimage Toward Freedom: A Woman's Intimate Journal <Br>Of Self-Discovery

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      Book preview

      Pilgrimage Toward Freedom - Nancy Kautz

      Copyright © 2005 by Nancy Kautz

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

      iUniverse

      2021 Pine Lake Road, Suite 100

      Lincoln, NE 68512

      www.iuniverse.com

      1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

      ISBN: 0-595-34859-9

      ISBN: 978-1-4620-6536-3 (eBook)

      Printed in the United States of America

      Contents

      Foreword

      PILGRIMAGE TOWARD FREEDOM

      Afterword

      Dear Nan:

      You told me I could do with this journal of your meditations and guidance what I wished, and I have done just that. But still, I sincerely hope you are pleased with how I’ve prepared it.

      Not that I’ve done all that much. I’ve added a title, Foreword and Afterword; adjusted the punctuation here and there; corrected some text not clear from your handwriting,; and eliminated dates, a few phrases and one daily entry that could have meaning only to you. In other respects your journal is presented just as you wrote it. Until this publication it has remained completely private, read only by me, a typist and two advisors (a few pages only) who do not know you. Even our family members have not seen it..

      I’ve chosen to publish this material primarily for our four sons and their growing families, all of whom love and respect you and stand to gain some day from this intimate look at your life. I feel they should learn about your difficult struggles and the inner resources you have drawn upon to help resolve them. I’ve long felt, Nan, that you came into this life with a heavy bag of challenges to work through—enough for three normal lives! Those of us who know you fairly well know how well you have dealt with them. I would like our family members to know and appreciate this, too.

      Still, I believe this book should be shared with the general public as well, especially with women like yourself who are struggling today with their own unsettling personal changes. I know many of them can benefit significantly from this account of your experience as a fellow traveler, as an explorer of the depths of your own being.

      I offer you this first copy, with an appreciation I cannot adequately describe for the many gifts you have bestowed on me during our twenty years together and subsequently—and on our children, too. All of us were favorably shaped in these years by your beautiful deeper qualities—your soul qualities, shall we say—which emerged again and again, over and above the battles you were fighting with yourself (and with a difficult husband!). Please accept my sincere and loving thanks for all you have given me and the rest of us.

      Bill

      Foreword

      This remarkable personal journal records the story of one woman’s Stormy Search for the Self—to borrow the title phrase of Christina Grof’s memorable book¹. It reports her day-to-day struggle to confront and transcend a host of anxieties, doubts, uncertainties and demons, just as many of us find ourselves doing at some point in our lives. It reveals her persistence and courage in facing these painful personal challenges. Most outstanding, however, it displays the inner guidance process she used to help her deal with them. More about this in a moment.

      We may rightly call Nancy’s effort a spiritual search, since it goes beyond the familiar concerns of personality adjustment, coping with daily life and the other typical mid-life psychological challenges. Yes, it deals with these matters, but it addresses mainly the deeper existential issues that underlie and give rise to them: What is happening to me? Where are all these fears coming from? Why am I going through this hell? How can I draw upon my positive qualities, instead of being so overwhelmed by negative ones? What is my life for, anyway? Questions such as these are not easily answered by anyone or at any time in one’s life, especially in periods of duress. They lie at the root of everyone’s feelings of survivability, worthiness and inner peace. And they are unavoidable: they have to be faced eventually.

      This is Nancy’s record of a difficult mid-life stage of her path of personal growth. Most of it is a dialogue between her outer self and her inner self—just the kind of conversation through which we can all learn an be nourished, and of which there is all too little within the intensity and stress of our modern lives. Personal change is common, of course; it is on everyone’s path sooner or later, gracefully or with the usual resistance. It is typically accompanied by a disturbing shift of values, hence disorientation, isolation, insecurity and fear. Sometimes termed a mid-life crisis, it can be disruptive indeed. The participant is inherently left alone to endure the deep experience without the understanding and active involvement of others. Sadly, our Western culture does not support such life transitions very well; they are regarded as abnormal, even sick, and the advice usually given is to suppress them. Family members and most psychologists tend to regard them as problems to be solved or fixed, not crucial stages of personal development. Even Western language does not provide adequate words to acknowledge and discuss them easily. They are rarely seen for what they really are: important opportunities for expansion, self-understanding an growth—a key stage in one’s lifelong search for personal meaning.

      Because of their existential an highly personal nature, these transitions are best appreciated and understood solely on their own merits, not according to established professional standards from psychology, philosophy or literature. But there is no need to judge or compare. If this account speaks to your own current needs and interests, then give it a chance and let it be useful to you. If not, set it aside, leave it until later, or pass it on to someone you know who might find it useful. You may read it straight through, in short bursts, or as a daybook for daily contemplation.

      Nancy and I are now in the later decades of our lives—they call us senior citizens. She is free to look back on these difficult years with some perspective. Her childhood and subsequent education at Pomona and Simmons Colleges prepared her for a career as a Psychiatric Social Worker, which she carried out well in various clinics, eventually as a Supervisor in the San Francisco Bay Area. (Her extensive psychotherapeutic practice is apparent in the text.) I knew her best as my wife and companion for twenty years, and as mother of our four fine sons. During this active period she was a mentally adventurous young woman, an eager and energetic participant in so very much that life had to offer in those days: new ideas, travel, culture, internal and external explorations of many sorts. She didn’t miss much of what was going on!

      What is most notable here, however, is the powerful self-guidance process Nancy employed in her continual work on herself. However we might try to explain these writings, they are definitely not a typical example of her verbal skills or a direct expression of her conscious awareness—nor does she claim such credit and responsibility. Both the style and the content of this writing are quite different from anything else she has written—and she has written much. Since adolescence she has been an avid writer of letters, study notes, psychotherapeutic reports and (most recently) biographical material. The material you are about to read is quite different. It can only have emerged from a deeper reservoir within or beyond her ordinary mind.

      What, then, is the source of this information and guidance? An interesting, albeit intellectual, question. Does it come from Nancy’s inner mind, perhaps a sub-personality, her subconscious? Maybe her soul? Or do these communications have an external, non-physical origin—as they appear to have—perhaps what one might attribute to an angelic being or a helpful spirit (assuming for the moment that such things actually exist)? Are they from God, some god, her God?

      To answer properly this question about their source we would first have to understand the workings of the human mind much better than we do. For all the depth, intimacy and

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