When I agreed to review this book, I anticipated a routine writing assignment. Little did I know, I was on the brink of receiving a profound gift — an invitation to a more awakened life, attainable in the present rather than some far off future. The Adventure: A Practical Guide to Spiritual Awakening by Dr. Steven Taylor explores a crucial question: can we awaken through our own efforts? The answer according to Taylor is a resounding yes.
Taylor’s book introduces readers to eight essential qualities of spiritual awakening: disidentification from the ego, gratitude, presence, altruism, acceptance, integration with the body, dissolving psychological attachments, and embracing our mortality. Rooted in scientific support and the author’s extensive experience as a psychologist and workshop facilitator, Taylor not only defines these qualities but also offers practical ways to awaken them within ourselves.
The Adventure establishes a framework for cultivating practices and qualities essential to realizing our full potential. Taylor simplifies broad concepts into themes that, when practiced together, facilitate spiritual awakening. Each chapter includes scripted meditations that readily help the reader “drop in” to a felt sense of the principles being taught. This resource is valuable not only for seekers but also for teachers, therapists, and healers looking for personal growth and tools to share with their clients.
A poignant section of the book draws parallels between astronauts’ experiences viewing Earth from space and the awe, wonder, and gratitude it evokes. Taylor provides a guided meditation, allowing readers to simulate this perspective shift without leaving Earth — an impactful exercise in expanding one’s outlook.
Beyond serving as a guide to awakening, The Adventure equips readers with in-the-moment tools to navigate daily stresses and quiet the mind. I recently found myself wide awake in the middle of the night stuck in my head. Then I recalled a teaching from the book about bringing my attention to my body’s sensations as a means to quiet and detach from the constant noise of my thoughts. The next thing I knew, my mind quieted, I was back in my body, and eventually I fell back asleep. Another time I felt anxious and spinning about something. I recalled a meditation from the disidentification chapter that helped me easily settle back into myself. These strategies didn’t take months or years of practice to benefit from. They were in-the-moment powerful guidance that quickly helped me get back into my body and reconnect with my full depths. Wow.
While many spiritual texts inspire but lack practical guidance, and professional psychology texts can be laden with inaccessible jargon, Taylor strikes a unique balance. Identifying as a feminist psychologist, professional coach, and yoga teacher myself, Taylor is a writer after my own heart. Much like this author, I have been on my own journey for some time now weaving together my professional psychology training and experiences with the realm of spirituality, yoga, and meditation. It is inspiring to stumble upon a kindred spirit who can so effectively bring together two seemingly disparate (yet overlapping) fields of study and can translate this wisdom back into practical, tangible action steps accessible to a more general audience. Taylor seamlessly combines grounded science with esoteric spiritual concepts, a rarity in the realm of spirituality and psychology literature.
Us humans love to overcomplicate just about everything. The Adventure gathers together tools, insights, and practices we can tangibly engage with and provides a simplified road map of what can otherwise be very challenging to stumble upon on our own. This practical guide is a welcome gift to help us simplify, quantify, and tangibly apply and practice principles that bring us closer to an awakened, more vibrant life. What a gift indeed.
