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Author and AIHT faculty member Andrea Mathews knows the authentic joy of “living inside out.” Her 25-year career in mental health includes directing rehabilitation programs and treatment centers, plus a 10-year solo practice for individuals, couples, families and group counseling. To that impressive resume she can now add the title of “award-winning author.” Restoring My Soul, Andrea’s first book, offers an intriguing, interactive workbook approach to self-expression and deep introspection. Vibrations: Your book’s invitation to explore deep assumptions through liberating activities such as free-form sketching and letter-writing offers readers your unique vision of interpersonal counseling—with or without a counselor! What exactly does it mean, to “live inside out”? Mathews: Each human life begins with a uniquely authentic pathway, yet we know that this road can get twisted. With years of confusing adaptation to our families and other external relationships, we can lose sight of the part of ourselves that we could (and should) always trust implicitly. The gift is that it’s always possible to get back in touch with our wise Authentic Self. It’s first a matter of just remembering to make contact. Choosing to go back inside, retreating from external striving and the exhaustion of flailing our way through life…
Vibrations: What a joyous relief that can be! It feels magnetic, being drawn back to that core of wisdom, that “sweet spot,” again and again. Mathews: Absolutely! Eventually, by maintaining contact with the Authentic Self, any vague sense of “disconnection” fades. Then there’s no need to “make contact” once we remember that we always are in contact—standing in our very own power and not rehashing our parents’ beliefs or the value systems of any other external authority figures. Vibrations: Your book points out that the words “authority figure” are actually opposites. How true! Mathews: A “figure” is “a representation that isn’t real.” It merely suggests power or authority but actually has very little. Vibrations: And if we may conclude, for now, with your description of how to rediscover one’s internal locus of control? Mathews: A bully says, “My partner made me mad, so I hit her. I couldn’t help it. I was enraged.” Bullies demand control through intimidation, while, ironically, also saying that such violence is beyond their personal control. This can be a deeply ingrained reaction to an ancient fear of inadequacy—with or without the added nightmare of substance abuse as a mitigating factor. Actually we do have full control, every moment of every day, and we can make this our mantra: “We do have full control, every moment of every day!” The more conscious we become that we are making choices, the more we develop what clinicians call an “internal locus of control.” Becoming aware that I am choosing, I acknowledge that control resides within me; within my Authentic Self. Restoring My Soul Babies are surrounded by relationship dynamics and parental projections with which they may come to identify; and which, in the extreme, could be of dire necessity.
But over the years such coping mechanisms, which tie the present to the past, become an albatross around the neck as the budding adult “walks the emotional planks” laid out by those very coping mechanisms. Do our current problems actually come from external forces, or from artificial roles that we “chose” by default? Are we acting on somebody else’s script rather than living authentically? Not only is it possible to live more deeply from our own core wisdom, it is perhaps the most hopeful journey there is. Restoring My Soul is a tour guide, lighting a pathway toward pure peace and joy. Interactive engagement, through journaling, drawing, maybe even singing through its pages, creates memorable steps to finding and living from one’s Authentic Self. For more information www.andreamathewslpc.com Restoring My Soul recently earned Honorable Mention, Non-Fiction, at the Do-It-Yourself in Film, Music and Books 2007 awards convention in Los Angeles: www.diyconvention.com
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