Meditations for Personal Growth

EDITORIAL REVIEWS .COM Author John Bradshaw (Healing the Shame That Binds You and Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child) teams up with Steven Halpern for a pair of music-enhanced guided meditations where Bradshaw encourages listeners to breathe out tension and accept "your higher power" to replace the internal vacuum that he identifies as a common spiritual affliction. Bradshaw and Halpern spend the first 21 minutes of this 50-minute disc swapping views on the merits of attaining what Halpern calls a "deeply relaxed psycho-spiritual state of peace, harmony, and attunement." Bradshaw's "journey to wholeness" is rooted in the 11th step of the 12-step recovery process, seeking connection to a higher power through prayer and meditation. In the second installment, Bradshaw's slight drawl mingles with Halpern's modest, dreamlike audio backdrop, creating a gently hypnotic discourse that is earnestly presented, though skeptical listeners might chuckle at Bradshaw's exhortations to "breathe through your knees" and other bodily regions to attain full relaxation. The disc concludes with Halpern quietly noodling on the electric piano for eight minutes while periodically intoning the colors of the chakra and their corresponding locations in the body. Thus, the disc boils down to one Bradshaw-directed meditation that lasts 21 minutes. Is it worth it? Let your inner self decide. --Terry Wood

Meditations For Personal Growth