Goldstein wrote Heartwork: How to Get What You Really, Really Want to illuminate and explain the Heartwork process. Heartwork is both a counseling approach and a way of living. A synthesis of Eastern meditative and Western psychotherapeutic techniques, Heartwork works through the psychological aspects of the mind to access the spiritual dimensions of consciousness.In the opening pages of the book, Goldstein shares a poem written by a participant in his very first Heartwork workshop (Omega Institute, 1982). The poem describes the process Maribeth Price went through in a near-death experience caused by an automobile accident. For both Price and Goldstein, the poem conveys the “spirit and transformational power of Heartwork” as a catalyst for psychological and spiritual healing.
In “The Descent,” Price describes what it was like to have to confront the reality of her own death. Surprisingly, in giving up the struggle against her own mortality she is able to experience an unprecedented sense of unbounded spaciousness. Plunging herself “through fear’s dark sea,” she begins to let go of a lifetime of holding. As she “starts to yield,” she finds herself “pulsing in rhythmic union/ With all that once seemed foe/ Feeling with each heartbeat/ Feared enemy becoming friend.”
While Price’s account describes her conscious reliving of an actual near-death experience, the other testimonials in Goldstein’s book collectively demonstrate that equally profound awakenings can and do take place through the practice of Heartwork, without the physical body ever being placed in danger. Nestled safely within the structured space of a Goldstein workshop, participants publicly share their “intention statements” and commit to a shared set of ground rules. Surrounded by others pursuing a similar path of inner-inquiry participants (or readers of the book) progress through a series of exercises which enable them to plunge, like Price, “through fear’s dark sea.” As they do so, they begin to be able to open into and through any demons—fear, pain, addiction, or self-judgment--- they have been running away from in their lives.
THE DESCENT
Life's spectator no longer could I be
And so myself did plunge
Through fear's dark sea:
Falling, drowning in despairing tears,
Ocean inhaling, sinking to unknown depths,
Imploding anguished cries I disappear into darkness
And am lost.
Then struggles cease,
Too tired to fight,
My being starts to yield,
Begins to pulse in rhythmic union
With all that once seemed foe,
Feeling with each heartbeat
Feared enemy becoming friend.
Then waves embrace and cradle,
Like loving arms enfolding,
As they lift their host up slowly,
In gentle reverent Hands,
Upward through shining rainbow hues,
Until, in one bright blinding flash,
I breathe the sun and hear earth sing
As I begin to dance.