I have always loved reading. When, as a child, I read The Secret Garden, I knew right then and there what I wanted to do. I wanted to move people emotionally the way that story had moved me. I didn’t tell anyone my desire. It seemed so out of reach for someone like me. I wasn’t a standout student in school, nor did I come from a family of great accomplishment. We were a struggling working-class family. My destiny seemed written in the dirt I played in.
My grandmother bought me a locking diary after my mother died when I was ten. I suppose she thought I must have some thoughts I might like to write about. I got no further than Dear Diary. That was how Anne Frank addressed her diary. I couldn’t think of anything to say, other than most banal statements of life. My aspirations became buried under years of shyness, lack-luster performance, and emotional blunting caused by unacknowledged grief. Tumultuous teenage years were a given. It continued to be a time of great loss as I constantly lost the keys to the house, my wallet, my school books, and more importantly my innocence, along with other unmentionable things. What I didn’t lose was my profound lack of confidence.
The older I got, the better the stories I discovered and the more viscerally I experienced them. During high school, Steinbeck and Harper Lee left me emotionally shattered, Margaret Lawrence swept me along entire journeys of physical and emotional landscapes, Simone DeBouviour introduced me to feminism, and Sartre to existentialism. As a young adult, Dostoevsky plunged me into the psychological depths of character, and Kafka just blew my mind. What minds! What talent!
I became a psychotherapist, living out part of my dream to move and transform people in profound ways. I loved learning and I recorded thoughts in beautifully bound note books when in training workshops. Then notes when I read something I liked. Then notes when something moved me in a particular way. Then notes when I made a realization. “Did I journal?” People would ask. “No” I would reply. I wasn’t a writer. I had no stories to tell. No deep insights to convey.
I adopted an aggressive street mutt after my fifteen-year marriage ended, and boy did I get a story to tell; a journey from the dog who bit people to the one that became a guru, teaching lessons about wholeness, radical empathy, and real leadership. One day going through papers at my desk, I opened one of my gorgeously bound notebooks. I found inside thoughts, insights, and ideas. I discovered I was an “accidental journal-ista,” and instead of having no ideas, I had too many!
My first book was published, The Incidental Guru and I co-wrote an indie film, Expecting. I went on to write my novel, SCORPION, part of The Myriad Series. The story was inspired by my internal martial arts practice that is completely magical, three two thousand year old stones in a necklace my boyfriend gave me, and deep mystical insights written in my great, great grandfathers’ autobiography (based on his journals) that I found in a rare bookstore about his time in the Himalayan Mountains with the Mystics in the 1800’s.
I still don’t consider myself a journal-ista, but I’m so grateful that I recorded musings, flashes of insights, ideas that captivated me, quotes that rocked me, words that influenced me, and trivia that delighted me so that I could weave the magic of those collected moments into my stories.
Author Bio
Cindy Stone
Author, Registered Psychotherapist, executive coach, Ericksonian Hypnotherapist, Speaker, Trainer, Reiki Master and Baguazhang internal martial art practitioner.
“Every experience in my life informs the transformational work I practice with people.”
Cindy has been a practicing psychotherapist for almost 30 years, and executive coach for 15 years. She is fascinated with the power of story and meaningful conversations to transform lives and organizations. She has delved into the incredible power of the mind for creativity, and healing. Her work with people and organizations is deeply personal and transformational.
Voted one of Toronto’s ten best Hypnotherapists by Crowd Wellness.
Cindy is fascinated with transformational journeys and the incredible power of the mind. She explores the infinite creativity and healing power available in meditation and trance states. Her Baguazhang martial arts training adds a deeper dimension to her understanding of the mind, utilizing the healing power of Qi for mental, physical and spiritual harmony.
Buy Scorpion on Amazon here and on Goodreads here.
Twitter: @cindystonewrite
Instagram: Cindystoneauthor
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