Traveling Stories

Traveling Stories is a collection of teaching stories drawn from the author’s experiences as a therapist, as a traveler, and as a person in search of the answers to life’s most important questions. Each of the stories is complete in itself, easy to read and entertaining, yet each contains a bit of wisdom that can be applied to any life. The organizing metaphor of the collection is “life is a journey” and the journey is toward greater wholeness. The stories in the collection reveal some of the ways that we learn how to be wholly ourselves and to participate deeply and fully in life. Together, the stories describe the journey and offer advice about how to get the most from it. They offer the opportunity for insight without preaching, judging, moralizing, or dogma, gently urging the reader onward. Told with humor and compassion for the human condition, they nonetheless encourage a fearless, responsible involvement in life with all its complexity. The book draws on a deep study of several disciplines, including Jungian psychology, anthropology, and philosophy as well as the author’s travels, clinical work, and personal experience. Its key points are these: • Life is a journey toward wholeness. • Life’s lessons are found on the journey, • The lessons are offered freely and come in many forms, most importantly in the stories that we tell and hear and in the symptoms and symbols that demand our consideration. • Our part is to be honest, pay attention, trust the process, and work hard. The stories are simultaneously grounded in everyday life and awake to the possibilities for transformation bound in the mysteries of being. Symptom, symbol and ordinary experience reveal themselves to be the teachers that help us answer our deepest questions, learn more of the truth of who we are and can become, and open ourselves to greater freedom and a more precise intention for our lives.

There are really only four questions: • Who am I? • Where do I belong? • What matters? • How do I live my life? Consciously or unconsciously, we spend our whole lives trying to answer them. Traveling Stories is a collection of teaching stories drawn from Dr. Dean’s travels, her psychology practice and her life, that provide answers to those questions in a manner that gently guides and that is at heart profoundly hopeful. The stories focus on the ways in which life’s lessons make their way to us in the small things, in the unexpected, in the struggles, and in the ordinary. They hope to teach, to inspire, and to help the reader discover the next step in his or her unique journey. Together they assure that the lessons are all there to be learned: all we have to do is be impeccably honest with ourselves, pay careful attention, work hard at what we learn, and trust the process.

Terri Clements Dean, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in private practice and a popular lecturer. A former anthropologist, she has studied deeply in philosophy, belief systems, gender knowledge, and psychology with a particular focus on symbolic systems. She was Clinical Director for Safe Recovery Systems and regional director for Georgia Highlands Mental Health Systems before moving to working exclusively with private psychotherapy clients. Her broad interests and extensive mental health experience give her a unique perspective in understanding each person’s life as well as a deep well of resources to guide her work as a clinician, lecturer, and writer. She believes that wholeness is our birthright and that life is a journey toward claiming our deepest, best selves. Find more about what she’s learned on her journey at www.terridean.us. Terri lives in North Florida with her husband, Mark. Terri would love to hear from you. Go to www.terridean.us and send her your comments or stories of how you've learned life's lessons.