Taming your inner tyrant: A path to healing through dialogues with oneself

YOUR TOUGHEST ADVERSARY MIGHT BE YOURSELF

By day journalist Patty de Llosa was a highly respected magazine editor and writer, but she led a secret life as a spiritual seeker. Accomplished at turning crippling setbacks into astonishing successes, there was one adversary she couldn’t overcome – her own inner tyrant. It all changed when she embraced the creative and insightful work of Jungian psychology. The methods that transformed her life are detailed in her new book, TAMING YOUR INNER TYRANT: A Path to Healing Through Dialogues with Oneself (A Spiritual Evolution Press; 2011).

A survivor of the first order, de Llosa set aside a tumultuous childhood and burgeoning career as a reporter with Time magazine to marry and raise three children with the future governor of Loreto province in Peru. Forced to adapt to living in the Amazon, she brought medical care to the jungle. When a military coup drove her family out, she founded and ran the first foreign chapter of the United Nations preschool in Lima. Once home in the U.S., she became a writer for national magazines while raising three children as a single mother. In spite of her accomplishments, her mind and body were under attack by an inner tyrant.

Too often the harsh critic who lives within us holds us back from our true potential. But Jungian Active Imagination techniques can help you break free and claim the person you were meant to be. Many therapists have described these techniques, but de Llosa is the rare client who vividly journaled what was going on in her inner and outer worlds and shares her path to health.

Her dialogues and discoveries brought into conscious awareness the cast of characters who live within all of us and how they may dominate our daily behavior in ways that aren’t always in our best interest. The experiences and exercises she shares will resonate with everyone – these inner personas resemble the characters in our popular culture who now appear in the guise of superheroes, vampires, zombies and child wizards.

Part psychological memoir, part roadmap to healing, TAMING YOUR INNER TYRANT shows how anyone can make use of the tools outlined within to find lasting peace.

Patty de Llosa is the author of Taming Your Inner Tyrant (A Spiritual Evolution Press; 2011) and The Practice of Presence (Morning Light Press, 2006). She is a writer and a contributing editor of Parabola Magazine and teaches Tai Chi and the Alexander Technique. She was managing editor of American Fabrics & Fashions magazine, then associate editor of Leisure magazine, a Time Inc. startup, moving on to Fortune magazine, where she became deputy chief of reporters. In Lima, Peru she founded the first foreign chapter of the United Nations pre-school, International Playgroup. She is a graduate of the American Center for the Alexander Technique and Swarthmore College. For more information, please visit www.tamingyourinnertyrant.com.