How to Be a Spiritual Rebel: A Dogma-Free Guide to Breaking All the Rules and Finding Fearless Freedom

by Jac O'Keeffe

Overview

Don’t let fear stand in the way of experiencing your authentic self. In this courageous, dogma-free guide, spiritual rebel and internationally renowned teacher Jac O’Keeffe offers the keys to moving beyond the limited perceptions you have about yourself and toward boundless, fearless freedom.

Do you ever feel flawed, anxious, or afraid—like something is holding you back, but you’re not sure what? The truth is, we can all feel that way sometimes (or even most of the time!). We’re trapped by a limited sense of self, held back by our own anxieties, fears, and compulsions. Mindfulness can offer intermittent relief from these contrived narratives, showing us how to be present, open, and available in the moment by observing our thoughts and feelings. This is all wonderful—until the fears and doubts sneak back in. 

How to Be a Spiritual Rebel offers more than simple mindfulness. If you want more than a temporary fix, Spiritual Rebel will lead you out of your mind games completely. Drawing on spiritual practices and recent findings in neuroscience, this groundbreaking guide will help you examine the psychological barriers that block your spiritual growth and keep you from embracing true liberation.

You’ll learn to cultivate courage, view your thoughts and feelings without letting them define you, and find guidance and support as you navigate the route to boundless freedom without fear. Anecdotes and exercises are given to awaken your inner capacity to see beyond the world created by your mind.

If you’re ready to take mindfulness—and spirituality—to the next level and experience true freedom and fulfillment, this candid, sometimes discombobulating, entertaining, and jargon-free guide will point the way.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781684032495
Publisher:	New Harbinger Publications
Publication date:	11/01/2019
Pages:	160
Sales rank:	542,495
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Jac O’Keeffe experienced a spontaneous awakening in 1997. This gave her access to powerful, intuitive, and healing capacities, and influenced her change in career, from pioneering community arts policy at the national level in Ireland to opening a healing practice. She worked closely with a team of medical doctors researching the spiritual causes underpinning clinical depression. The findings culminated in a residential program that O’Keeffe developed, which successfully treated depression. In 2003, she left Ireland to deepen her spiritual practice. After a two-year period of no thoughts, the self-referencing mechanism that creates the sense of a personal “I” had dissolved. O’Keeffe began to work as a spiritual teacher in 2008. She now guides others in her teachings and publications in order to share what she has learned, and assists others to transcend both dual and non-dual perspectives. She also prepares those who have had sustained spiritual awakenings for liberation.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Part 1 In the Absence of Courage

1 Freedom 3

2 Fearless Freedom 13

3 Courage 18

4 On Not Playing Safe 23

5 It's Not You; It's Your Brain 27

Part 2 It's All in the Mind

6 With and Without the DMN 32

7 The Need to be Right 36

8 Task Oriented Network 39

9 Perception 41

10 Time and Space Filter 45

Part 3 Getting into It

11 Non-Duality with a Twist 48

12 A Tale of Two Practices 53

13 Out of Mind into Knowingness 56

14 Integration 59

15 Consciousness 62

16 Get out of Your Own Way 65

Part 4 The Influence of Pain

17 In Support of Investigation 70

18 Emotional Intelligence 72

19 Cultivating Emotional Intelligence 76

20 Overwhelm 80

21 Emotional Balance 83

Part 5 Breaking Free from Limitations

22 Moving Beyond Trauma 88

23 Inside Out 90

24 Self-Acceptance 92

25 Attention 95

26 Neither Special nor Unworthy 98

Part 6 Bring It On!

27 Authentic Contentment 102

28 Break the Rules 104

29 Surrender 107

30 Meditate and Investigate 111

31 Mindfulness and Brain Rewiring 114

Part 7 Bursting the Spiritual Bubble

32 Call off the Search 120

33 Original Identity 122

34 Fear of Absence 124

35 Stay the Course 127

36 Imperfection 129

Part 8 It Comes Together in the End

37 Free Will 134

38 Control 137

39 Nondenialism 139

40 Truth for Its Own Sake 143

References 145

Interviews

O’Keeffe resides in St. Augustine, FL.

Editorial Reviews

10/21/2019

In this friendly guide, O’Keeffe (Born to be Free) shares her story of overcoming obstacles on the way to a spiritual awakening, and draws concepts and practices from her experiences that will be useful to those seeking the same. O’Keeffe defines one’s personality, ego, and psychological rules as the “Default Mode Network” and asks readers to question whether their perceived personalities and boundaries help them find happiness and freedom. O’Keeffe explores emotional intelligence, mindfulness, and free will, and intersperses many personal anecdotes; however, information is haphazardly presented, and many chapters are overly brief and lack comprehensive analysis. With a goal of defining “what you know to be authentic and true within you,” O’Keeffe targets her message to practitioners of any tradition, leaning more towards psychological and meditative exercises that require no specialized training. Any person, O’Keeffe writes, is able to dive into their own psyche, explore the lasting effects of trauma or a negligent lifestyle, and remove barriers toward attaining freedom from anxiety and attachment. With explicit advice for discovering mantras and developing a meditation (or prayer) practice, O’Keeffe’s multifaceted guide will be empowering to readers of all spiritual beliefs. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

How to Be a Spiritual Rebel offers potent truths about how mindfulness and compassion can bring greater happiness, health, and freedom into our lives.”
—Shauna Shapiro, PhD, professor in the department of counseling psychology at Santa Clara University, and author of Good Morning, I Love You

Shauna Shapiro

From the moment of our first breath, we begin a long and at times arduous journey of mental conditioning, one of creating our individual and social selves. In How to Be a Spiritual Rebel, Jac O’Keeffe astutely guides us how to leave this conditioning and its endless searching behind for a new life beyond boundaries, beyond limitations. In such a life, each moment is lived not by conditions of the mind but rather by your inner spiritual nature, which guides you in an ongoing and ever-blossoming transformation of openness to and participation in life itself. Freedom for its own sake and authenticity are the hallmarks of a life lived free of the conditioned self.”
—Paul J. Mills, PhD, professor in the department of family medicine and public health, director of the Center of Excellence for Research and Training in Integrative Health, and chief of the Behavioral Medicine Division at the University of California, San Diego; and director of research at The Chopra Foundation

Paul J. Mills

In How to Be a Spiritual Rebel, Jac O’Keeffe provides a deeply wise, kind, and practical guide to untangling yourself from limiting beliefs and habits, and points to the intrinsic freedom of the heart that is available to us all.”
—Hugh Byrne, PhD, senior teacher with the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, and author of The Here-and-Now Habit

Hugh Byrne

Jac O’Keeffe is one of the rare presenters of prior-to, without, or beyond consciousness and non-duality. This provides a context making her unique as both a teacher and educator.”
—Stephen H. Wolinsky, PhD (Narayan), disciple of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Stephen H. Wolinsky

Jac O’Keeffe has brilliantly deconstructed her own deep spiritual process to provide clear, simple guidelines and practices for all others who long for psychological and spiritual freedom. She provides tools to prepare us for living the deepest Truth, free of personal clinging to false identities. Using her own internal journey as a template, she offers a path to freedom and teaches us how to change neural pathways in the brain, freeing consciousness from the conditioned restraints and limitations caused by self-referencing thought and emotion. This unique, modern book on non-dual awakening and beyond will become a classic for those who seek realization.”
—Bonnie Greenwell, PhD, transpersonal psychotherapist and non-dual teacher; and author of The Kundalini Guide, The Awakening Guide, and When Spirit Leaps

Bonnie Greenwell

How to Be a Spiritual Rebel illuminates a clear and practical pathway for breaking out of automated mental patterns, and finally living an authentic life. With fierce honesty, courage, and palpable care for her reader, Jac shares potent turning points in her own journey into practices that will serve any lover of the Truth to cut through subtle deception and find their way to Freedom.”
—Miranda Macpherson, contemporary spiritual teacher, author of The Way of Grace and Boundless Love, and founder of OneSpirit Interfaith Foundation (UK) and the Living Grace Sangha

Miranda Macpherson

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