Also of interest:
1. Spiritual Guides and Psychotherapy
2. "A Therapist's Spiritual Homecoming" by Past Life Regression Therapist, Ann Barham, MFT

Unexpected Blessings
by Nancy Berg

  It’s hard to believe that it was 22 years ago that I first heard about the Readings  of the Guides done by Ron Scolastico. I was having dinner with an old boyfriend, expecting more of the usual repartee: a semi-lighthearted sharing of our adventures wading through life with the abysmal self images that had both drawn us together and pushed us apart. It was the same pattern that occurred in all our relationships, and it had become almost comforting in its familiarity.

A Change in My Friend
But something was mysteriously different about him this time.
Weren’t his shoulders a little less stooped? Wasn’t there a subtle radiance and sense of well being that I hadn’t perceived before? This guy had become noticeably more comfortable inside his own skin, and that new confidence was incredibly appealing. (It reminds me now of a line from the movie “Broadcast News”—something like, “It’s too bad abject insecurity isn’t attractive to the opposite sex.”)

I asked him whether he was doing something new, and he said he’d had a Reading with someone named Ron Scolastico. I think he actually blushed a little when he added that. Because of what he’d heard in that Reading, he thought maybe he was beginning to like himself for the first time in his life.
He followed up that admission, cheerfully, with this resonant little wake-up call: “You should try it, Nancy. I mean, who needs it more than you? You hate yourself more than anyone I’ve ever met.

My First Reading
Yes, that gave me plenty to think about as I skidded along on icy Midwestern roads past 75 miles of frozen cornfields to get to that first Reading with Ron in Iowa City. Was it worth the journey? I was young and obsessed with finding a soul mate, with being accurately mirrored, with being known and understood.

During the first few minutes of listening to the Guides, even before I had a chance to ask a question, I was absolutely and irreducibly comprehended and known. And yet loved and accepted beyond question despite all this, or perhaps because of it.

At the end of the Reading, I was given an experience of my life’s purpose, and a glimpse of my soul. How can I describe this feeling? It’s like the moment after your heart has suddenly burst into blossoms. All of your problems won’t just disappear, but you’ll never look at anything in quite the same way again.
An Amazing Source of Inspiration

Through the years, not all of my Readings were as dramatic as that first one. But all of them were impossibly steeped in beauty, and truth, and wisdom about every imaginable aspect of life. Even my silliest questions about banal, insignificant details of my everyday existence were answered with a depth and perspective I wouldn’t think was possible to bring to such minutiae. I gained practical knowledge as well as powerful tools to help overcome fear and judgment. And, I learned to recognize the sacred everywhere.

My Readings with the Guides have brought a new dimension to my writing that has helped me win unexpected fellowships, awards, and publications. They helped me bring forgiveness to my relationships, and the strength and vision to withstand loss from the death of loved ones without losing my own self to bitterness or lasting despair.

Friends and family members who were inspired by my experiences have had Readings of their own. They have received similarly transformational insights.

An Enlightened Marriage
When I found the beloved one I would make a life with, I wanted us to be married by the Guides! (OK, so it turned out that the Guides did not have a license to perform weddings, and we needed it to be legal for health insurance, and all that.) We decided to get as close to that ideal as possible by having a joint Reading with Ron immediately before walking out into the ceremony. There was a light in that Reading room you could easily see with your eyes closed. The sense of blessing was truly palpable in the air.

My mother, when she heard the tape later, said “That Reading will be worth a million dollars for the health of your marriage!” It’s already helped us at least a half million times.

As the years have gone by, real life has come to surprise me by validating many things I heard in the Readings with the Guides long before they became reality. Blessings are like that, I guess. They somehow manage to sneak up on you, even when you have lookouts posted everywhere.

Nancy Berg is an award winning writer, poet, editor, and screen writer who lives in Woodland Hills, California,

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