The Seven Tools of Healing
Unlock Your Inner Wisdom and Live the Life Your Soul Desires
The Seven Tools of Healing is an affirming self-help book that emphasizes spiritual truths.
Steven Hall’s philosophical self-help book The Seven Tools of Healing demystifies the healing process.
The book begins with a discussion of healing that’s made in general terms, showcasing Hall’s experience as a doctor and an alternative care provider. The work then considers its seven tools in turn: faith, awareness, acceptance, compassion, forgiveness, gratitude, and right action.
Arguing that cultivating and empowering an individual’s inner wisdom can lead to healing from a wide range of physical, spiritual, and mental concerns, the book also addresses common healing pitfalls. Its summary, references, and several appendices that cover theory are useful additions.
Compelling as it argues that true healing is both an internal process and about outward living in keeping with one’s truth, the text takes the time to define its own terms and to clarify its more difficult ideas. Its work is approachable and incorporates notions from across religious traditions, including Christian forgiveness, Buddhist compassion, and Zen-like acceptance. While these underlying ideas aren’t new, they are linked together in an intriguing way. Considered through the specific lens of healing, they become fresh and exciting.
Everyday language transforms the book’s writing into a easy conversation that would be at home in a therapist’s office, though a tendency toward long paragraphs leads to sections that read a bit more like lectures. Notions and tools are repeated to emphasize that the book’s project is a multi-step process, but there is some resultant wordiness.
Every tool is defined in its own chapter; each step builds upon those before it. Not all seven tools are explored in the same detail. The book leans on its first few tools (faith, awareness, and acceptance) most, but each chapter covers the basics of its concept.
The book’s points are theoretical, and it works to buttress them with practical suggestions that are couched in therapeutic anecdotes about finding the enlightenment it describes. It relates, for example, the story of a client who struggled to keep her weight under control and who was encouraged to consider what that weight meant metaphorically. Many such anecdotes feel generic, though.
There are no simple answers here, but instead a lot of imparted wisdom that will spur inspiration. The Seven Tools of Healing is an affirming self-help book in which spiritual truths become a means of aiding in the recovery of the body and soul.
Reviewed by
Jeremiah Rood
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
