The Transformational Odyssey

The Transformational Odyssey was written to help those individuals who are facing difficult life transitions, and who are attempting to successfully navigate tough life decisions and engage in deep self-discovery. Unlike other self-help books that attempt to provide readers with homespun advice for addressing difficult life challenges, The Transformational Odyssey shows readers how to take charge of their self-growth and development. It does this by providing readers with several applied techniques for engaging in deep self-learning in a more profound and fundamentally life-changing way. The title, The Transformational Odyssey, reflects the book’s integrative metaphor of transformational learning as a personal odyssey of self-discovery. The word “odyssey” connotes a long, and sometimes arduous and meandering journey. Although an odyssey may present the traveler with unexpected trials and challenges, in the end it may yield increased wisdom and knowledge. Building on this metaphor, The Transformational Odyssey introduces readers to eight passages that they will inevitably encounter during their own personal odysseys of self-discovery. Each of these passages involves a uniquely different learning challenge that, as it is successfully navigated, increases the reader’s capacity for self-growth. The Transformational Odyssey is written in a conversational style, as if the author were sitting down next to the reader to share my forty-plus years of experience as a personal coach and life transition counselor. Since different people learn in different ways, this book incorporates a variety of different learning methods, including actual cases, exercises, suggested actions, famous quotes, and metaphors. For those readers to would like to dig deeper on a given topic, at the end of each chapter the author has included a separate section that introduces readers to related cutting-edge research in the field of human psychology. The topics included in these sections cover such areas as mindfulness, meditation, narratives, and future selves. ENDORSEMENTS "The Road to self-discovery is one that has been traveled before. The Transformational Odyssey explores this journey in a unique and different way, by beginning at the intersection of academic exploration and the examination of authentic experiences. Robert Barner finds ways to challenge his readers, while also guiding each person in a way that is most logical and emotionally transcendent to them. And he does so in an insightful, compelling way. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is ready to be vulnerable and wants to grow." ~ Kevin Beachum Jr. - NFL Athlete, Investor, Speaker, Philanthropist "This is a dazzlingly ambitious book and it does not disappoint. Thought-provoking, compelling, and an extraordinary source of scientifically-based insight for anyone seeking to improve their lives." ~ Jim Loehr, Best Selling Author, Co-Founder of The Human Performance Institute "The Transformational Odyssey enlists the reader in a powerful journey, grounded in their own creative imagination and wells of inspiration. This road of self-renewal is exciting and dangerous and the work is not for the timid. Robert Barner knows the territory intimately and is a guide you can both trust and enjoy." ~ Charles J. Palus, Senior Fellow, Center for Creative Leadership "In The Transformational Odyssey, Dr. Robert Barner offers what few self-help books do a research-based journey into self-awareness leading to real and sustained change. In embarking on this journey, readers will become more attuned to their experiences, more open to others, and more effective leaders, partners, parents and friends. I highly recommend this book for those courageous enough to encounter transformational learning!" ~ Jaime Goff, Certified Executive Coach and President, The Empathic Leader, LLC.

Odyssey Works infiltrates the life of one person at a time to create a customtailored, life-altering performance. It may last for one day or a few months and consists of experiences that blur the boundaries of life and art—is that subway mariachi band, used book of poetry, or meal with a new friend real or a part of the performance? Central to this book is their 2013 performance for Rick Moody, author of The Ice Storm. His Odyssey lasted four months and included a fake children's book, introducing the themes of his performance, and a cello concert in a Saskatchewan prairie (which Moody almost missed after being stopped at customs with, suspiciously, no idea why he was traveling to Canada). The book includes Moody's interviews with Odyssey Works, an original short story by Amy Hempel, and six proposals for a new theory of making art.

150 years after Confederation, Canada is known around the world for its social diversity and its commitment to principles of multiculturalism. But the road to contemporary Canada is a winding one, a story of division and conflict as well as union and accommodation. In Canada’s Odyssey, renowned scholar Peter H. Russell provides an expansive, accessible account of Canadian history from the pre-Confederation period to the present day. By focusing on what he calls the "three pillars" of English Canada, French Canada, and Aboriginal Canada, Russell advances an important view of our country as one founded on and informed by "incomplete conquests". It is the very incompleteness of these conquests that have made Canada what it is today, not just a multicultural society but a multinational one. Featuring the scope and vivid characterizations of an epic novel, Canada’s Odyssey is a magisterial work by an astute observer of Canadian politics and history, a perfect book to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Confederation.

A blueprint for personal change inspired by Homer's classic shares empowering exercises that reflect every key stage of the story, a process that invites readers to work through loss and suffering, search for the divine Beloved, and share in the joy of arriving home. Original.

In an exciting and important book... The theoretical chapters are a model of elegantly styled accommodation; yet they brook no fudging of the issues, no comfortable ambiguities - Modern Fiction Studies The Transformation of the English Novel, 1890-1930: Studies in Hardy, Conrad, Joyce, Lawrence, Forster and Woolf is a provocative exploration of a crucial period in the development of the English novel, integrating critical theory, historical background and sophisticated close reading. Divided into two major sections, the first shows how historical and contextual material is essential for developing powerful readings. The second section is theoretical and speaks of the transformation in the way that we read and think about authors, readers, characters and form in the light of recent theory, offering an alternative to the deconstructive and Marxist trends in literary studies.

All great stories can change our lives, and practically none is more transformational than Homer’s The Odyssey, which had a power so great that it launched Greek civilization and has influenced the West ever since. In this fresh approach to self-realization, human potentials leader Jean Houston provides empowering experiential exercises at every key stage of Homer’s epic to make The Odyssey our own journey. As we set sail with Odysseus, together we endure loss and suffering, the search for the divine Beloved, and the joy of finally arriving home. "Tapping the power of these archetypes," says Houston, "helps us effect healing in areas that have kept us immobilized and anguished. By raising our own tragic dimension to a mythic level, we awaken to a larger, nobler life."

There is much discussion these days about public diplomacy—communicating directly with the people of other countries rather than through their diplomats—but little information about what it actually entails. This book does exactly that by detailing the doings of a US Foreign Service cultural officer in five hot spots of the Cold War - Germany, Laos, Poland, Austria, and the Soviet Union - as well as service in Washington DC with the State Department, the Helsinki Commission of the US Congress, and the National Endowment for Democracy. Part history, part memoir, it takes readers into the trenches of the Cold War and demonstrates what public diplomacy can do. It also provides examples of what could be done today in countries where anti-Americanism runs high.

Revised papers from a conference under the auspices of the Western Center of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences which was held May 8-9, 1977 at the Center for Advanced Study of the Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto, California.