Dr. Donadio is the only healthcare professional I have heard say, "No one heals or fixes anyone. Only we heal ourselves" (pg. 34). So many times while reading this I got a sense of deep-rooted peace, as if something inside of me was saying, "Yes... yes, this is right. That's exactly what I want," especially when she talks about the essential needs of human beings. It seems so simple when Dr. Donadio puts it into writing, yet few of us acknowledge these basic needs: autonomy, respect, appreciation, a feeling of belonging, and a sense of rightness.
Dr. Donadio goes beyond health statistics and gets to the root cause of eating disorders, binge drinking, domestic violence, etc. I never realized how many of our negative behaviors were an attempt at survival...and I ate up the pages where she explains the brain chemistry behind this. For someone like myself with no background in science, she made it easy to understand and utterly enrapturing. I have it firmly in my mind now about how much we are driven by the pain-pleasure principle.
But Dr. Donadio stresses the fact that human beings have control over their behavior and the ability to change - to be in full charge of their actions and the course of their life. After presenting the disastrous statistics of our society, and the high chances for abused people to repeat abuse, or to suffer from health conditions after an unloving childhood, she reassures the reader in the ability to truly reverse this pattern through experiencing Pure Presence.
This was my absolute favorite part of the book. Pure Presence is the "state of being fully and wholly present to another person" (pg. 42), with love, respect, and nonjudgment. It is healing to be the recipient of this, but Dr. Donadio also implies that we can enjoy its effects by putting it into practice on our own - going by the Golden Rule, essentially, treating others as we wish to be treated.
My favorite component of Pure Presence was the "non-trace camping" principle. I dog-eared several delightful pages that related to this, such as: "It can be tempting to advise others, to share our own experience about a similar situation. When we do this, however, we are leaving our debris at the campsite, forgetting to leave no trace of our being there. When we provide this same respectfulness, and avoid interjecting ourselves into the other person's story or process, we are giving them the gift our Pure Presence" (pg. 62).
My main fear in relationships with another human beings has always been creating a false sense of dependency on the other, so I almost jumped out of my seat when Dr. Donadio wrote on pg. 64 (another dog-ear!) that it as possible to create a "nondependent environment" in which to establish intimacy. Following Pure Presence is a sure way to secure this.
This is a beautiful book and I highly recommend it. It put into words things I always felt but never expressed, and also challenged me to look at situations in a new light. It also made me realize that at certain parts of my teenagerhood, I had been a recipient of Pure Presence by some key individuals in my life - and now I have a name for why I got through the rough patches more easily.
There is so much in this book with which to enhance one's relationships. It is spirituality and top-notch science fused. I highly recommend it!