Robin Lynn Brooks is a contributing author in 
The Mentor that Matters:
inspiration from transformative teachers, role models & heroes
Edited by Suzanne Fox. Series Editor, Andy Fox

"In every life, there is at least one “mentor that matters”: a person whose insights spark change and whose influence endures. 

"In a series of brief and richly thought-provoking essays written by both recognized 'names' and extraordinary ordinary Americans, THE MENTOR THAT MATTERS: STORIES OF TRANSFORMATIONAL TEACHERS, ROLE MODELS AND HEROES shares the perspectives of forty unique individuals as each speaks about one person who unforgettably changed their lives."

Robin wrote about trauma therapist Dr. AnDréya​ Wilde (scroll down Author page) who helped to give her life for the first time. Without Dréya, Robin would not be who she is today. Because of Dreya's gifts to her, Robin has turned around to become a role model, inspiration, and mentor herself for so many others.

"THE MENTOR THAT MATTERS offers an array of possibilities and perspectives that affirm the human capacity to change, grow, connect, and make a lasting mark on the world.

"A go-to reading for anyone interested in personal growth, The Mentor that Matters will inspire readers to celebrate the richness of their own life journeys, remember their most extraordinary teachers, and continue to reach for opportunities to become 'mentors that matter' themselves."

Robin's story begins:

"I sit in the corner of the kitchen in an armchair. I am tense, as curled up into myself as I can be, my feet tucked tight beneath me.

"My voice shakes as I whisper into the phone to my therapist so I cannot be heard. It is hard to speak what I feel, the words coming broken and slow. I was silenced as a child and do not know, still, how to reach inside and speak what is there. But, gradually, it begins to come…”

After many years of work with Dréya, this is where Robin is now:

"I have found the strength that was already inside me, and I have discovered and now recognize the beauty of my being. Directly because of Dréya’s mentoring of me, I have come to understand, too, that it is my honor and soul’s purpose to give back and share with others what I have been given. It is my utmost desire to help others in whatever way I can so they might find their own way to healing and to the fulfillment of who they are.

"Now, I do not only allow myself to exist. So much more, I am learning how to live and breathe my greatest self as I become who I was born to be. I would not be here today without the extreme capability, guidance, love, and support of my amazing mentor, Dr. AnDréya Wilde." 

…Such a gift
to be here
in this life
at this time
with who
I have become.

[© 2013, Robin Brooks, the end of the poem "Who I Can Be"
from Robin's poetic memoir The Blooming of the Lotus: a spiritual journey from trauma into light]

I am so blessed.


Learn more about Robin's story. Become inspired. ​
Order The Mentors that Matter on Amazon or through your local bookstore.

(Regularly priced at $12.99)
 
Here is the link:
https://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/the-blooming-of-the-lotus
 
To learn more about me, my Blooming work, and "The Blooming of the Lotus," please go to:
http://www.bloomingofthelotus.com
 
Come to know you are not alone.
 
Come to believe it IS possible to move from the deepest darkness out into the light and to the fulfillment of who you came here to be.
 
With great love and gratitude for all I have been given and for where I have come to.
 
Robin Lynn Brooks

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
574 Bernardston Road, Greenfield, MA 01301
For more information, please call 413-774-2711 or visit here:
Geissler hours: Monday thru Friday, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Through October
 
I have been an artist for most of my life. This was how I spoke as a child in the midst of a difficult childhood.
 
Throughout my life, I have used art as a way to continually explore and discover who I am and also to help me heal. Making art is breath to me.
 
In this retrospective of my healing art, you will see earth work, large drawings, installation, fabric, and concrete. Many of these pieces took me years to make as I raised my kids and worked. Some took only minutes as I fought to express those feelings that threatened to explode inside me.
 
I invite you to come and see, whether at the opening or by yourself later on. I would love to give you a glimpse of one of the most important ways I have taken care of myself all these years as I have struggled to survive and heal. Perhaps you will go away with something for your own life.
 
This show speaks to the need for all of us to listen to and honor the voice deep within. Whatever we do, it is important to pay attention as it tells us what we need, where we are going, and who we are. In this way, we may come to bloom into who it is we came here to be.
 
Thank you.
 
Robin
 
My art website: www.robinlynnbrooksart.com
Some of my healing art:
Death, Rebirth, Death
Earth Mothers
Healing Art
 
 
Imagine!
 
Robin Lynn Brooks
Author, Artist, and Healer
www.bloomingofthelotus.com
Amazon Author Page
Blog
 
Book Designer,The Beauty of Books
www.thebeautyofbooks.com
 
Web Designer, Robin's Webs
www.robinswebs.com

Lynn Andrews posted this evening:

LIVE YOUR TRUTH 
The truth is within your own heart and your own soul. When you become lonely and afraid, all the answers you will ever need will be found within yourself. Do not look so frantically out into the world for the answers to your questions. Look within, and ask yourself, "Am I being faithful to my own truth?" Losing that faith is the only real sin against the Goddess Mother, God, Great Spirit or whatever you want to name the great Devine. We forget who we are in this world of illusion. And it is the one thing that we must forgive and cure. The old one will survive in all of her women and men. 
Much love and spirit, 
Lynn


I found this post of Lynn's just so timely.
Everywhere in the last day or so, I have received this same message but in a different way. I pulled a Rune this evening about this and yesterday began a 12-week workshop on focusing my life so it’s about the truth that I am, rather than continually hedging for what will support me.
 
I have been coming to this for the last year, moving slowly towards it like the Turtle. It began to come to me over those 10 months of being sick.
 
I have so much to give from inside myself, from all of the healing I have done, from all of the darkness I have come through and the light that has been shown to me to bring me through that darkness. I am finally choosing to learn how to allow the enormous luminosity of who I am to radiate out and encompass fully what I do in the world. THIS is what I choose.

I will not any longer hold back for fear of my greatness or of my light Somehow, as I believe in myself more and more and allow myself more and more to not only claim my greatness but to also navigate from it, in the process I know I will find the way of life that is out there for me that will bring me the support that I need.


Our Greatest Fear —Marianne Williamsonit is our light not our darkness that most frightens us

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other
people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of
God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.

—Marianne Williamson
Often said to have been quoted in a speech by Nelson Mandela. The source is Return to Love by Marianne Williamson, Harper Collins, 1992. —Peter McLaughlin
With love and gratitude.

This morning early, I walked to the river and wrote a piece of rescue that will find its way into the prose sequel to "The Blooming of the Lotus" perhaps or a later book on soul mates after trauma. 

Sometimes, the only way I can find my way is to BE in nature. 


In any case, it got me thinking of my poem "The Lake," another piece of rescue:

The Lake  

A large patch of earth
uncovered by snow.
I scrape even
the pine needles away.
I lie on the earth,
flat out,
my cheek pressed
against her,
my heart.

On the way here
I saw the earth’s hips,
her breasts,
the sharp bones
of her ribs.
The sun
shone through the trees
in stripes
like a searchlight
gone still.

As I walked,
I did not understand
what moved me
so that,
as often happens now,
tears came.
Perhaps the stark beauty
in nature,
so antithetical
to the brutal truth
of what I now know.

I feel myself
borrowing
from the life
of these trees,
from this sun
and earth,
as I walk now daily
in what I can
only call
near death.

Today I know
there will be no epiphany,
even with the grace
and glory
of these trees
and Lake.
But as with the talk
on the phone
with my good friend
this morning,
I am held at least
from full dying.

© 2013, Robin Lynn Brooks