November 3, 2016

Remembering Wholeness, by Carol Tuttle


I read this book a couple of months ago now, and I'm still processing it a bit.
There were many things I liked about it and some that made me deeply uncomfortable. However, even getting to this book has been a bit of a journey. So I guess you get to hear about that first. It's long. Consider yourself forewarned!

To understand part of my conflicting feelings about this book, I need to tell you my story of how I came to know of Carol Tuttle. Here's a link to her website, if you want to skip my chit-chat and learn about her on your own: https://my.liveyourtruth.com/dyt/home/

Carol Tuttle is an energy healer who also works with women on their appearance. Basically, you take a free mini-course to figure out which of 4 energy types you are, then you can purchase a full course to teach you how to "Dress Your Truth"--in other words, how to choose clothing, accessories, makeup, and hair styles that reflect your energy type. She also talks about parenting according to the 4 types, etc.

Anyway, I came to know Carol through the Dressing Your Truth side of things. I was hesitant at first. I thought I would just look into it, but I was pretty skeptical. I didn't want to be taken advantage of or sold something that wasn't really useful. I watched the mini-course on energy profiling, and pretty much immediately decided I was a Type 2, which in her system is a more introverted, yin, soft-spoken, subtle energy. I decided to buy the course. 

Well, that was over a year ago and I have never looked back since! After taking the course, I immediately went to my closet. It was like a light bulb went on in my head. All of a sudden, I knew why I had chosen the clothing I did. My favorite clothes were ALL Type 2 in design lines, color, fabrication, etc. Even the ones I never wore, I could pick out what I was drawn to in the first place--usually they had a couple elements that were Type 2, but were very wrong in color, or pattern, or some other area. I also figured out why I rarely wore jewelry and have since found jewelry that I enjoy wearing.

While I took the course to help me figure out a personal style, I was pleasantly surprised how much it helped me with my relationships. I pretty quickly figured out the types of my husband and children, and just knowing a little better how they relate to the world has helped me so much. In fact, looking back, some of my biggest arguments with my husband have been each of us approaching a certain problem from our own Type's frame of reference, without understanding why the other person wasn't "getting it."

Okay, so all 3 of you who are still with me after that explanation, let's talk about this book!


Remembering Wholeness, by Carol Tuttle

3 stars: Conflicted feelings on this one!

So, I knew about this book, and that it was about healing things from your childhood and moving forward in your adult energy. Carol talks a lot about clearing negative energy leftover from childhood experiences, and even generational energy imbalances. She is Mormon, and some of our doctrine comes into it, but there's a lot of it that is not doctrinal--in case you were wondering.

As Mormons, we do believe that our spirits lived with God before we came to this earth. We also believe we have a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother watching over us. I think those are the main two, but she touches on others as well. (You can find out more about what we believe here: Come Unto Christ.  Or just ask me! I'm always happy to talk about my religion!)

She talks a lot about how powerful our words are for creating the experiences we have, and how the angels assigned to watch over us are happy to be given tasks to make our lives easier, if invited to do so. If you say, "I always have a hard time finding a close parking space!" every time you're in a parking lot, that is the experience you are creating for yourself. So if you want to change your experiences, change your words and your expectations, invite angelic help, and be grateful for everything that begins to show up in your life.

She talks about how if you don't heal your emotional wounds from childhood, that negative energy will keep showing up in your life, amplifying each time, until you finally do something about it. I had a happy childhood overall, so at first I thought this part didn't apply to me, but it's not just about big traumatic events. It's about recognizing your triggers, for anger or sadness in particular, and how to figure out what caused that trigger to form in the first place. Healing that and moving on.

So these parts were all very fascinating to me. I am still processing them and how to apply them to my life. Very empowering. If you don't like how your life is or was, you have the power to change it! You can create a life of joy and ease, or a life of struggle and lack. It's your choice.

Where I became very uncomfortable was when she started talking about healing from abuse. (She is a survivor of abuse, herself.) Her idea is that before we born, we decided there were certain things we needed to learn--unconditional love, maybe, or forgiveness. Well, in order to learn those things, there had to be people to forgive. So basically, [she says] we asked certain people to take on those roles in this life so that we could learn what we needed to learn. So the abusers were basically fulfilling a promise made in the pre-earth life.

I just don't think that's correct. She's basically saying child abuse victims chose those experiences before they came to this earth. I can't believe that. It makes it seem like there are no true victims and almost that the abusers are let off the hook to some extent. I could see each of us being prepared, before we came to earth, for certain hard situations we would encounter--particularly abuse--but I can't buy in to the idea we chose that and even asked someone to be the perpetrator so we could learn something from it. I just...can't.

So anyway. I don't know what else to say. Like I said, I'm still mulling over a lot of what she talked about.

Any thoughts?

p.s. If you decide to try Dressing Your Truth, I would love to hear about your experiences with it!



7 comments:

  1. I have a question about the Dressing Your Truth. I had never heard of it before, so I've been online studying and watching vidoes today (by the way, based on my interaction with you, I agree that you are a beautiful, wonderful, warm and kind Type 2). I'm fascinated by it, but I'm so confused about whether or not I'm supposed to put more focus on my looks or my personality when determining my profile. I feel like my personality leans almost completely Type 4 (perfectionist, always over analyzing, recharge by being alone, introvert, etc) with occasional forrays into Type 1 (i.e. when I feel the need to "perform"). The clothes I currently gravitate to are also Type 4 .

    However, I feel like my round face and cheeks, freckly face, and unruly curly hair match up with the type 1 style. So should I lean more towards physical features or personality when determining my profile? Does she talk about that more in the Dressing Your Truth course? Also, she makes it sound that the personalities and features always match up, which makes me leary. What are the chances that everybody's facial features (as she categorizes them) will always match up with their personalities? Thoughts?

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    1. She says that your dominant features will always match up with your dominant energy, and when in doubt, go by your facial features. With Type 4's, that would be a lot of straight lines and symmetrical features--so, your eyes set on a straight line, your brows fairly straight, etc. Your secondary energy, which it sounds like for you would be the Type 1, will also show up in your features as well.
      It is interesting. I've seen several videos of her using the physical features to profile people--most of the time I can see it, and some I can't at all. This makes me want to get together with you and see your face in person! :)
      Yes, she does also go into it more in the Dressing Your Truth course. I've talked with Aubree a lot about it too. We should go on a walk sometime and chat about it!

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  2. Also, I'm with you on the thoughts you shared about her mindset regarding abusers and pre-earth life. Seems super creepy to me and also seems like it takes away agency to make our own choices in this life and be accountable for the consequences.

    I wonder if that reasoning is a tool she had to create in her own mind so she could become capable of forgiving what seems so unforgiveable?

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  3. Interesting. A few of my extended family in-laws have been into Dressing Your Truth for a while, and I've seen the intro videos so I'm familiar with the basics. Usually I love personality typing programs, but this one didn't speak to me so much (for the record, I think I'm a 4 that leans 2, but I'm not sure). While I know a lot of people really love her stuff, your review kind of sums up how I feel about her and her "products": generally insightful and probably very helpful to a lot of people, but in other ways just a little bit... off. Some of her claims/methods made me uncomfortable, which is why I haven't looked into her more. But I still find her whole philosophy (or whatever it is she's selling) interesting.

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    1. I feel like I've gotten a lot of good from the Dressing Your Truth side of it--if nothing else, I'm completely confident about what will work for me and what won't with clothing, etc. Like I said, it has also helped me in my relationships with my husband and kids as well.
      I hear you, though. There are some things about it I haven't bought into, and probably won't.

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