Not Just Another Self Help Book – The Legacy of Crystal Island
An experienced therapist has combined people’s love of fantasy fiction novels with a real desire for self-understanding and improvement in a bid to write anything but another self-help book.
The Legacy of Crystal Island is the first in a trilogy of books by author and renowned therapist Colleen O’ Flaherty-Hilder which will explore the human mind and the way we can be conditioned into what we think and feel – through the genre of a novel.
Set in the 22nd century, The Legacy of Crystal Island follows the seven-year initiation of Orla, a fourteen-year-old princess who lives on an enchanted island protected by a crystal fortress. It is set in a world that is rapidly degenerating under the rule of leaders focused on greed and the perpetuation of fear.
Orla is a direct human-crystal descendent of the Crystalanders, the Guardians of Eternal Wisdom, who are responsible for keeping balance in the whole cosmos.
In the early days of man’s story, they bestowed Gifts of Creation on the Earth, transforming man’s inherent primal fear with Crystaland Wisdom. After many thousands of years, the primal fear programming resurfaces and once again becomes dominant in man leading to Earth’s spiral of degeneration.
Orla’s destiny is to re-awaken Crystaland Wisdom in man’s cellular memory and transform the hatred and conflict in the hearts and minds of mankind.
To equip her with the necessary tools and knowledge, she has to undergo an immersion into the unique qualities of Wisdom held in the seven worlds of Crystaland and fully experience the original Gifts of Creation given to Earth.
“The books deal with our emotional programming which holds the archetypes that determine how we respond to the world and everything in it. Emotional programming cannot be easily defined or explained within the parameters of reason or logic and that is why I chose to write a fantasy.”
Based on her 35 year’s experience of guiding people through emotional transformation, Colleen believes how we respond to the world depends on our emotional memory (Emotional Intelligence). What has formed our archetypes is stored in our emotional memory. This is a primitive response but is important to our survival and is inherited by each generation.
There are also differences between the sexes and the way they are programmed, their qualities and limitations, which are important for both.
The story looks at many key issues:
- How we sleep walk through the decisions we make in our lives because of our emotional programming – inherited and experienced
- Fear in all its shades, prevents us from accessing creative wisdom, (physiologically, when someone is producing stress hormones, they act as antagonists to dopamine, a neurotransmitter which gives us the feel-good factor. When we over produce stress hormones, we become hyper vigilant to what can go wrong (fear)
- For men, they have inherited the archetype of the warrior, so whenever they are in a situation of authority they will revert to the warrior leader. This has led to warrior leaders evolving into the power leaders of today who still use the archetype of war to deal with matters of conflict, be it in business, politics or religion. Men have formed the rules by which society conducts itself – and therefore authority keeps repeating the same mistakes.
- The emotional programming that may prevent women from breaking through the glass ceiling. Women have no archetype in their memory of female authority and have been typecast throughout history – genetic emotional memory – as the weaker sex without a voice. This means when they are given authority – they don’t really know how to express balanced authority.
- The importance of natural remedies beyond the physical level of health. The trace elements carry the memory of creation.
- Sound is the main vehicle for the transformation for change – representing sound on all levels and the healing power of vibration. The narrative of sound throughout the book is allegorical to describe the choice of wisdom-based dialogue over confrontation.
- The importance of natural remedies beyond the physical level of health. The trace elements carry the memory of creation.
This first book explores how humans have got to this point. Subsequent books in the trilogy will explore what needs to change and how we can learn to respect everything within our environment for better outcomes for us all.
Colleen added: “One of the key aspects of the book is also to remind us that humans are only caretakers of a beautiful planet. Our priorities should be to protect it and care for the community rather than focusing on the desires of the individual.”