There is an urge coming from somewhere inside of you, a little voice that starts getting louder, telling you that you have to take back your life from the person who's been running it so ineptly. The life you're living doesn't feel like your own. The person who people take you to be doesn't feel like you.

We miss the self who has been stolen through an identity theft in which we have conspired. Our own diminishment makes it necessary to quit going along, to cease leaving ourselves open to those forces that take us away from our humanity, and to increase every opportunity to know our given selves once again.

Mari Perron is the Author/First Receiver of <i>A Course of Love</i>, <i>Mirari: The Way of the Marys</i>, <i>Creation of the New</i>, and two books of The Grace Trilogy, and is winner of the Jean Keller Bouvier Award for literary excellence from the University of Minnesota. Mari presents her honest process in search for the authentic self-The Given Self. She accurately demonstrates that we cannot embrace an impersonal self; without this piece, invalidation occurs, which is a common trap for spiritual seekers. This book will help many learn to trust their authenticity-the path home to our Given Self.