Jeff Brown #543

I have long admired the work of Jeff Brown (also find him on Facebook!), so having him on my show again was a wonderful privilege. Jeff continues to push the edge on one’s search for truth, meaning, identity and purpose. He also has some enlightening perspectives on the nature of relationship as well as brilliant ideas on how they might function better. I absolutely love his latest masterpiece, Grounded Spirituality. This book is an excellent deep dive and integration of the ethereal and the practical. Jeff is also a lot of fun.

Born in Toronto, Canada, Jeff Brown did all the things he was supposed to do to become successful in the eyes of the world. He was on the Dean's Honor List as an undergraduate. He won the Law and Medicine prize in law school. He apprenticed with top criminal lawyer Eddie Greenspan. It had been Brown's lifelong dream to practice criminal law and search for the truth in the courtroom.

But then, on the verge of opening a law practice, he heard a little voice inside telling him to stop, just stop. With great difficulty, he honored this voice and began a heartfelt quest for the truth that lived within him. Although he didn't realize it at the time, Brown was actually questing for his innate image, the essential being that he came into this lifetime to embody. He was searching for his authentic face.

As part of his journey, Brown surrendered to his confusion and explored many possible paths. He studied Bioenergetics and did session work with co-founder Alexander Lowen. He practiced as a body-centered psychotherapist. He completed an MA in Psychology at Saybrook Graduate School in San Francisco and co-founded the Open Heart Gang, a benevolent gang with a heartfelt intention. He started his own business and became a successful entrepreneur.

The most important thing Brown did, however, was the inner work. By going inside and connecting his spirituality with his emotional life, he learned essential lessons. By learning to surrender to the "School of Heart Knocks" (the school of life), he found his authentic face and embraced the call to write Soulshaping. Although he resisted it at first, he soon realized that honoring the call was his best defense against sleeplessness. If he wrote, he slept. If he didn't, he lay awake all night. This is in the nature of a calling.

Brown self-published the first edition of Soulshaping in December 2007. Called Soulshaping: Adventures in Self-Creation, the book was sold on a street level by a homeless man in Toronto and met with a tremendous response. It was picked up by North Atlantic Books soon thereafter and a beautiful new edition, distributed by Random House, entered bookstores in August 2009. Now named Soulshaping: A Journey of Self-Creation, this edition includes a new preface written by Brown that speaks to the grass roots energy that moved the book into the world so quickly, validating his own intuition about the book's connective and heartfelt nature.

After writing a series of inspirations for ABC'S Good Morning America in early 2010, and appearing on Fox News.com and dozens of radio shows, Brown wrote the viral blog post "Apologies to the Divine Feminine (from a warrior in transition)" that autumn, catapulting him to a greater degree of notoriety, particularly in social media. Soon thereafter, he released his first film, Karmageddon, an award winning spiritual documentary that highlights his journey with spiritual teacher Bhagavan Das. Also featuring profound interviews with Be Here Now author Ram Dass, yogis Seane Corn and David Life, and chanters Wah, Deva Premal and Miten,