Inside Personal Growth

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Elise Ballard the author of a new book entitled “Epiphany: True Stories of Sudden Insight to Inspire, Encourage and Transform“.  I believe that all of us have had an epiphany in our life at one time or another, the question is have we had the courage to tell someone about our epiphany?

So what is the definition of  epiphany: ” a moment of great sudden revelation; an intuitive grasp of reality through something usually simple and striking; an illuminating discovery, realization or disclosure”.  Elise emphasizes that our epiphanies change not just us, but others in our lives and frequently the world.

In her new book Elise interviews over 50 well noted actors, and leaders in her attempt to explore how their personal epiphanies changed their lives.  These stories are truly moving, and provide the reader with a sense of just how powerful their epiphanies were in changing their lives.

Elise discovered some commonalities about epiphanies–Listening:Whether they were calmly contemplating the sky, meditating or praying, clinging to hope in a crisis, desperate to heal or searching for an answer, people were listening or paying attention to signs and what was going on around them. Belief: Whenever people have an epiphany, they never doubted for an instant whatever happened for them was real.  They had absolute faith and trust in the experience. Action: Every single person who epiphany positively changed his or her life took action. Serendipity:   After people began to take action on their epiphanies, circumstances seemed to fall into place so that they could take the next steps.

So I had to ask Elise if she believed epiphanies were a spiritual occurrence, and were the people she interviewed involved in some practices that would help to create the epiphany experience.  While she would not confirm my ideas about the spiritual connection of epiphanies, she certainly did not deny it.  She did note that many of our epiphanies can occur during times of extreme stress or challenges in our lives, as if a higher power was providing us with guidance and direction.
Whatever your personal belief is about epiphanies, I would highly recommend that you read Elise Ballard’s new book “Epiphany: True Stories of Sudden Insight to Inspire, Encourage, and Transform“.  I would also encourage you to visit Elise’s website by clicking here, it is a wonderful website and she provides you an opportunity to record your epiphany as well as watch many video interviews she conducted with the people profiled in her book.  Enjoy this wonderful interview with someone who had dedicated their live to exploring and understanding our epiphanies in life.