Kathryn Overall-Cass: My hopes for readers of Inner Invitations.
BY KATHRYN OVERALL-CASS
Inner Invitations by Lucy Tierney (with Kathryn Overall-Cass) is a universal guidebook for nurturing inner balance, healing and freedom. An adventure awaits, as you dare to go within and discover the unique-to-you invitations for growth that arise from your deepest Self.
My hopes for those who are drawn to read ‘Inner Invitations’.
Kathryn Overall-Cass
Co-writer for Inner Invitations
“Co-writing Inner Invitations with Lucy Tierney has been a wonderful gift for my own growth.
Being part of this book project has been some of the best professional development I have done as a spiritual director. It has enlarged my understanding of the Sacred and the universal activity of that oh-so-recognisable “vital impulse” at work within each person.
As paragraphs and pages passed back and forth between us across the virtual Tasman, I had a full immersion baptism into the originality of Lucy’s mind and the deep wisdom she holds.
The process of shining a light on her work has been formational, affirming, enlightening, challenging and stretching for me.
As we release this book out into the public square, I’ve been reflecting on the fruits I’ve harvested in this co-writing process and the hopes I hold for you - the reader who is drawn to this book.
I hope that you embrace the experiential nature of Inner Invitations.
Inner Invitations is full of insights that make for an interesting read. But that’s not where the true value of the book lies. Each chapter is peppered with ‘Try It Now’ prompts, and I hope you do them. The exercises and practices help you to experiment with and feel your own way into the wisdom Lucy points to, to discover the universals through the particularities of your own uniqueness.
So, my hope is that you do more than just read the book. I hope you experience the wisdom on offer by experimenting with the practices for yourself and seeing where they take you.
I hope this book helps you put down roots into your inner authority.
I moved home to New Zealand in 2008 after spending most of my 20’s on staff at a mega-church in Sydney. I received many gifts in that chapter of my life. I also had a lot to sort out about the ways that culture had formed and de-formed me.
Away from the bright lights and the loud voices, I had to learn in a whole new way how to sift and winnow through my experiences; to choose what I would keep and what I would let go of from that particular expression of Christianity.
It was a journey that led me into disorientation, pain, and at last, a pregnant silence - a silence in which I felt the assurance of a familiar, yet surprising, deep and life-giving awareness guiding me in new directions from within.
This book would have been a gift to me at that time. I think it would have strengthened my personal sense of agency and helped me to more confidently re-claim a healthy sense of inner authority at that stage of my spiritual journey.
If you are one of the many people that have been separated – for good, painful or natural reasons – from the spiritual communities that formed you, I hope that you might find in this book some encouragement to strengthen your connection with that inner generative flow; to hearken to life-giving invitations as you forge your own path in conversation with that “vital impulse” within.
If you are emerging from environments where you were taught not to trust yourself, I hope this book invites you into a healing adventure of attuning to the gentle growth-urgings of Spirit that press from within, inviting us to consciously participate in the grace of our own transformation, the way a bud gives way to a rose.
I hope this book leads you in the direction of your desires.
I got married earlier this year (2023) – the fulfilment of a deep desire of mine for many years. I can trace a direct line from that significant milestone to a seven-day silent retreat I undertook in 2017.
At this retreat, a clear invitation arose from within me to allow the energy of desire to become central in my depths and to re-shape my inner vision and outer action. More specifically, it was an invitation to acknowledge how private and secluded my life had become, and to face my deep desire for an intimate relationship - a desire that was mostly buried under layers of fear, pain and self-protection.
The calling-forth energy of this inner invitation was calling for a re-constellating of my inner world away from an exclusive focus on the faux-safety of a private, shielded, relationship with the Sacred and a “turning towards human relationship” by taking steps towards my heart’s desire – to be in a loving human partnership.
“The desire for growth, for “more than” I am experiencing now, is an innate part of being human. However, it takes courage to act on it, to face the risks of growth in order to experience the gifts of growth.
Inner Invitations
The invitation was so clear and strong, and I said “yes” to it without really knowing how I would live that out. And so began a seven year chapter of messy, beautiful growth - stumbling towards love, taking risks - some courageous, some unwise - and ever so slowly finding my feet. My path eventually led me to Gareth Cass in 2020 and our hearts have been journeying together ever since.
Over those seven years I can see now that I was living out the process of discerning and moving-in-flow with inner invitations for growth that Lucy describes in Inner Invitations, and her insights would have been so helpful for me throughout that process.
So, my hope for you?
That you will learn to discern the inner invitations that arise from within you to lead you into life. I hope that you will be supported to recognise them, to say “yes” to them, and to not be surprised when more established older patterns rear their head in protest!
I hope this book helps you to recognise and sort through “pull down” and “pull back” energies.
I’ve learnt from Lucy that inner disturbance is not always a sign that we are on the wrong track. In fact, it can be the container within which we hear an invitation for growth, a signal that we are ready to deal with a particular unconscious issue that is shaping our lives with an invisible, but powerful, gravitational pull.
Chapter Seven of Invitations explores “pull-down” and “pull-back” energies - Lucy’s way of describing well-established neural pathways and behavioural patterns that exert a counter-movement, or “drag” effect, on the calling-forth energies of growth invitations.
Co-writing this chapter was so enlightening for me. It clarified the journey I had been on in my journey towards relationship and the significant struggles I had experienced, even though I had an ongoing and graced sense that I was moving in the right direction.
I had a deep desire for relationship and a staggering amount of “pull-down” and “pull-back” energy that worked counter to that forward invitation.
I recognise in hind-sight the courage with which I went through the agonising process of walking towards love when so much of my inner system was screaming that relationships were confusing and unsafe.
Somehow, I was graced time and time again to recognise that my doubts and fears, though valid, were not the only inner energies I should pay attention to.
With the support of a good IFS therapist and my ever-patient Spiritual Director, I found the courage to hold these energies with compassion and to discern whether these particular patterns led to life, movement and possibility or simply strengthened my sense of intractability.
Kathryn Overall-Cass, Gareth Cass
Over time the inner growth invitation (to risk myself in love) became a clear beacon that was separate and distinct from the down-pulling forces of my self-protective patterns of confusion and doubt.
That invitation was integrated and gained more purchase in my life as I found increasing freedom to move-in-flow with all that was good and growthful in my relationship with Gareth - my wonderful, wise and patient man!
Chapter Seven holds so much light for me. I hope this section of the book will give people hope in the midst of feelings of powerlessness. The realisation that inner disturbance can genuinely be a catalyst for growth is life-changing.
It brings the possibility of movement to stuck places, and hope to places of futility.
It can strengthen your freedom to say “yes!” to inner invitations that are for growth and to move-in-flow with the life-giving current that accompanies them.
If you choose to enter into the experiential wisdom of this book, I hope that you find your own seeds of insight.
I hope you will have the joy of harvesting your own fruits of growth as you listen for the unique-to-you inner invitations for growth that arise from within you.
May you have grace on the journey.
Kathryn Overall-Cass
August 2023
Inner Invitations Available Now
Available as PDF Ebook below, or as Kindle and Paperback via Amazon.
$AUD25
Inner Invitations: a universal wisdom
e-book for nurturing inner balance, healing and freedom.
This e-book from Lucy Tierney offers potent and practical wisdom for growth. You’ll explore insights and practices to help you find your authentic path for personal development and spiritual unfolding. Learn to exercise your innate human capacities to balance your conscious and unconscious domains in the service of freedom and healing. An adventure awaits, as you dare to go within and discover the unique-to-you invitations for growth that arise from your deepest Self.