The Saint and The Drunk A Guide to Making the Big Decisions in Your Life

by Peirolo, Stephanie

• ISBN13: 9781916517110
• ISBN10: 1916517110
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2025-05-29
• Publisher: Shepheard-Walwyn
• More Book Details

Summary

What if you had an internal compass that could provide direction at every turning point in your life? The Saint and the Drunk - A Guide to Making the Big Decisions in Your Life shows people how to build a practice of intentional decision making. This book is for anyone who wants to discover or reconnect to their authentic calling. But for many of us that access has been obscured by cultural or familial narratives, trauma or grief. This is a practical book that considers the very real responsibilities most of us have. Exercises and writing prompts help identify cultural and familial narratives that can support or limit, clarify values and dreams, demonstrate how to honor resistance and deal with the impact of grief and trauma on decision making. The author shares her deeply moving, and at times, tragic personal journey that successfully affirms that the discernment process outlined in this book can help anyone, no matter their circumstance, to make even the most difficult decisions in their lives. The Saint and the Drunk - A Guide to Making the Big Decisions In Your Life shows you how to use ancient spiritual tools with a modern, spiritual-but-not-religious approach to make major life decisions with intention and clarity. In the Middle Ages, a saint named Ignatius of Loyola came up with a compass he called "discernment" using a process called the Spiritual Exercises. It was primarily used by Catholics to make decisions about how to serve God. A few centuries later, a group of drunks started Alcoholics Anonymous, and they wanted spiritual tools to overcome alcoholism. But some of the members were atheists and agnostics. So they came up with the idea of a Higher Power, an invitation for each person to decide what was to be their guiding principle. God? Nature? Their Ancestors? It didn't matter, the point was to find something higher. In AA, atheists can have vital spiritual experiences that get and keep them clean and sober. This book combines the two traditions, to use the concept of a Higher Power to make the Spiritual Exercises available to the large group of people who are spiritual but not religious, or religious but not Christian.

Author Biography

Stephanie Peirolo is a board-certified executive coach with a BA from Stanford in Creative Writing and an MA in Transformational Leadership from Seattle University’s School of Theology and Ministry. She is a writer and storyteller whose non-fiction opinion work has been published in advertising trades as well as publications of women’s religious orders. Her storytelling on The Moth has been featured on NPR and in the best-selling book All These Wonders. She has a newsletter on Substack, a podcast on leadership, and she provides trainings for corporate and faith-based organizations.

Table of Contents

Introduction Part One: The Foundation 1. What is discernment? 2. The Saint 3. The Drunk 4. Social Location and Group Agreements Part Two: Beginning 5. What Question Do You Want to Ask 6. Your Discernment Map 7. Values as Navigational Guides 8. Pick a Side 9. Knowing Yourself 10. Clues from Childhood 11. The Inner Community Part Three: Stories That Support and Hinder 12. Children’ s Stories 13. Work History 14. Money 15. Quitting 16. Power 17. Home and Family 18. Voice 19. Spirituality 20. Rest 21. Seasons Part Four: New Ways of Listening 22. Imagination 23. The Genius of the Body 24. Attraction and Aversion 25. The Intuitive Thought Part Five: Resistance and Support 26. Navigating Resistance and Embracing Discomfort 27. When Being in the Body Hurts 28. Grief and Loss 29. Community 30. Clearness Committee 31. Time and Time Again