Q1. Hello, can you please introduce yourself? Readers would love to know more about you.
Hello, I am Verlaine Crawford, Ph.D. I am an Intuitive, Transformational Coach, Inspirational Speaker, and #1 U.S. and an International Best-Selling Author. From 1990 to 2010, I was invited to teach personal growth and spiritual development in Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, Bali, Europe, and across the U.S. I am honored to be included in the soon-to-be-published book, The 100 Most Inspirational Women in the World.
My fifth book, The Power of Wholeness: Discover A More Fulfilling, Successful, and Rewarding Life reveals the most important self-improvement technique I have ever used, the Infusion Integration Process. I created this process to release our subconscious blocks and integrate opposing core beliefs. This Integration process opened the door to a magical life for me and many others around the world.
My previous books are:
Ø Emotional Healing: Experience Balance and Self-Empowerment in an Age of Rapid Change
Ø The Heart of Transformation and the Butterfly Effect
Ø Daughter of God: Angelic Messages of Wisdom and Love (Poetry)
Ø Ending the Battle Within: How to Create a Harmonious Life by Working With Your Subpersonalities.
Ø I also edited and my company, High Castle Publishing, produced a 12-awards-winning fantasy, inspirational adventure novel, Portals in Time: The Quest for Un-Old-Age, and The Alchemy of the Seven Harmonies by John Teressi.
During my 40-year marketing career, I had the opportunity to be the first woman Vice President of a high-tech company in Silicon Valley and then helped create two more software start-ups. I served as V.P. Marketing and consultant for a variety of companies and non-profit organizations, including AT&T, The Lodge at Pebble Beach, The Queen Mary Project, The International Paper Company, Bank of America, Humana, Berkshire Hathaway Home Services, The American Cancer Society, and The AIDS Services Foundation of Orange County, plus serving as Executive Director of the Chambers of Commerce in the City of Seaside on the Monterey Peninsula, San Juan Capistrano, and Laguna Beach.
I have been with my loving. life partner for fifty-four years with a brief separation of fifteen years. We reunited again twenty years ago. I thank the wonder of the Power of Wholeness and my connection to Universal Consciousness (God, Goddess, All That Is) for great health, comfortable abundance, lots of love, and the opportunity to use my creative self-expression to create a wonderful life.
There were plenty of challenges, especially physically, such as cutting my feet in a lawn mower when I was twelve. My brother and I were mowing, and I didn’t know he was behind me, I turned around and walked into his mower, cutting the top of my left foot and removing my little toe on the right foot. I was laid up for a year.
The other was a near-death experience when I was twenty-seven in 1971. I was walking across a small room with two doors and two elevators in an underground parking garage. This was under a 15-story building on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, where I was Chief Copywriter for an ad agency. A man in a guard uniform walked past me, and a voice in my head (intuition) said, “Run!” I argued, “Why should I run? It’s late. I don’t want to run.” The man grabbed me around the neck with a knife at my throat. He started pushing me toward the other door. One of the elevators went “Ding!” The doors opened and two men stepped out. The assailant transferred the knife to my back and stabbed me. The two men, who were lawyers, pulled me into the elevator, my lung collapsed, and I slumped to the floor. Obviously, the doctors were able to save me. I developed PTSD, and fear filled my heart.
The Infusion Integration Process set me free. I was able to transform my internal core beliefs and clear the way to go forward by understanding how our beliefs create our reality. I am excited to celebrate my eightieth trip around the sun on December 9th!
The information about how you can create a new way of being is all outlined in The Power of Wholeness book, and I work with people individually to clear the past, shift beliefs, and help you manifest your heart’s desires.
Q2. What were the key challenges you faced while writing your book “The Power of Wholeness”?
The Key Challenge was I thought I simply wanted to update and reprint my book, Ending the Battle Within, because it contained a full explanation of the Infusion Integration Process. It was published in 1994, the floppy no longer worked, and I didn’t have the original manuscript. So, I needed to take the book apart, scan each page into my computer and place the manuscript, page by page, into a PDF program that allows you to edit pages.
Then I began editing and reformatting to bring the book up to date. Very quickly, I realized that I was rewriting the book. I had so much to say, add, and delete. The book was becoming its own representation of what I wanted to say. I meditated and asked for guidance as the message became deeper and more encompassing. Thus, it transformed into The Power of Wholeness.
Q3. What books or authors have most influenced your own writing?
I have read hundreds, if not thousands of books, including novels, biographies, science and science fiction, the religions of the world, spiritual awakening and self-help. The books that have most influenced my thinking and my life are as follows:
Ø As A Man Thinketh – James Allen. It began my understanding of thoughts creating reality and started my search for answers about why don’t we always manifest our desires completely? What is stopping us?
Ø Seth Speaks and The Nature of Personal Reality – Jane Roberts. These books have so many answers about the “How” we create.
Ø One Mind – Larry Dossey, M.D.
Ø A Course in Miracles – A Foundation for Inner Peace
Ø The Book of Secrets – Osho (And many of his other books.)
Ø Autobiography of a Yogi (Self-Realization Fellowship) by Paramahansa Yogananda
Ø Circle of Doors, a Novel – Ranse Parker
Ø Portals in Time: The Quest for Un-Old-Age – John Teressi
Q4. What’s your favorite spot to visit in your own country? And what makes it so special to you?
My favorite spot in the United States is Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. I moved to Carmel when I was fifteen years old with my Mom and brother and attended Carmel High School. It is a beautiful, English-style village with a large, white sandy beach and lovely Cypress trees along the shore. That is where I began writing poetry and spent hours in nature, absorbing the energy.
When I returned from Los Angeles in 1972 after being stabbed in the back by an assailant, I became Executive Director of the Seaside Chamber of Commerce and two years later became the Director of Sales at the Lodge at Pebble Beach, which is a gated community with golf courses overlooking the Pacific.
To the south of Carmel is the Highlands and Point Lobos, a state park with craggy cliffs, crashing ocean waves, and amazing vistas. The whole area feels like heaven to me. I left Carmel in 1965 to expand and grow in Orange County and Los Angeles. I met my soulmate, John Teressi, in 1969. In the 1980s, I lived in the San Francisco Bay area, where I got involved in the emerging high-tech industry in Silicon Valley. Yet, of all the places I have lived and visited, Carmel holds my heart.
Q5. What inspired you to write the book ‘The Power of Wholeness’?
I wanted to focus on one thing, one purpose to leave as a legacy to help humanity. When I was stabbed in the parking garage and thought I was dying, a statement came to my mind that surprised me. I said to myself, “Dear God, if I should live, please make me an instrument of your peace.” I have been attempting to be that instrument of peace throughout my years in business and community organizing. I used the concept of integrating our subpersonalities with individuals, integrating and uniting departments in corporations, and bringing together business, education, tourism, ecology, and local government in communities.
I want the information in The Power of Wholeness to become widespread. I would like it to be taught in schools, used in business and governmental agencies, and initiated in governments and the United Nations.
Q6. How long did it take you to write your book ‘The Power of Wholeness’?
It took about six months, but the information had been touched upon in my other books, and I had added insights to my notes and journals for many years. Writing my book required many edits, and my life partner, John Teressi, graciously volunteered to help with the editing process. He believes in creating a feeling of flow in the words and the structure. I also used Grammarly, which is a gift for any writer. It was challenging to look at the material over and over again, but I know that the book is now quite complete.
Q7. On what platforms can readers buy your books?
My books are available on Amazon. Some are on Barnes and Noble also.
Q8. Tell us about the process of coming up with the book cover and the title ‘The Power of Wholeness’.
The name “The Power of Wholeness” came to me intuitively. It popped into my head. John immediately loved the title, which is a big deal, because he is a natural critic. I looked up that name on Amazon and found that it was part of some titles, but it wasn’t used as a distinct title. I had always thought I wanted a picture of a pirate ship on the cover to go with my first book’s title, “Ending the Battle Within.”
I like the idea that we think we are “Captain of our ship, Master of our Fate. But I see it as a Pirate Ship, and the Crew is Planning Mutiny.” Thus, I came up with the idea of a pirate ship on the cover.
John pronounced a resounding “No!” He suggested instead that I create a sophisticated, beautiful cover to go with the message. I asked the AI image generator on Canva to create some mandalas for the cover. And I particularly liked the one I chose with the pink and turquoise. It represents a symbol of nature and wholeness, somewhat like a Native American image might be. The soft yellow background cover was to infer the warmth of the sun shining on us.
Q9. When writing a book, how do you keep things fresh for both your readers and also yourself?
Often I begin to hear what I need to write next. Whether it is a chapter, adding a sub-head, a chart, an image, or an example will come to mind, and I sit down to write or look up pictures. Sometimes I receive a message when I wake up and hurry to write down on paper what I am hearing. Often it is when I am in the shower, taking a walk, or gardening.
If none of this is happening, I ask questions related to the topic. I love asking questions. Then I start to write what I think the answers are and continue asking, answering, and opening to new ideas and new ways of thinking. I also do research to see what others are saying about the subject and then see how I can add to it.
Q10. What is the most valuable piece of advice you’ve been given about writing?
Try to keep what you are conveying clear, concise, descriptive, and energized! Make sure the sentences and paragraphs flow when you read them out loud.
Sassy Reviews 