Spirituality for Badasses and 21 Days blossomed out J. Stewart’s life as a spiritual seeker, finder and teacher. He teaches based on his direct experience, twenty-nine years of interaction with numerous nonduality-advaita-zen-unorthodox teachers, his ongoing education / certification in modern mindfulness and a degree in communications / engineering from Syracuse University.
He has been interviewed by Rick Archer on Buddha at the Gas Pump, was the meditation editor of the mind/body/spirit blog All Things Healing, was a board member of Sevenoaks Retreat Center (a nondenominational spiritual retreat center in Madison, VA) and is the owner/founder of a tech design -install firm called Charlottesville Audio Visual Services.
J. Stewart Dixon has been a very creative individual for most of his life. In addition to two self-published books, he has written and produced a rock musical, has two professionally produced and recorded CDs with his former band Alchemy and has dabbled in abstract art.
He lives in central Virginia with his family. When he’s not working or creating he can be found cavorting with the fish, bears, and bald eagles on the local rivers with a fly rod in his hand.
Visit his website at http://www.spiritualityforbadasses.com or connect with him on Facebook.
❀Tell us about your book! What is it about and what inspired you to write it?
Spirituality for Badasses is a non-religious approach to discovering the spectrum of awareness, told through the POV of the author while accompanying you, the reader through a series of adventure travel destinations and experiences. There are numerous how-to exercises. There is cursing. There is humor. There are sobering opinions offered about honesty, shadow, ego, mind, depression and many of the typical obstacles that prevent us from discovering our
genuine, unique "spiritual badass" natures.
❀Tell us about your publishing process. What was it like? Did you go indie or the traditional way?
I’m self-published
and wouldn’t have it any other way. More control. More creativity. More
profits. Screw the big 5 major publishers – they only publish people who are already
famous with reality TV shows and who are related to the Kardashians. Yuck.
❀How did you choose the title for your book? Did it come to you right away, before you started writing it, or did it come later?
Spirituality for
Badasses is my second
book. The first was written ten years
ago. I’ve had multiple false starts on a
second book over the years. I’d write a
chapter or two and then resign it to the dust bin. Spirituality for Badasses
came about after a frustrating attempt to make a more conventional version of
my work fly. It didn’t fly. It flopped. So, in frustration, I said fuck it, and
wrote the first few chapters of Spirituality for Badasses in one
sitting. (Including the title) I gave
those chapters away for free and it immediately flew.
❀Tell us about the cover design process. Did you have a basic idea of what your book cover would be like?
I’m a pretty good
graphic designer. I designed the cover myself and then had a pro graphic
designer clean it up.
❀Who is your cover designer and how did you find him/her?
www.blackeggsyndicate.com- long
time friend.
❀How was your experience working with the designer?
He’s one of my best
friends.
❀What has been the readers’ response to your cover?
99% love it. I get some feedback every once in a while,
about how a copied it from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Hunter S Thompson) that pisses me off. I never read or saw the cover of Fear and
Loathing when I designed my cover. Happens
that both covers have vaguely similar sunglasses.
❀What tips would you give to authors who are looking for a cover designer?
. It needs to read, pop and wow in tiny format on a phone.Also go here: www.blackeggsyndicate.com
❀Anything else you’d like to say about your book?
Sure – here’s the
introduction.
Introduction
How to be a badass without
being a badass-hole
I get it. I really do.
You’re a badass.
Cool, hip, down-to-earth,
together, sane, practical, tough, smart, confident, fringe, alternative, creative,
funny, athletic. However, you want to quantify your badass-ness.
You’ve been this way your whole life, or maybe it took a couple of decades for you to cultivate it, or maybe it just kicked in yesterday at 3:09 pm. Who knows…and who cares, right?
Because something is
missing.
It seems that being a badass
just isn’t—enough.
Is it?
Let me make this easy for
you. I’m also a badass…
…except that for most of my
adult life I’ve been involved with spirituality. And maybe you can relate
here—this badass has always had…um, a slight issue: He doesn’t really love
spirituality, being spiritual or hanging out in spiritual circles.
No thank you.
This badass…well, eh... he
loves beer.
There—I said it! I love beer. Dark beer. Craft beer. Locally brewed beer. I also love fly fishing and kayaking and hiking in the mountains. I love making fart jokes with my twelve-year-old
son. I love smoking the occasional cigar (or other things) in my hot tub. I love great sex. I love head massages. I love making lots of money. I love cool cars. I love taking vacations in tropical places. I love hanging out with friends and being potty mouthed. I love watching Netflix. I love sitting around on the weekends and doing absolutely nothing. There are a lot of things this badass loves.
But spirituality? No, I don’t
love spirituality.
But...I do like it. I really
like spirituality—a lot.
Spirituality has served this
badass well. Here are a few of the benefits I gained from my years involved
with spirituality:
· I used to be depressed. I am now depression free— because of spirituality.
· I used to be deeply unhappy most of the time. I am now happy most of the time—because of spirituality.
· I used to be unaware and off balance about lots of things. I am now very aware and mostly balanced about lots of things—because of spirituality.
· I used to be a mindless idiot caught, obsessed and jerked around by the thoughts in my head. I am now
a mindfulness master who realizes that the thoughts in my head are mostly irrelevant, neurotic and frivolous—because of spirituality.
· I used to be timid. I used to avoid conflict. I used to deny certain emotions. I am now outspoken, unafraid of conflict, and I fully embrace all emotions whether they feel good or bad—because of spirituality.
· I used to believe that all existence was a flat, one dimensional, dead end. I now know from repeated experience that life—existence—is a multi-layered, vibrant, and mysterious realm—because of spirituality.
· I used to believe that death meant the end. I now know, also from repeated experience, that death is not the end and some part of us continues—because of spirituality.
·
I
used to believe that who I was was this separate individual named J. Stewart. I
now know that the real me springs from this same timeless, limitless ONE that
we all are—because of spirituality.
So you see…I really do get it. I used to be depressed, anxious, too smart for my own good, opinionated and unhappy…a real loveless badass-hole. But now I’m just a spiritual badass.
Spirituality removed the hole. I transformed. I changed. I grew up. I learned some hard lessons. And I did all this without ever losing my cool, integrity, smarts, libido, sense of humor or soul. And that’s just what this book is going to help you do.
You and I are going on a road trip, starting in my hometown and then traveling across the
United States. Along the way, we’ll visit some amazing places, take a few high-risk adventures and experience some strange shit. But what we’re really doing is exploring and where we’re really going is into the vast uncharted territories of your deepest soul.
Will it be easy? Nope. Will it be uncomfortable? Yep. Will it shake your world up like a three-hundred-foot drop on a Six Flags roller coaster? I hope so.
But you’re a badass and can handle this shit, right? Hell, yeah.
“Come
to the edge," he said.
"We
can't, we're afraid!" they responded.
"Come
to the edge," he said.
"We
can't, We will fall!" they responded.
"Come
to the edge," he said.
And
so they came.
And
he pushed them.
And
they flew.”
― Guillaume Apollinaire
Okay. You’ve now read the introduction. Quit fucking around. Buy the book and let’s get started.
Fist bump,
J. Stewart
Book Information
Release Date: January 21, 2021
Publisher: PIE Publishing / Awakening Resource Center, LLC;
Soft Cover: ISBN: 978-0-9858579-9-8; 329 pages; $15.99; E-Book, $5.99
Book Website: www.spiritualityforbadasses.com
Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/B08SMP9982
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