The Inner Space Traveler: Seven Principles for Healing Trauma and Transforming Consciousness

In a lifelong quest to heal his own suffering, author David L. Hoefer developed seven principles to explain his own prescription for relief: “Consciousness + Awareness = Change.” Those principles are detailed in this eye-opening volume.

Hoefer explains in his Introduction that while most self-help books exhort readers to change, “this book…suggests that trying to change is the very thing keeping you stuck.” Instead, he advises embracing feelings, allowing pain, and observing your reactions “without trying to change them.” “[A]wareness, by itself,” he later writes, “reorganizes consciousness.”

Hoefer notes that human history has caused generations of trauma, which we all carry in our genes. This inspires the first principle: “Nothing Is Personal.”

The struggle to deal with trauma begins with awareness, “noticing without motive,” which underpins the second principle: “Consciousness Creates Your Experience, Awareness Changes Consciousness.” If you notice and then try to actively change the feeling or circumstance, you will only reinforce it. Thus, the third principle: “Whatever You Do To Change Reinforces the Belief That Is Causing Distress.”

Hoefer follows with four more, reminding readers how one principle builds on the others. He answers common questions and counters misconceptions for each, offering practical applications for specific challenges, such as grief, shame, depression, and other types of dissatisfaction.

Hoefer explains, reiterates, and reinforces his theory and its benefits clearly without being monotonous. Paradoxically, a philosophy that requires not doing anything is hard work. Many questions arise, and he addresses them calmly, patiently, with total commitment. He reassures readers that awareness without judgment or action will become more automatic and the pain will resolve because “Life itself is the great teacher … Your willingness to receive that teaching determines how quickly you evolve.”

For readers whose spiritual practice of affirmations, breathwork, mantras, etc., or whose years of psychotherapy haven’t helped, The Inner Space Traveler will guide them to meet their unique consciousness which has “nothing to prove…nothing to defend…nothing to become…nothing to fix.”

Also available as an ebook.