Teal Swan's mission is the transformation of human suffering to an empowered and authentic life. And in order to achieve this she speaks around the world to audiences, has created workshops, and is a best-selling / award-winning author to countless books.
This month's cover feature is Teal and we dive into an exclusive conversation with her about how she is changing and transforming the lives of people she comes into contact with.
1. Tell us about your books and why you decided to write them?
The first book that I wrote, The Sculptor In The Sky, was something I was inspired to write in order to help people to understand this universe that they live in, the meaning of life and how personal happiness plays into this overall picture of the meaning of life. It is a highly spiritual, esoteric book that I decided to write because I noticed how NOT knowing these things was causing pain for so many of the people I was meeting in my life.
The second book, How To Love Yourself, as the name implies, is a toolkit for how to love yourself. When I was struggling with self-hate, everyone could tell me that I needed TO love myself. But no one seemed to be able to tell me practically HOW to love myself. So, I studied people who love themselves vs. people who don't. And unpacked the practical elements of self-love and made a book out of it, to show people HOW to love themselves.
The third book, The Completion Process is a book that teaches the reader a process that I created for discovering and resolving pain that people have experienced specifically by using your triggers as access points to these past experiences that you may not even know are the root of your current distress and unwanted life experiences. I wrote this book because I had the key to resolving people's pain and helping them put themselves back together again. And when you have the key to resolving people's pain, you want to give it to them. Writing this book was the first step to putting this powerful tool into people's hands.
The fourth book, The Anatomy of Loneliness is a book that I decided to write because loneliness is the human epidemic. It is something that all people struggle with. What this book does for the reader is to reveal and break down the pillars of loneliness... What is causing it. And then to offer the antidote to loneliness, so that people can establish genuine connection instead; which is the number one human need.
The fifth Book, The Connection Process, was a book that I conceived of writing because I wanted to teach a larger audience a process that I teach people in my more private retreats. This process is like a meditative journeying process whereby you take your own consciousness and travel into another person's internal world. It is a highly emotionally intimate process that enhances people's connection with one another greatly.
The sixth book, Hunger of the Pine, is my first novel. It is a fiction novel based on real life about American homelessness. Homelessness is going to be a greater and greater problem within society. People tend to not care about problems unless it affects them personally in some way, or unless they relate to it in some way. I know the best way to get people to relate and care is to make it personal and let them experience it firsthand. So, my intention was to have people both read a good story and to experience homelessness in America. To do this, I used each of the characters in this novel to represent a specific demographic of people that struggles with homelessness. My major goal, besides writing this novel itself, is to have it made into a movie.
2. What do you hope people take away after reading your material?
I hope when people read what I write, no matter what I write about, that it changes the way they think and it expands their perspective. Our perspective dictates how we relate to life. This is quite profound because the implication is that in changing your perspective, your relationship to life itself changes. It can change the choices you make and the actions you take. And so, ultimately, I hope that reading what I write changes people's lives for the better.
3. What is your writing/creative process like?
Usually, a concept for an article, blog, poem or book just comes to me either out of the blue or in response to things that I am encountering in my life and career. Once that concept is born, it feels like I am just riding an unstoppable wave of pure drive. I become obsessive and all of my focus and energy goes into bringing that one project to completion. It feels rather like my soul is writing through my body. And so, there is an element of the writing happening to and through me when I write something... rather like a birth. If my lifestyle would allow it, I'd be the person who sits down to write a book for weeks straight through without stopping and forget to eat or sleep. The steps of writing something reveal themselves as I write. I don't have them in my mind in advance. So, I guess you could call me a highly intuitive, un-structured writer.
4. Who are some authors that have inspired you in your life?
I'd have to say that it is poets, lyric writers and rap artists specifically that have inspired me over the course of my life. All of these forms of writing are a kind of poetry. I find poetry to be the most beautiful form of writing. It evokes the most powerful emotion. And I think poetry has the most potential, out of any form of writing, for words to be able to convey the actuality of the emotional experience of whatever subject those words are written about. Some of the talented people that inspire me the very most are Dylan Thomas, SOHN, Bon Iver, William Shakespeare, Mary Oliver, Thich Nhat Hanh, John Roedel, Robert Frost and Pardison Fontaine.
5. What books are you currently reading now?
This might sound odd for a writer to say, but I don't sit down to read books often at all. I'm in the creative process almost all the time and have a huge international career to manage, which allows for very little time to read. The book that I am currently in the middle of, and have been for quite some time, is Vagina Obscura by Rachel E Gross. The book is a kind of shocking scientific odyssey about the female body and the quite frankly embarrassing human history around it and limited human knowledge about it. I find that if I do have time to read, I gravitate towards informational books and articles.
6. Why is it important for people in all walks of life to continue to learn/read?
Reading is only one form of learning. But being a writer myself and therefore word oriented, I am partial to it. The written word has the power to preserve knowledge. Because it can so easily be shared with other people and stand the test of time, it enhances the growth, knowledge base and experience of everyone who comes into contact with it. Reading opens the doorway to this infinite resource of knowledge, entertainment and understanding. It is an absolute privilege that all people deserve. Reading itself also enhances your focus, memory, creativity, communication skills and mental health. And, it can even reduce stress. As far as learning goes, without learning, there is no forward movement, no progression and the richness of one's life experience is drastically reduced. Learning is essential for human happiness. Fortunately, it is not possible to be alive and to not learn. Because, life and learning go hand in hand.
7. What's next for you in 2023?
In 2023, I am writing another book. That being said, I'm not going to reveal what it is because I don't reveal what book I am working on before it is finished. I find that doing so adds pressure to the completing of it and also corrodes the purity and intimacy of the project with other people's projections and opinions. But you can stay on the lookout for my next book!
On top of that, this year, I will be touring my new event called The Connection Factor around the world. It is an event where people can come in person to meet other people who like them, want deep, meaningful connection. In this event, people will go through experiential exercises that enhance connection and gain a whole new perspective about connection and relationships and how to make them work.
I will also be continuing to produce content every week for my youTube channel, where I put out a new video every week.
8. How can we buy your books?
If you go to the shop on my website www.tealswan.com there will be an option to click on books. You can find all of my books there. They are also sold everywhere else books are sold.
9. Anything else related to your books you'd like to include?
I don't have anything else related to my books specifically to say. But I would like to say something to writers who may be reading the magazine...
So many writers say that they are going to write a book "someday". And it's true that a great many things can hold you back from writing what you know you are meant to write. Things like fearing that you aren't good enough or that the task is too daunting or that it would be wrong to prioritize doing that over other obligations. The thing is, every article or book or song or poem is like a flower that is meant to manifest in this world. It is a gift that enhances the richness of this life for anyone who would see and appreciate it. When you are holding yourself back from writing what you know you are meant to write, or when you are procrastinating it, you are denying other people of that gift that you are meant to bring to this world. You are denying them of what only you uniquely have to offer. And sometimes, caring more about other people's experience than you care about your own insecurities is exactly what it takes to surmount your own resistance and put out into the world what you were always meant to put out into the world.
