What Sulena calls self-transformation I think of as self-transcendence, and I think of PW as a secular spiritual practice because it aligns us with our essential nature, to be learning creatures. Harmonious with our nature, we outgrow or transcend our old stories and ways of understanding, wrap them up in or newest takes on the past, and, so doing, transcend the past--and in such a way that compassion or empathy and forgiveness come into play--in what some folks call an act of radical understanding--an understanding that makes a before and after in your life. You have a way of understanding how and why things happened as they did, a new point of view, what Linda calls a larger perceptual base of understanding. You also have a growing imagination. . . .