Literal shackles are rings and chains around our wrists and ankles, ensuring that we stay imprisoned. The figurative shackles dealt with in this book are physical (sickness), mental, emotional, spiritual, environmental, social, and cultural. They still imprison us, because they create blockages and restrictions in the flow of our life. For anything to exist in this world, it must have form, or what is commonly called structure. Our society, family, schools, religion, laws, food, and medicine all create form for us. These forms support us, but they also have the potential to shackle us. Why? Because they tend to become self-serving, to perpetuate themselves, instead of flowing with the changes of life. As a result, we end up doing what others have been doing, based on the past, rather than finding out who we are and what would work for us in our lives in the present. So how can we release our shackles: what is no longer serving us in our lives? The first step is to recognize and acknowledge that something else would serve us better. Sometimes shackles release from only our awareness of their existence; or else the release occurs because our awareness leads to new choices in our lives, or we discover a new technique that shifts shackles. At other times, the releasing of shackles benefits from a helping hand. In any case, releasing shackles means, essentially, perceiving life differently. Part 1 of the book covers some common shackles. Part 2 summarizes essential background information. Many ways of releasing shackles have been coming to the world in the last ten or twenty years. Part 3 of the book introduces some of the ways that the author has been using in his energy-healing work with his clients (and on himself). Here's to a free and authentic life!