2024 Winner! Silver Nautilus Book Award! A remarkable shift alters the course of a midwestern mother's life as she heeds an inner call through the wisdom of Buddhist meditation instructions. Woven intricately with insights cultivated during her recovery journey, this empowering and radically honest blend of memoir and guiding narrative charts her spiritual evolution into abiding awakening. With faith and resilience, Constance learns to shape her own unique meditative expression, finding balance while navigating the complexities of parenting two teenage sons, the intricacies of close relationships, managing financial constraints, and building a home. Whether on the cushion or amidst daily chores, Constance's exploration yields profound openings. Through vivid illustration, we are transported into the heart of her practice, feeling the rhythm of her thoughts, serenity of stillness, and revelations born in silence. Beyond a personal tale, "Time for Awakening" is a guiding light for those considering extended retreat practice. Driven by a fire for deeper truths, Constance's inner call transports her to a strict Southeast Asian monastery. Within the realm of devotion and tranquility, we are thrust into another world of heightened practice, crystallizing insights to carry back home. PRAISE: "Constance Casey is a genuine and accomplished spiritual adept who shows us what is possible in opening to freedom. Propelled by remarkable dedication and compelling honesty, this Midwest mother and carpenter takes us on a profound meditative journey into the depths of insight and awakening."—JACK KORNFIELD, co-founding teacher, Spirit Rock Meditation Center and Insight Meditation Society; author of A Path With Heart "Through curiosity and vulnerability, Constance shares her transformative experiences and embodied wisdom, inviting us into a deeper understanding of the human journey." —SHARON SALZBERG, co-founding teacher, Insight Meditation Society; author of Real Life and Real Happiness " Time for Awakening takes the reader on quite a spiritual journey from Midwest Al-Anon meetings to a strict Buddhist monastery in Malaysia and back home to Minnesota. Constance Casey, a Midwest mother of modest means, is willing to undergo extreme hardship and challenges in pursuit of deep spiritual awakening and, gratefully, finds what she is looking for."—JAMES BARAZ, co-founding teacher, Spirit Rock Meditation Center; co-author of Awakening Joy: 10 Steps to Happiness "Constance Casey offers readers a shimmering gift. This is not a memoir of a spontaneous and disembodied mystical awakening, but of knowledge of Stillness arrived at through an intense and extended quest. Her openness and detail in regard to the material and financial aspects of her homelife in conjunction with her life of meditation, learning, traveling, and healing are refreshing in a spiritual memoir. Ultimately the overall impression of the book is one of fullness, fullness of the vibration of life, and its infinite universality ."—SUN YUNG SHIN, author of The Wet Hex and Where We Come From "Constance Casey’s Time For Awakening is unlike any other memoir I’ve ever read! Steeped in 12-Step programs, Anne Wilson Schaef’s Living in Process, and decades of intensive Buddhist meditation practice, this courageous woman has forged a unique understanding of the strengths and limitations of each approach to spiritual growth." —NANCY MANAHAN, co-author of Living Consciously, Dying Gracefully: A Journey with Cancer and Beyond "Constance Casey provides us with a remarkable spiritual travelog of her travels along the path to deeper and deeper understanding. " —LEIGH BRASINGTON, author of Right Concentration and Dependent Origination & Emptiness "An interesting, inspirational story of a midwestern woman who begins to search for a deeper meaning and added strength in her life... Casey's step by step process in her success story could be a perfect tool for another to follow and reach their goals as well. Pleasure and pain, elation and despair and other triumphs and struggles are authentically documented. Constance Casey learned to live the mantra, "Trust the process," and her book is a well-written, meditative account of how and why she did it... Her story was so transparent that I felt I was experiencing her life through her words and thoughts. I commiserated with the remodeling challenges and embraced her spiritual awakening... Truly an inspiration and enjoyable read." —NONFICTION BOOK AWARDS, SILVER AWARD WINNER 2023 "The title is both description and invitation as Casey's welcoming debut blends memoir—exploring her own recovery, spiritual searching, and embrace of Buddhist precepts and mindfulness meditation—with guidance for seekers eager to discover all that such journeys entail. Casey writes with disarming frankness about relatable concerns in marriage and motherhood, budgets, and the dissatisfactions of modern life, especially the shift in thinkin