Your User's Manual: A Guide for Purpose and an Anxiety Free Life in the 21st Century


Anderson Silver - 2018
    There are answers to all of these questions and Anderson Silver has compiled teachings from Stoicism and other schools of thought in Your User’s Manual. This refreshing collection not only gives the reader much sought after answers, but also provides the tools for finding purpose, and living an anxiety-free life in the modern world. Meant as a light read that the reader can come back to and meditate on periodically, Anderson has done a wonderful job of condensing fundamental teachings, making Your User’s Manual a straightforward read in answering life’s most pressing questions and recognizing what is truly important.

The Holy Sh!t Moment: How Lasting Change Can Happen in an Instant


James Fell - 2019
    Rather, the research reveals that serious life turnaround usually happens in a moment, with a flash of inspiration. Epiphany arrives like a lightning strike, rapidly shifting the recipient of such enlightenment onto a new path that creates a better life.Motivational psychology has traditionally focused on slow and steady—gradual improvement over time to reach a desired goal, whether it’s weight loss, career change, battling addiction, or success in relationships. We’ve been told since toddlerhood that the tortoise beats the hare. But, through compelling science and powerful stories, James Fell shows us that the hare has the edge; overwhelming desire can be awakened fast and furiously. When you learn to become attuned to that sensation of sudden awakening, a new path can be followed almost effortlessly, because it feels like destiny.Everyone has the ability to experience the lightning strike. The Holy Sh!t Moment will teach you how to create a life-changing epiphany and go directly from intention to action.

You Are Your Choices: 50 Ways to Live the Good Life


Alexandra Stoddard - 2006
    In brief essays filled with useful examples and optimism, she reveals 50 choices you can make to live joyfully in pursuit of what is true, good, and beautiful. As a pioneering writer and lecturer on personal happiness for the past twenty years, Alexandra has inspired millions to break the "rules" and pursue fulfillment. Now, as scientists have begun to discover the benefits of living a happy life, Alexandra provides practical ways to live happily every day. She puts us in charge of our choices, reminding us that we always have a choice about what we think, feel, and do. When we are true to ourselves, we can fly above stress and conflict, contented and confident that we are the right path.Featuring essays that help us trust ourselves ("Intuition is your guiding light"), stay steady in a storm ("Your choices count most in a crisis"), embrace the new ("Accept opportunity"), address unfinished business ("Have as few regrets as possible"), surround ourselves with delights ("Redefine what is beautiful"), and remember to have fun ("Cheap thrills are thrilling").Every choice you make is an opportunity to delight in life. You Are Your Choices offers insight and companionship each step of the way.

Soul-Centered: Transform Your Life in 8 Weeks with Meditation


Sarah McLean - 2012
     Each of the 8 weeks that follows explores a variety of meditation practices thoroughly supported by research, insights, stories and exercises.  The theme of each week reflects a benefit derived from meditation: Awareness, Peace, Freedom, Compassion, Intimacy, Authenticity, Receptivity, and Nourishment.            This easy to follow program inspires you to confidently practice meditation and develop a new perspective.  In the process, you'll become more-self-aware, more peaceful, and more compassionate: a way of life that can truly be called soul-centered.

The Zen Commandments: Ten Suggestions for a Life of Inner Freedom


Dean Sluyter - 2001
    Do the right thing, of course-- but better yet, find your inner light and doing the right thing becomes as natural as breathing. THE ZEN COMMANDMENTS offers ten powerful nudges toward that light.Drawing on sources from Zen stories and the Bible to jazz and rock 'n' roll, from American movies to Tibetan meditative techniques, Dean Sluyter steers clear of dogma and emphasizes what works-- a sort of spiritual street smarts. He shows that the state of boundless freedom and happiness isn't something distant or exotic, but is right here, while you're stuck in traffic or taking out the trash. And revisiting the Ten Commandments, he shows how on a deeper level they offer some surprising enlightenment wisdom of their own.“The book is extremely well written and joyously entertaining.”—Publishers Weekly “With sparkling clarity and wit, Sluyter's ten suggestions lay out the practical essentials of the path. My suggestion is: listen to this guy.”—Lama Surya Das, author of Awakening the Buddha Within “Dean Sluyter clearly presents simple but profound ways to live one's life consciously and skillfully. He teaches that the source of universal truth not only rests in the heart of every one of us, but is the essence of what ultimately brings us true happiness and freedom. This is a wonderful book with rich wisdom and deep insight.”—Rabbi David Cooper, author of God Is a Verb “No matter what your religion (or lack of it), this book shows how to live the kind of life people ache for. It turns out to be pretty simple.”—Jane Cavolina, co-author of Growing Up Catholic

Brain-Powered Weight Loss: The 11-Step Behavior-Based Plan That Ends Overeating and Leads to Dropping Unwanted Pounds for Good


Eliza Kingsford - 2017
    In Brain-Powered Weight Loss, psychotherapist and weight management expert Eliza Kingsford shows that more than 90 percent of people who go on diet programs (even healthy ones) fail or eventually regain because they have a dysfunctional relationship with food. Changing this relationship by changing the way you think about and behave around food is what it takes to permanently achieve weight-loss success. Kingsford’s 11-step first-of-its-kind program enlists dozens of mind-altering and behavior-changing exercises and techniques that shows you how to:· Identify and reverse the conscious and unconscious thinking errors and food triggers that lead to the behaviors that drive our food decisions.· Let go of the mindset of going on or off a diet in favor of a conscious quest to pursue a lifestyle of healthy eating and everyday activity — one that can last forever. · Successfully use what Kingsford calls “dealing skills” to outsmart high-risk situations, tame stressful times, and prevent an eating “slip” from leading to a setback or all-out binge.· Find out if you have what emerging research shows is an addiction to certain high-fat and sugar-added, processed foods that can be as powerful as addiction to cigarettes and narcotics.· Design a personal healthy eating program built on Kingsford’s 10 Principles of Healthy Eating.

Your Next 24 Hours: One Day of Kindness Can Change Everything


Hal Donaldson - 2017
    And when it comes down to it, what good does mere feeling do for the world?Your Next 24 Hours is about something much bigger--a lifestyle of kindness, without thought of reciprocation, extended toward every person in our lives, both friend and foe. Through powerful true stories of kindness lived out, this book shows readers the enormous difference they can make through small, doable acts of kindness in their families, communities, workplaces, schools, and churches. It shows how every encounter with another person is an opportunity to be kind--and a chance to change our world.Readers of Your Next 24 Hours will find deep satisfaction and joy as they discover how they can be part of a revolution of kindness that starts with them and reaches out through every person their lives touch.

What Does Your Soul Love?: Eight Questions That Reveal God's Work in You


Gem Fadling - 2019
    These questions open the door to spiritual transformation. They help us unpack where we are stuck, where we are in pain, where we are afraid, and much more. They also reveal the path to joy and to the heart of God. Spiritual inventories and exercises will guide you, along with stories from Gem and Alan's lives and their ministry together through Unhurried Living. Embarking on a journey of transformation involves remaining awake to a deeper level of reality that is always present, write the Fadlings. Remaining on this journey requires a simpler, God focus. These eight questions about transformation can help us cultivate this kind of deeper awareness and soul focus. These paths help keep us on the journey of transformation. They keep us in the presence of the transforming One. This practical, personal book offers a path to understanding what God wants to reveal in your soul.

You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment


Thich Nhat Hanh - 2004
    “Mindfulness is not an evasion or an escape,” he explains. “It means being here, present, and totally alive. It is true freedom—and without this freedom, there is no happiness.”Based on a retreat that Thich Nhat Hanh led for Westerners, this book offers a range of simple, effective practices for cultivating mindfulness, including awareness of  breathing and walking, deep listening, and skillful speech. You Are Here also offers guidance on healing emotional pain and manifesting real love and compassion in our relationships with others. Simple, warm, direct, and startlingly potent, this book reveals the heart of the Buddhist path and helps us to reconnect with the joy and wonder of being alive, regardless of life’s changing circumstances. Praise for Thich Nhat Hanh “Among Buddhist leaders influential in the West, Thich Nhat Hanh ranks second only to the Dalai Lama.”—New York Times “Thich Nhat Hanh writes with the voice of the Buddha.”—Sogyal Rinpoche, author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down: Guidance on the Path to Mindfulness from a Spiritual Leader


Haemin Sunim - 2012
    In this best-selling mindfulness guide - it has sold more than three million copies in Korea, where it was a number-one best-seller for 41 weeks and received multiple best book of the year awards - Haemin Sunim (which means "spontaneous wisdom"), a renowned Buddhist meditation teacher born in Korea and educated in the United States, illuminates a path to inner peace and balance amid the overwhelming demands of everyday life.By offering guideposts to well-being and happiness in eight areas - including relationships, love, and spirituality - Haemin Sunim emphasizes the importance of forging a deeper connection with others and being compassionate and forgiving toward ourselves.

Shine: Rediscovering Your Energy, Happiness and Purpose


Andy Cope - 2018
    In which case, we applaud you. If, on the other hand, you need the cheat codes, then this book will give you a nudge. Redefining the genre of ‘self-help comedy,’ Shine is a book about the brevity of life. It contains adult themes of mortality, change, exhaustion and unrelenting pressure. Thankfully, the bleakness is done with humour and the solutions are entertaining, do-able and uplifting. Shine is the literary equivalent of ‘ctrl/alt/delete.’ All you have to do is read the book, keep an open mind, and apply the learning. You will experience a personal re-boot with new mental software installed, upgrading you to ‘best possible self.’ It’s a very simple process that also happens to be ‘not very easy.’ Because, of course, if being your best self was easy, everybody would be doing it. The average lifespan is 4000 weeks. Look around and you’ll see too many people having a ‘near life experience.’ They’re alive, but not living. Truth time: life’s a short and precious gift that’s hurtling by in a blur. If you want to make a dent in the universe, it’s time to wake up. We figure that if you’re going to rise, you may as well shine. Laugh and learn while you: Rediscover your ability to ping out of bed every single day with fire in your belly and a smile on your face. Identify what really matters in your life and how to stop stressing about the stuff that doesn't. Remember how to focus on all that makes you happy and cut the nonsense that worries you for no reason. Give up your low-level grumbling and experience the joy that comes when you focus on achieving all that you've ever wanted. Find out just how easy it is boost your energy and increase your motivation. Discover how to break free from 'ordinary' and embrace a life of 'extraordinary.’ Figure out how to channel your inner Mary Poppins.

The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself


Michael A. Singer - 2007
    You’ll discover what you can do to put an end to the habitual thoughts and emotions that limit your consciousness. By tapping into traditions of meditation and mindfulness, author and spiritual teacher Michael A. Singer shows how the development of consciousness can enable us all to dwell in the present moment and let go of painful thoughts and memories that keep us from achieving happiness and self-realization.Copublished with the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) The Untethered Soul begins by walking you through your relationship with your thoughts and emotions, helping you uncover the source and fluctuations of your inner energy. It then delves into what you can do to free yourself from the habitual thoughts, emotions, and energy patterns that limit your consciousness. Finally, with perfect clarity, this book opens the door to a life lived in the freedom of your innermost being.

Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Getting Things Done


David Allen - 2003
    Now "the personal productivity guru" (Fast Company) shows readers how to increase their ability to work better, not harder every day. Based on Allen's highly popular e-newsletter, Ready for Anything offers readers 52 ways to immediately clear your head for creativity, focus your attention, create structures that work, and take action to get things moving. With wit, inspiration, and know-how, Allen shows readers how to make things happen with less effort and stress, and lots more energy, creativity, and effectiveness. Ready for Anything is the perfect book for anyone wanting to work and live at his or her very best.

Already Free: Buddhism Meets Psychotherapy on the Path of Liberation


Bruce Tift - 2011
    "Buddhist practice helps us awaken to a well-being that is independent of our circumstances," explains Bruce Tift, "while Western psychotherapy helps us bring our disowned experience into awareness in order to live in a more skillful and satisfying way."On Already Free, this therapist and Buddhist practitioner opens a fresh dialogue between these two perspectives, and explores how each provides us with essential keys to experiencing full presence and aliveness.Practical Tools and Wisdom from the Eastern and Western TraditionsBuddhism gives us powerful tools for breaking free of our own identity drama and our fascination with day-to-day problems, yet it does not address how early childhood experience shapes our adult lives. Western psychotherapy provides a wide range of proven techniques for understanding and untangling the development of our neurotic patterns, but it is only beginning to recognize the powerful impact of exploring awareness itself. "These two approaches sometimes contradict and sometimes support each other," Tift explains. "When used together, they can help us open to all of life in all its richness, its disturbances, and its inherent completeness."With a keen understanding of the wisdom of East and West, and a special focus on working with intimate relationships as a pathway to spiritual awakening, Bruce Tift presents seven immersive sessions of insights, wisdom, and practical instruction for realizing the fundamental freedom that is your birthright.HighlightsThe Developmental Approach--why we still use our childhood survival skills after we outgrow them The Fruitional Approach--Buddhist wisdom on finding liberation without resolving our historic issues Relationships and Awakening--practices for couples to develop "healthy intimacy" and welcome connection and separateness Why we use "neurotic organization" to limit our life experience, and how to challenge this self-perpetuating process

The Ten Equations That Rule the World: And How You Can Use Them Too


David Sumpter - 2020
    Ten of them, in fact. They are integral to everything from investment banking to betting companies and social media giants. And they can help you to increase your chance of success, guard against financial loss, live more healthfully, and see through scaremongering. They are known by only the privileged few - until now.With wit and clarity, mathematician David Sumpter shows that it isn't the technical details that make these formulas so successful. It is the way they allow mathematicians to view problems from a different angle - a way of seeing the world that anyone can learn.Empowering and illuminating, The Ten Equations shows how math really can change your life.