Too Blessed to be Stressed: 3-Minute Devotions for Women


Debora M. Coty - 2016
    Coty pack a powerful dose of comfort, encouragement, humor, and inspiration into your day.  Minute 1: scripture to meditate on Minute 2: a short devotional reading Minute 3: a prayer to jump-start a conversation with God This portable package makes a fabulous any-occasion gift for every woman.You’ll find the spiritual pick-me-up you desire in Too Blessed to Be Stressed: 3-Minute Devotions for Women.

Learning to Dance in the Rain (The Power of Gratitude)


Mac Anderson - 2009
    However, it's not the adversity, but how we react to it that will determine the joy and happiness in our lives. During tough times, do we spend too much time feeling sorry for ourselves, or can we, with gratitude...learn how to dance in the rain?It almost sounds too simple to feel important, but one word...gratitude, can change your attitude, and thus your life, forever. Sarah Breathnach said it best..."When we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that's present... We experience heaven on earth."Mac Anderson and BJ Gallagher have written a classic on "the awesome power of gratitude." No matter what your circumstances are, you cannot read this book and not feel extremely blessed.Learning to Dance in the Rain is an inspiring and beautiful book full of wonderful stories, quotes, poems and insight to help you reflect on the positives in life. A wonderful book to give to someone in need of encouragement - it can take you from feeling down to feeling blessed.

Real Happiness: A 28-Day Program to Realize the Power of Meditation


Sharon SalzbergSharon Salzberg - 2011
    Beginning with the simplest breathing and sitting techniques, and based on three key skills—concentration, mindfulness, and lovingkindness—it’s a practice anyone can do and that can transform our lives by bringing us greater resiliency, creativity, peace, clarity, and balance. This updated 10th anniversary edition includes exercises, journal prompts, and ten guided meditations available for download online and through scannable QR codes.

Thirty Chic Days: Practical Inspiration for a Beautiful Life


Fiona Ferris - 2016
    'Thirty Chic Days' is a warm, encouraging and fanciful guide on living a simple and beautiful French-inspired life. Enjoy dozens of delicious no-cost ideas and feel inspired to uplevel yourself and your surroundings in an effortless and enjoyable way.Through her popular blog howtobechic.com author Fiona Ferris provides thousands of women from all around the world with tools and inspiration to elevate the everyday from mundane to magical.Contents:Day 1 Have a Paris state of mindDay 2 Eat real foodDay 3 Bathe yourself in mystiqueDay 4 Make up your eyesDay 5 Create and guard your secret gardenDay 6 Be your own French auntDay 7 Honour your body with chic movementDay 8 Be beautifully positiveDay 9 Support your signature charityDay 10 Simplify your life for abundanceDay 11 Adopt a low-drama way of beingDay 12 Curate your wardrobe like it is your own bijou boutiqueDay 13 Indulge in your femininityDay 14 Design the life of your dreamsDay 15 Cultivate serenity and calmness in your lifeDay 16 Create a sanctuary at homeDay 17 Take exquisite care of your groomingDay 18 Little and oftenDay 19 Socialise in a relaxed mannerDay 20 Be your own chefDay 21 Inspire yourselfDay 22 Build rest and repose into your daily routineDay 23 Be financially chicDay 24 Live a life of luxuryDay 25 Collect contentment in petite measuresDay 26 Make every day magicalDay 27 Embrace creativity and enjoy the benefitsDay 28 Think of your home as if it were a boutique hotelDay 29 Walk your errandsDay 30 Immerse yourself in sensuous beautyBonus Day Take inspired actionIf you enjoyed Jennifer L. Scott’s ‘Lessons from Madame Chic’, Tish Jett’s ‘Forever Chic’ or Shannon Ables’ ‘Choosing the Simply Luxurious Life’, you will love ‘Thirty Chic Days’!

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia


Elizabeth Gilbert - 2006
    Around the time Elizabeth Gilbert turned thirty, she went through an early-onslaught midlife crisis. She had everything an educated, ambitious American woman was supposed to want—a husband, a house, a successful career. But instead of feeling happy and fulfilled, she was consumed with panic, grief, and confusion. She went through a divorce, a crushing depression, another failed love, and the eradication of everything she ever thought she was supposed to be. To recover from all this, Gilbert took a radical step. In order to give herself the time and space to find out who she really was and what she really wanted, she got rid of her belongings, quit her job, and undertook a yearlong journey around the world—all alone. Eat, Pray, Love is the absorbing chronicle of that year. Her aim was to visit three places where she could examine one aspect of her own nature set against the backdrop of a culture that has traditionally done that one thing very well. In Rome, she studied the art of pleasure, learning to speak Italian and gaining the twenty-three happiest pounds of her life. India was for the art of devotion, and with the help of a native guru and a surprisingly wise cowboy from Texas, she embarked on four uninterrupted months of spiritual exploration. In Bali, she studied the art of balance between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence. She became the pupil of an elderly medicine man and also fell in love the best way—unexpectedly. An intensely articulate and moving memoir of self-discovery, Eat, Pray, Love is about what can happen when you claim responsibility for your own contentment and stop trying to live in imitation of society’s ideals. It is certain to touch anyone who has ever woken up to the unrelenting need for change.

The Second Mountain


David Brooks - 2019
    Our personal fulfillment depends on how well we choose and execute these commitments. In The Second Mountain, Brooks looks at a range of people who have lived joyous, committed lives, and who have embraced the necessity of dependence. He gathers their wisdom on how to choose a partner, how to pick a vocation, how to live out a philosophy, and how we can begin to integrate our commitments into one overriding purpose.In short, this book is meant to help us all lead more meaningful lives. But it’s also a provocative social commentary. We live in a society, Brooks argues, that celebrates freedom, that tells us to be true to ourselves, at the expense of surrendering to a cause, rooting ourselves in a neighborhood, binding ourselves to others by social solidarity and love. We have taken individualism to the extreme—and in the process we have torn the social fabric in a thousand different ways. The path to repair is through making deeper commitments. In The Second Mountain, Brooks shows what can happen when we put commitment-making at the center of our lives.

Sunset: On the Passing of Those We Love


S. Michael Wilcox - 2011
    Although at the time he was not intending that it would ever be published, he gradually came to recognize our “sacred covenant to share our burdens, our mourning, our comforts, and our witnesses.” The lessons he offers in this thoughtful and sensitive book are more than a chronicle of his own journey; they are important reminders to all of us to cherish every day we have with the people we love, to treasure the gift of our mortality, and to turn to the Lord in all our trials.

How to Be Idle


Tom Hodgkinson - 2004
    In How to Be Idle, Hodgkinson presents his learned yet whimsical argument for a new, universal standard of living: being happy doing nothing. He covers a whole spectrum of issues affecting the modern idler—sleep, work, pleasure, relationships—bemoaning the cultural skepticism of idleness while reflecting on the writing of such famous apologists for it as Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Johnson, and Nietzsche—all of whom have admitted to doing their very best work in bed.It’s a well-known fact that Europeans spend fewer hours at work a week than Americans. So it’s only befitting that one of them—the very clever, extremely engaging, and quite hilarious Tom Hodgkinson—should have the wittiest and most useful insights into the fun and nature of being idle. Following on the quirky, call-to-arms heels of the bestselling Eat, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss, How to Be Idle rallies us to an equally just and no less worthy cause: reclaiming our right to be idle.

Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart: A Buddhist Perspective on Wholeness


Mark Epstein - 1998
    We are taught that the ideal is a strong, individuated self, constructed and reinforced over a lifetime. But Buddhist psychiatrist Mark Epstein has found a different way. Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart shows us that happiness doesn't come from any kind of acquisitiveness, be it material or psychological. Happiness comes from letting go. Weaving together the accumulated wisdom of his two worlds--Buddhism and Western psychotherapy--Epstein shows how "the happiness that we seek depends on our ability to balance the ego's need to do with our inherent capacity to be." He encourages us to relax the ever-vigilant mind in order to experience the freedom that comes only from relinquishing control. Drawing on events in his own life and stories from his patients, Going to Pieces  Without Falling Apart teaches us that only by letting go can we start on the path to a more peaceful and spiritually satisfying life.About The Author: Mark Epstein, M.D., is a psychiatrist in private practice and the author of Thoughts Without a Thinker . He is a contributing editor to Tricycle: The Buddhist Review and clinical assistant professor of psychology at New York University. He lives in New York City.

Light on Life


B.K.S. Iyengar - 2005
    Iyengar--hailed as "the Michelangelo of yoga" (BBC) and considered by many to be the most important living yoga master--has spent much of his life introducing the modern world to the ancient practice of yoga. Yoga's popularity is soaring, but its widespread acceptance as an exercise for physical fitness and the recognition of its health benefits have not been matched by an understanding of the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual development that the yogic tradition can also offer. In Light on Life, B.K.S. Iyengar brings readers this new and more complete understanding of the yogic journey. Written with the depth of this sage's great wisdom, Light on Life is the culmination of a master's spiritual genius, a treasured companion to his seminal Light on Yoga.

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Christmas Cheer: Stories about the Love, Inspiration, and Joy of Christmas


Jack Canfield - 2008
    1.  With a new contemporary cover design, a new interior layout, and up-to-date stories, this book will have fresh appeal to everyone looking for a great Christmas and holiday read.2.  Books represent a new thematic experience, even for readers of past books, as Chicken Soup has tightened the content, and books contain only relevant stories.  Out-of-date stories were eliminated.3.  Each book contains 101 stories recompiled from dozens of past Chicken Soup titles.4.  "Our 101 Best Stories" collection is an efficient way for new readers to obtain books covering Chicken Soup's most popular topics.5.  Every books has a warm and moving foreward from Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen explaining the company's rebirth and its return to 101 stories per book.6.  Chicken Soup for the Soul earned the Guinness World Record for having the most books on the New York Times bestseller list at one time.7.  Last year, USA Today named Chicken Soup for the Soul #5 on its list of 25 books that left a legacy over the past quarter century.Everyone loves Christmas and the holiday season.  We love reuniting scattered family members, watching the wonder in the eyes of a child, and seeing the joy on the face of a gift giver.  The rituals of the holiday season give a rhythm to the years and create a foundation for our family lives.  We love the chance to gather with our communities at church, at school, and even at the mall, to share the special spirit of the season, brightening those long winter days. The first Chicken Soup for the Soup book was published in 1993, and became a publishing industry sensation, ultimately selling eight million copies.  Since then, more than 150 Chicken Soup titles have been published, selling more than 100 million copies. Chicken Soup for the Soul has won dozens of awards over the past 15 years, and its founders, Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen have become celebrity motivational speakers and authors.

I've Been Thinking . . .Reflections, Prayers, and Meditations for a Meaningful Life


Maria Shriver - 2018
    Shriver’s wisdom will fill you up.” —Hoda Kotb, coanchor, The Today ShowA book of reflections for those seeking wisdom, guidance, encouragement, and inspiration on the road to a meaningful life. As a prominent woman juggling many roles, Maria Shriver knows just how surprising, unpredictable, and stressful everyday life can be. In this moving and powerful book, she shares inspiring quotes, prayers, and reflections designed to get readers thinking, get them feeling, get them laughing, and help them in their journey to what she calls The Open Field--a place of acceptance, purpose, and passion--a place of joy.I've Been Thinking . . . is ideal for anyone at any point in her life. Whether you feel like you've got it all together or like it's all falling apart--whether you're taking stock of your life or simply looking to recharge, this is the book you will turn to again and again. Spend the weekend reading it cover to cover, or keep it on your nightstand to flip to the chapter you need most. Like talking with a close friend, it's the perfect daily companion—an exceptional gift for someone looking to move forward in life with hope and grace.

Zen 24/7: All Zen, All the Time


Philip Toshio Sudo - 2001
    The most mundane details of life contain zen's profound truths, if you're of the mind to look for them.By awakening to and embracing the zen in your life, you'll listen, watch, eat, work, laugh, sleep, and breathe your way to truth -- every moment of every day.

Goodbye Clutter, Hello Freedom: How to create space for Danish Hygge and Lifestyle by cleaning up, organizing and decorating with care. (Danish Hygge & Lifestyle Book 1)


Lena Bentsen - 2016
    Whether we want to admit it or not, we are affected by our surroundings. Danish Hygge is about caring, and when we do not care for our surroundings, clutter begins to spread its way into our lives, and Hygge is no longer a possibility. The good news is that we can deliberately change this situation. When you start caring about your home and your surroundings you will find that you have much more time for fun and Hygge. Once you know what you appreciate, where your stuff is, and can understand the difference between what is good and what is bad for you to own, you will be free to enjoy the life you that you truly deserve. Start now and experience the amazing feeling of freedom that comes from living in a home that reflects the best part of you!

Surrendering to Motherhood: Losing Your Mind, Finding Your Soul


Iris Krasnow - 1997
    The story of a woman who came of age with the sexual revolution who finds emancipation in the Zen of motherhood, "Surrendering to Motherhood" is about letting go of the need to achieve and finding one's true self.