Book picks similar to
Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home by Toko-pa Turner
non-fiction
spirituality
self-help
favorites
Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being
Martin E.P. Seligman - 2011
Traditionally, the goal of psychology has been to relieve human suffering, but the goal of the Positive Psychology movement, which Dr. Seligman has led for fifteen years, is different—it’s about actually raising the bar for the human condition. Flourish builds on Dr. Seligman’s game-changing work on optimism, motivation, and character to show how to get the most out of life, unveiling an electrifying new theory of what makes a good life—for individuals, for communities, and for nations. In a fascinating evolution of thought and practice, Flourish refines what Positive Psychology is all about. While certainly a part of well-being, happiness alone doesn’t give life meaning. Seligman now asks, What is it that enables you to cultivate your talents, to build deep, lasting relationships with others, to feel pleasure, and to contribute meaningfully to the world? In a word, what is it that allows you to flourish? “Well-being” takes the stage front and center, and Happiness (or Positive Emotion) becomes one of the five pillars of Positive Psychology, along with Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment—or PERMA, the permanent building blocks for a life of profound fulfillment. Thought-provoking in its implications for education, economics, therapy, medicine, and public policy—the very fabric of society—Flourish tells inspiring stories of Positive Psychology in action, including how the entire U.S. Army is now trained in emotional resilience; how innovative schools can educate for fulfillment in life and not just for workplace success; and how corporations can improve performance at the same time as they raise employee well-being. With interactive exercises to help readers explore their own attitudes and aims, Flourish is a watershed in the understanding of happiness as well as a tool for getting the most out of life. On the cutting edge of a science that has changed millions of lives, Dr. Seligman now creates the ultimate extension and capstone of his bestselling classics, Authentic Happiness and Learned Optimism.
How to Be an Adult in Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Loving
David RichoDavid Richo - 2002
Drawing on the Buddhist concept of mindfulness, How to Be an Adult in Relationships explores five hallmarks of mindful loving and how they play a key role in our relationships throughout life: 1. Attention to the present moment; observing, listening, and noticing all the feelings at play in our relationships. 2. Acceptance of ourselves and others just as we are. 3. Appreciation of all our gifts, our limits, our longings, and our poignant human predicament. 4. Affection shown through holding and touching in respectful ways. 5. Allowing life and love to be just as they are, with all their ecstasy and ache, without trying to take control. When deeply understood and applied, these five simple concepts—what Richo calls the five A's—form the basis of mature love. They help us to move away from judgment, fear, and blame to a position of openness, compassion, and realism about life and relationships. By giving and receiving these five A's, relationships become deeper and more meaningful, and they become a ground for personal transformation.
The Myths of Happiness
Sonja Lyubomirsky - 2012
This restricted view of happiness works to discourage us from recognizing the upside of any negative life turn and blocks us from recognizing our own growth potential. Our outsized expectations transform natural rites of passage into emotional land mines and steer us to make toxic decisions, as The Myths of Happiness reveals.Because we expect the best (or the worst) from life’s turning points, we shortsightedly place too much weight on our initial emotional responses. The Myths of Happiness empowers readers to look beyond their first response, sharing scientific evidence that often it is our mindset—not our circumstances—that matters. Central to these findings is the notion of hedonic adaptation, the fact that people are far more adaptable than they think. Even after a major life change—good or bad—we tend to return to our initial happiness level, forgetting what once made us elated or why we felt that life was so unbearable. The Myths of Happiness offers the perspective we need to make wiser choices, sharing how to slow the effects of this adaptation after a positive turn and find the way forward in a time of darkness.In The Myths of Happiness, Sonja Lyubomirsky turns an empirical eye to the biggest, messiest moments, providing readers with the clear-eyed vision they need to build the healthiest, most satisfying life. A corrective course on happiness and a call to regard life’s twists and turns with a more open mind, The Myths of Happiness shares practical lessons with life-changing potential.
The Vortex: Where the Law of Attraction Assembles All Cooperative Relationships
Esther Hicks - 2009
Abraham will show you how to enter that Vortex, where you will rendezvous with everything and everyone you have been looking for.Abraham says: "It is our desire to help you to solve the mystery of those seemingly impossible relationships; to sort out the details of joyously sharing your planet with billions of others; to rediscover the beauty of your differences; and, most of all, to reestablish the most important relationship of all: your relationship with the Eternal, Non-Physical Source that is really you."It is our desire that you experience an enhanced appreciation of your planet; your body; your family; your friends; your enemies; your government; your systems; your food; your finances; your animals; your work and your play; your purpose; your Source; your Soul; your past, your future, and your present. . . ."
Many Lives, Many Masters: The True Story of a Prominent Psychiatrist, His Young Patient, and the Past Life Therapy That Changed Both Their Lives
Brian L. Weiss - 1988
As a traditional psychotherapist, Dr. Brian Weiss was astonished and skeptical when one of his patients began recalling past-life traumas that seemed to hold the key to her recurring nightmares and anxiety attacks. His skepticism was eroded, however, when she began to channel messages from the space between lives, which contained remarkable revelations about Dr. Weiss' family and his dead son. Using past-life therapy, he was able to cure the patient and embark on a new, more meaningful phase of his own career.
A Mind of Your Own: The Truth About Depression and How Women Can Heal Their Bodies to Reclaim Their Lives
Kelly Brogan - 2016
It is a symptom.Recent years have seen a shocking increase in antidepressant use the world over, with 1 in 4 women starting their day with medication. These drugs have steadily become the panacea for everything from grief, irritability, panic attacks, to insomnia, PMS, and stress. But the truth is, what women really need can’t be found at a pharmacy.According to Dr. Kelly Brogan, antidepressants not only overpromise and underdeliver, but their use may permanently disable the body’s self-healing potential. We need a new paradigm: The best way to heal the mind is to heal the whole body.In this groundbreaking, science-based and holistic approach, Dr. Brogan shatters the mythology conventional medicine has built around the causes and treatment of depression. Based on her expert interpretation of published medical findings, combined with years of experience from her clinical practice, Dr. Brogan illuminates the true cause of depression: it is not simply a chemical imbalance, but a lifestyle crisis that demands a reset. It is a signal that the interconnected systems in the body are out of balance – from blood sugar, to gut health, to thyroid function– and inflammation is at the root.A Mind of Your Own offers an achievable, step-by-step 30-day action plan—including powerful dietary interventions, targeted nutrient support, detoxification, sleep, and stress reframing techniques—women can use to heal their bodies, alleviate inflammation, and feel like themselves again without a single prescription.Bold, brave, and revolutionary, A Mind of Your Own takes readers on a journey of self-empowerment for radical transformation that goes far beyond symptom relief.
The Fruitful Darkness: A Journey Through Buddhist Practice and Tribal Wisdom
Joan Halifax - 1993
In this highly personal and insightful odyssey of the heart and mind, she encounters Tibetan Buddhist meditators, Mexican shamans, and Native American elders, among others. In rapt prose, she recounts her explorations—from Japanese Zen meditation to hallucinogenic plants, from the Dogon people of Mali to the Mayan rain forest, all the while creating "an adventure of the spirit and a feast of wisdom old and new” (Peter Matthiessen). Halifax believes that deep ecology (which attempts to fuse environmental awareness with spiritual values) works in tandem with Buddhism and shamanism to discover “the interconnectedness of all life,” and to regain life’s sacredness. Grove Press is proud to reissue this important work by one of Buddhism’s leading contemporary teachers.
The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love
Sonya Renee Taylor - 2018
Systems of oppression thrive off our inability to make peace with difference and injure the relationship we have with our own bodies.The Body Is Not an Apology offers radical self-love as the balm to heal the wounds inflicted by these violent systems. World-renowned activist and poet Sonya Renee Taylor invites us to reconnect with the radical origins of our minds and bodies and celebrate our collective, enduring strength. As we awaken to our own indoctrinated body shame, we feel inspired to awaken others and to interrupt the systems that perpetuate body shame and oppression against all bodies. When we act from this truth on a global scale, we usher in the transformative opportunity of radical self-love, which is the opportunity for a more just, equitable, and compassionate world--for us all.
The Urban Monk: Eastern Wisdom and Modern Hacks to Stop Time and Find Success, Happiness, and Peace
Pedram Shojai - 2016
Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love
Sue Johnson - 2008
In Hold Me Tight, Dr. Sue Johnson presents Emotionally Focused Therapy to the general public for the first time. Johnson teaches that the way to save and enrich a relationship is to reestablish safe emotional connection and preserve the attachment bond. With this in mind, she focuses on key moments in a relationship-from "Recognizing the Demon Dialogue" to "Revisiting a Rocky Moment" -- and uses them as touch points for seven healing conversations.Through case studies from her practice, illuminating advice, and practical exercises, couples will learn how to nurture their relationships and ensure a lifetime of love.
Recovery: Freedom from Our Addictions
Russell Brand - 2017
My qualification is not that I am better than you but I am worse." (Russell Brand)With a rare mix of honesty, humor, and compassion, comedian and movie star Russell Brand mines his own wild story and shares the advice and wisdom he has gained through his 14 years of recovery. Brand speaks to those suffering along the full spectrum of addiction - from drugs, alcohol, caffeine, and sugar addictions to addictions to work, stress, bad relationships, digital media, and fame. Brand understands that addiction can take many shapes and sizes and how the process of staying clean, sane, and unhooked is a daily activity. He believes that the question is not "why are you addicted?" but "what pain is your addiction masking? Why are you running - into the wrong job, the wrong life, the wrong person's arms?"Russell has been in all the 12-step fellowships going, he's started his own men's group, he's a therapy regular and a practiced yogi - and while he's worked on this material as part of his comedy and previous best sellers, he's never before shared the tools that really took him out of it, that keep him clean and clear. Here he provides not only a recovery plan but an attempt to make sense of the ailing world.PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
Turning the Mind Into an Ally
Sakyong Mipham - 2003
Growing up American with a Tibetan twist, Sakyong Mipham talks to Westerners as no one can: in idiomatic English with stories and wisdom from American culture and the great Buddhist teachers. Turning the Mind Into an Ally makes it possible for anyone to achieve peace and clarity in their lives.
The Celestine Prophecy
James Redfield - 1993
They told their friends about it, and friends in turn told their friends. By word of mouth alone, news of this magical, moving work spread throughout the country, until -- within months of its first printing -- over hundred thousand readers had become excited by its predictions and touched by the way it made sense of what was happening in their lives.Now you can discover for yourself the insights, the vision, and the uncanny accuracy of "The Celestine Prophecy". A parable filled with vital truth that reads like a gripping adventure-tale, it begins with the disappearance of an ancient Peruvian manuscript. Although few Westerners know of its existence and a government wants to suppress it, this precious document contains an important secret: the 9 insights the human race is predicted to grasp as we enter an era of true spiritual awareness.To find the manuscript -- and its hidden treasures -- you will join one person's search. It is a quest that will carry you high into the Andes mountains, to ancient ruins deep in old-growth forest, and to a startling discovery. You will quickly recognize the truth of the First Insight: in each of our lives occur mysterious coincidences -- sudden, synchronistic events that, once interpreted, lead us into our true destiny.When you find and understand all 9 of the insights, you will have an exciting new image of human life, and a positive vision of how we will save this planet, its creatures, and its beauty. "The Celestine Prophecy" will give you hope…and chills…as you begin to perceive its predictions unfolding all around you in intimate relationships and international affairs. And you will suddenly recognize the quantum leap forward humankind is preparing to make as we approach the new millennium. Important works such as Carlos Castaneda's "The Teachings of Don Juan" and the prophecies of Nostradamus have helped prepare the way for the revelations you will find in James Redfield's life-changing words. The time is right to hear them, and to discover the personal journey that is opening in your life.
Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment
Tal Ben-Shahar - 2007
. . according to the teacher of Harvard University's most popular and life-changing course. One out of every five Harvard students has lined up to hear Tal Ben-Shahar's insightful and inspiring lectures on that ever-elusive state: HAPPINESS.HOW? Grounded in the revolutionary "positive psychology" movement, Ben-Shahar ingeniously combines scientific studies, scholarly research, self-help advice, and spiritual enlightenment. He weaves them together into a set of principles that you can apply to your daily life. Once you open your heart and mind to Happier 's thoughts, you will feel more fulfilled, more connected . . . and, yes, HAPPIER."Dr. Ben-Shahar, one of the most popular teachers in Harvard's recent history, has written a personal, informed, and highly enjoyable primer on how to become happier. It would be wise to take his advice." --Ellen J. Langer, author of "Mindfulness" and "On Becoming an Artist""This fine book shimmers with a rare brand of good sense that is imbedded in scientific knowledge about how to increase happiness. It is easy to see how this is the backbone of the most popular course at Harvard today." --Martin E. P. Seligman, author of "Authentic Happiness"
Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind
Judson Brewer - 2021
Whether facing issues as public as a pandemic or as personal as having kids at home and fighting the urge to reach for the wine bottle every night, we are feeling overwhelmed and out of control. But in this timely book, Judson Brewer explains how to uproot anxiety at its source using brain-based techniques and small hacks accessible to anyone.We think of anxiety as everything from mild unease to full-blown panic. But it's also what drives the addictive behaviors and bad habits we use to cope (e.g. stress eating, procrastination, doom scrolling and social media). Plus, anxiety lives in a part of the brain that resists rational thought. So we get stuck in anxiety habit loops that we can't think our way out of or use willpower to overcome. Dr. Brewer teaches us map our brains to discover our triggers, defuse them with the simple but powerful practice of curiosity, and to train our brains using mindfulness and other practices that his lab has proven can work.Distilling more than 20 years of research and hands-on work with thousands of patients, including Olympic athletes and coaches, and leaders in government and business, Dr. Brewer has created a clear, solution-oriented program that anyone can use to feel better - no matter how anxious they feel.