Myss’s experience of working with people led her to develop an insightful and ingenious process for deciphering your own Sacred Contract—or higher purpose—using a new theory of archetypes that builds on the works of Jung, Plato, and many other contemporary thinkers. Myss examines the lives of the spiritual masters and prophets—Abraham, Jesus, Buddha, and Muhammad—whose archetypal journeys illustrate the four stages of a Sacred Contract and provide clues for discovering your own. Myss explains how you can identify your particular spiritual energies, or archetypes—the gatekeepers of your higher purpose—and use them to help you find out what you are here on earth to learn and whom you are meant to meet. Exploring your Sacred Contract will shine a light on the purpose and meaning of your life. You are meant to do certain tasks, you are meant to have certain relationships. In coming to know your archetypal companions, you also begin to see how to live your life in ways that make the best use of your personal power and lead you to fulfill your greatest—in fact, your divine—potential.Both visionary and practical, Sacred Contracts is a bold, powerful work of spiritual wisdom. Without a doubt, your most intriguing challenge in life is to recognize your spiritual commitments and live them to the fullest.

    With techniques and prompts for both the seasoned and novice writer, it will lead you to tap into your creativity through storytelling and poetry, examine how life-changing experiences can inspire writing, pursue self-examination and self-discovery through the written word, and, understand how published writers have been transformed by writing.

    Michelle was a young single mother when she was kidnapped by a local school bus driver named Ariel Castro. For more than a decade afterward, she endured unimaginable torture at the hand of her abductor. In 2003 Amanda Berry joined her in captivity, followed by Gina DeJesus in 2004. Their escape on May 6, 2013, made headlines around the world.Barely out of her own tumultuous childhood, Michelle was estranged from her family and fighting for custody of her young son when she disappeared. Local police believed she had run away, so they removed her from the missing persons lists fifteen months after she vanished. Castro tormented her with these facts, reminding her that no one was looking for her, that the outside world had forgotten her. But Michelle would not be broken.In Finding Me, Michelle will reveal the heartbreaking details of her story, including the thoughts and prayers that helped her find courage to endure her unimaginable circumstances and now build a life worth living. By sharing both her past and her efforts to create a future, Michelle becomes a voice for the voiceless and a powerful symbol of hope for the thousands of children and young adults who go missing every year.

    It soon evolved into a daily must-read for thousands of women worldwide. Now, in a graceful, exquisitely illustrated work with full-color photographs by award-winning photographer Elizabeth Messina, Jacobs offers an informative, therapeutic guide for people who have been diagnosed with the disease.Part personal memoir, part professional guide, The Silver Lining is the book that Jacobs wished she’d had when she began her fight with cancer. She covers what every patient can expect as they go through their specific treatment and teaches other big issues, such as nutrition and how to talk to children about illness. While the book is brimming with action steps to help negotiate each phase of treatment and recovery, every chapter concludes with “Silver Linings”—the sources of inspiration and perspective that buoyed Jacobs through her own journey and that, taken together, comprise the heartbeat of the book.“Like a good friend, this book will be by your side as you travel through the world of breast cancer diagnosis, treatment, and recovery,” says Dr. Susan Love, surgeon, breast cancer research advocate, and author of Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book. An invaluable guide, a gorgeously rendered object of beauty, The Silver Lining will be the manual for breast cancer patients and their loved ones.

    Brought up in Washington, DC, in an abusive family, she went to Harvard, where she met her husband. They stayed together through medical school until two months before she was scheduled to join the staff of a hospital in central Philadelphia, when he told her he couldn't move with her. Her marriage at an end, Harper began her new life in a new city, in a new job, as a newly single woman.In the ensuing years, as Harper learned to become an effective ER physician, bringing insight and empathy to every patient encounter, she came to understand that each of us is broken—physically, emotionally, psychically. How we recognize those breaks, how we try to mend them, and where we go from there are all crucial parts of the healing process.The Beauty in Breaking is the poignant true story of Harper's journey toward self-healing. Each of the patients Harper writes about taught her something important about recuperation and recovery. How to let go of fear even when the future is murky. How to tell the truth when it's simpler to overlook it. How to understand that compassion isn't the same as justice. As she shines a light on the systemic disenfranchisement of the patients she treats as they struggle to maintain their health and dignity, Harper comes to understand the importance of allowing ourselves to make peace with the past as we draw support from the present. In this hopeful, moving, and beautiful book, she passes along the precious, necessary lessons that she has learned as a daughter, a woman, and a physician.

    Stray is a moving, sometimes devastating, brilliantly written and ultimately inspiring exploration of the landscapes of damage and survival.After selling her first novel--a dream she'd worked long and hard for--Stephanie Danler knew she should be happy. Instead, she found herself driven to face the difficult past she'd left behind a decade ago: a mother disabled by years of alcoholism, further handicapped by a tragic brain aneurysm; a father who abandoned the family when she was three, now a meth addict in and out of recovery. After years in New York City she's pulled home to Southern California by forces she doesn't totally understand, haunted by questions of legacy and trauma. Here, she works toward answers, uncovering hard truths about her parents and herself as she explores whether it's possible to change the course of her history. Lucid and honest, heart-breaking and full of hope, Stray, is an examination of what we inherit and what we don't have to, of what we have to face in ourselves to move forward, and what it's like to let go of one's parents in order to find a peace--and family--of one's own.

    But a house of her own, where she could truly take root, has eluded her. With this collection—spanning nearly three decades, and including never-before-published work—Cisneros has come home at last. Ranging from the private (her parents' loving and tempestuous marriage) to the political (a rallying cry for one woman's liberty in Sarajevo) to the literary (a tribute to Marguerite Duras), and written with her trademark sensitivity and honesty, these poignant, unforgettable pieces give us not only her most transformative memories but also a revelation of her artistic and intellectual influences. Here is an exuberant, deeply moving celebration of a life in writing lived to the fullest—an important milestone in a storied career.

    She and her husband had gotten Ira as a puppy—a wedding gift to each other, and their first foray into “parenthood.” Now, her dog is terminal, her marriage is on life support, and Nancy is desperate to save them both (whether they want it or not). In a single year, she loses her two best friends, but Nancy’s life is about to take yet another unexpected turn.With humor and heart, Nancy Balbirer shares her story of relationships, loss, and canine friendship in this illuminating memoir about the lengths people will go to keep love alive…and the power of finally letting go.

     Why so many people keep watching Duck Dynasty is because of something unique in the contemporary smorgasbord of contemporary television - the actual presence of real values. These people are salt of the earth folks who simply love each other and receive all of life as a gift. They also love God in a naturally supernatural way which is communicated without the necessity of words. There are real, human, redemptive values on display in each episode as the family faces the raising of children, remaining faithful to their marriages and supporting one another in the rough and tumble of real life. In addition, in almost every episode, they end with the extended family sharing a meal which begins with a heartfelt and sincere prayer of thanksgiving to the Lord. In this day and age where 'God' is a bad word to say, they embrace their faith and share it with the world. No wonder Duck Dynasty is one of the top shows on television today.

    But how did that happen to someone like her? She had graduated magna cum laude with a double degree. She had traveled to nearly fifty countries alone before she turned thirty-five. She was a surf model and a professional Argentine tango dancer. She had started five different companies and had an MBA from NYU. How could someone like her end up brainwashed and in a cult? The Burn Zone is an exploration of how we give up our power―how what started out as a need to heal from the loss of her parents and to understand the big questions in life could leave a young woman fighting for her sanity and her sense of self. In the years following her departure from the cult, Linnell struggled to reclaim herself, to stand in her truth, and to rebuild her life. And eventually, after battling depression and isolation, she found a way to come out the other side stronger than ever. Part inspirational story, part cautionary tale, this is a memoir for spiritual seekers and those who feel lost in a world that makes them feel less than perfect.

    As the mother of 5 kids -- 6 if you include her husband -- sat in the neurosurgery department in star-covered sweats too whimsical for the seriousness of the situation, all she could think was "Am I going to die?"Thankfully, Jeannie and her family were able to survive their time of crisis, and now she is sharing her deeply personal journey through this miraculous story: the challenging conversations she had with her children; how she came to terms with feeling powerless and ferociously crabby while bedridden and unable to eat for a month; and how she ultimately learned, re-learned and re re-learned to be more present in life.With sincerity and hilarity, Jeannie invites you into her heart (and brain) during this trying time, emphasizing the importance of family, faith and humor as keys to her recovery and leading a more fulfilling life.

    She finds religion when she converts to Judaism. From Atchison,Kansas to New Orleans to Gulfport, Mississippi she drags her children through the ups and downs of her daily life with determination and gusto, never forgetting how to laugh. It's every woman's story, with a few shock treatments and drugs thrown in for good measure.

    After college, armed with a backpack, her personal mission statement, and a wad of traveler’s checks, she took off for Australia to see things and do things and Become Interesting.  But it didn’t turn out the way she pictured it. In a matter of months, her savings shot, she had a choice: get a job or go home. That’s how Kelly met John Tanner, a newly widowed father of two looking for a live-in nanny. They chatted for an hour, discussed timing and pay, and a week later, Kelly moved in. And there, in that house in a suburb north of Sydney, 10,000 miles from the house where she was raised, her mother’s voice was suddenly everywhere, nudging and advising, cautioning and directing, escorting her through a terrain as foreign as any she had ever trekked. Every day she spent with the Tanner kids was a day spent reconsidering her relationship with her mother, turning it over in her hands like a shell, straining to hear whatever messages might be trapped in its spiral.   This is a book about the difference between travel and life experience, stepping out and stepping up, fathers and mothers. But mostly it’s about who you admire and why, and how that changes over time.

    He didn’t leave for two and a half months. Watt had developed a rare life-threatening disease that initially baffled doctors. By the time he was allowed home, his ravaged body was forty-six pounds lighter and he was missing most of his small intestine. Watt injects pathos and humor into his medical nightmare, writing about his childhood, reflecting on his family and on his shared life with band member and partner Tracey Thorn. The result is a provocative and affecting memoir about life, illness, and survival.

    As a young girl in a cattle-herding village in Zimbabwe, she dreamed of receiving an education but instead was married young and by eighteen, without a high school graduation, she was already a mother of three. Tererai encountered a visiting American woman who assured her that anything was possible, reawakening her sacred dream. Tererai planted her dreams deep in the earth and prayed they would grow. They did, and now not only has she earned her PhD but she has also built schools for girls in Zimbabwe, with funding from Oprah. The Awakened Woman: Remembering & Reigniting Our Sacred Dreams is her accessible, intimate, and evocative guide that teaches nine essential lessons to encourage all women to reexamine their dreams and uncover the power hidden within them—power that can recreate our world for the better. Tererai points out that there is a massive, untapped, global resource in women who have, for one reason or another, set aside their wisdom, their skills, and their dreams in order to take care of the personal business of their lives. Not only is this a type of invisible suffering experienced by countless women, this rich resource is a secret weapon for improving our world. Women have the capacity to inspire, to create, to transform—and Tererai’s call to action will awaken hearts, give permission to recapture dreams, and provide the tools to forge a brighter path for all. This is the movement of Sacred Sisters.