with JUST 15 MINUTES in the morning ANXIETY AND STRESS are epidemic in today’s fast-paced world. In response, many turn to meditation and related practices with limited long-term success.Oscar Segurado, MD, PhD, understands why. Meditation worked well for thousands of years, but can’t counter the effects of life in the twenty-first century. Instead, you need a new approach to control anxiety, especially given the proven connection between stress and serious diseases, including cancer, caused by a dysfunctional immune system. A mere fifteen minutes of mindful framing in the morning creates a solid mental framework for the rest of the day. You are the screenwriter and director of a lifestyle movie leading to a calm mind, healthy relationships and a vigorous body.It’s a modern world. We need a modern way to transform anxiety into vital energy. Segurado offers the way: mindful framing. Five steps towards a NEW FRAME OF MIND Recognize your TRIGGERS OF ANXIETY while riding an imaginary bus Leverage your FIVE SENSES while experiencing virtual sensations Connect with MOTHER NATURE while traveling through a fictional landscape Harmonize your EMOTIONS with those of others while watching a symbolic "emotional tree" Invigorate your immune system while exploring your ORGANISM with your "mind's eye" Scroll up and grab a copy today.

    In this book Lamott explores how we find meaning and peace in these loud and frantic times; where we start again after personal and public devastation; how we recapture wholeness after loss; and how we locate our true identities in this frazzled age. We begin, Lamott says, by collecting the ripped shreds of our emotional and spiritual fabric and sewing them back together, one stitch at a time. It’s in these stitches that the quilt of life begins, and embedded in them are strength, warmth, humor, and humanity.

    On a good day, there will be civil disagreement. On a bad day, it's all-out trench warfare--shouting, name calling, a cycle of outrage and judgment. More than once, Powers has been left asking a question that countless Americans have started to ask: What's happened to me?In Saving Grace, Powers writes with wit and insight about our country's toxic political discourse, from the lessons she's learned navigating difficult friendships both before and after the age of Trump, to examples from history of grace under pressure--both past civil rights movements and activists working for change today--to the psychology of what actually causes people to change their minds. To be grace-ish, Powers learned, means attempting to look for the best in others, listening and engaging with people of opposing views, and providing a path to redemption for those who have failed spectacularly--all without compromising on your ethical and moral convictions.Provocative, smart, and filled with deep wisdom, Saving Grace is an essential read for anyone seeking sanity in a world that has lost its mind.

    At age thirty-four she found herself at a crossroads: would she settle for staying "big" the rest of her life, or would she insist on making big changes instead? Reality-TV fans know which path Julie chose that day. When she stepped on the scale at the show's season-four finale, revealing that she had lost an astounding 45 percent of her body weight, she simultaneously stepped into the world's collective hearts. Julie's experience on "The Biggest Loser" helped birth her new physique, but the transformation went far deeper than that. From displeasure to contentment, from indulgence to self-control, from shame to self-confidence--every step along renovation's path, Julie sensed God hard at work.

    Activist. Victim—no more.In her fearless memoir, My Story—the basis of the Lifetime Original movie I Am Elizabeth Smart—Elizabeth detailed, for the first time, the horror behind the headlines of her abduction by religious fanatic Brian David Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee. Since then, she’s married, become a mother, and traveled the world as the president of the Elizabeth Smart Foundation, sharing her story with the intent of helping others along the way.Over and over, Elizabeth is asked the same question: How do you find the hope to go on? In this book, Elizabeth returns to the horrific experiences she endured, and the hard-won lessons she learned, to provide answers. She also calls upon others who have dealt with adversity—victims of violence, disease, war, and loss—to explore the pathways toward hope. Through conversations with such well-known voices as Anne Romney, Diane Von Furstenburg, and Mandy Patinkin, to spiritual leaders Archbishop John C. Wester and Elder Richard Hinckley, to her own parents, Elizabeth uncovers an even greater sense of solace and understanding. Where There’s Hope is the result of Elizabeth’s mission: It is both an up-close-and-personal glimpse into her healing process and a heartfelt how-to guide for readers to make peace with the past and embrace the future.

    Are you tired of working hard all year, just to lose the largest chunk of that money to the IRS? Believe it or not, the U.S. tax system is filled with loopholes designed specifically to benefit real estate investors just like you. In this comprehensive follow-up to The Book on Tax Strategies, bestselling authors and CPAs Amanda Han and Matthew MacFarland bring you more strategies to slash your taxes and turn your real estate investments into a tax-saving machine.Inside, you will learn:· How to take advantage of the tax reform benefits in all of your real estate deals· Tax-deferral and tax-free techniques to significantly increase your return on investments· How to use your rental properties to legally wipe out your taxable income· What you need to know to take advantage of the Opportunity Zone tax benefits· Tax-free methods to take cash out of a 1031 Exchange· How to supercharge your nest egg using self-directed investment strategies· Common retirement investing tax traps and how to avoid them Taxes saved means more money for you, your family, and more money to invest. Learning to save on your taxes could be the easiest money you ever make!

    Read her work; you'll have a deeper appreciation for your every step, every bite, and every breath." --Bill NyeSasha Sagan was raised by secular parents, the astronomer Carl Sagan and the writer and producer Ann Druyan. They taught her that the natural world and vast cosmos are full of profound beauty, that science reveals truths more wondrous than any myth or fable.When Sagan herself became a mother, she began her own hunt for the natural phenomena behind our most treasured occasions--from births to deaths, holidays to weddings, anniversaries, and more--growing these roots into a new set of rituals for her young daughter that honor the joy and significance of each experience without relying on religious framework.As Sagan shares these rituals, For Small Creatures Such as We becomes a tribute to a father, a newborn daughter, a marriage, and the natural world--a celebration of life itself, and the power of our families and beliefs to bring us together.

    But, as she writes: The summer of striding out toward a life of open fields and sacks of corn, I brought a confused black hole of something pernicious but not yet acknowledged along for the ride.Rebecca’s health begins to crumble, with bewildering symptoms: frequent falls, uncontrollable rages, and mysterious lapses in memory. As she fights to be seen by a succession of specialists, her fledgling homestead—and her family—hang by increasingly tenuous threads. And when her diagnosis finally comes, it is utterly unexpected: severe ADHD.In her scramble for answers, Rebecca’s consciousness alternately sears with pinpoint focus and spirals with connections. Childhood memories resurface with new meaning, and her daily life entwines with the history of intrepid women who tended this land before her. Her family weathers their growing pains where generations of acorns have fallen to rise again as trees, where ancient wolves and lynx once stalked the shadows.Written in unsparing, luminous prose, this is an all-absorbing memoir of one woman’s newfound neurodivergence—and a clarion call to overturn the narrative that says minds are either normal and good or different and broken.

    Riz is the Executive Director of Play Labs @ MIT, a video game startup incubator at the MIT Game Lab.Drawing from research and concepts from computer science, artificial intelligence, video games, quantum physics, and referencing both speculative fiction and ancient eastern spiritual texts, Virk shows how all of these traditions come together to point to the idea that we may be inside a simulated reality like the Matrix.The Simulation Hypothesis is the idea that our physical reality, far from being a solid physical universe, is part of an increasingly sophisticated video game-like simulation, where we all have multiple lives, consisting of pixels with its own internal clock run by some giant Artificial Intelligence. Simulation theory explains some of the biggest mysteries of quantum and relativistic physics, such as quantum indeterminacy, parallel universes, and the integral nature of the speed of light.Recently, the idea that we may be living in a giant video game has received a lot of attention:"There's a one in a billion chance we are not living in a simulation" -Elon Musk"I find it hard to argue we are not in a simulation." -Neil deGrasse Tyson"We are living in computer generated reality." -Philip K. DickVideo game technology has developed from basic arcade and text adventures to MMORPGs. Video game designer Riz Virk shows how these games may continue to evolve in the future, including virtual reality, augmented reality, Artificial Intelligence, and quantum computing. This book shows how this evolution could lead us to the point of being able to develop all encompassing virtual worlds like the Oasis in Ready Player One, or the simulated reality in the Matrix.While the idea sounds like science fiction, many scientists, engineers, and professors have given the Simulation Hypothesis serious consideration. Futurist Ray Kurzweil has popularized the idea of downloading our consciousness into a silicon based device, which would mean we are just digital information after all. Some, like Oxford lecturer Nick Bostrom, goes further and thinks we may in fact be artificially intelligent consciousness inside such a simulation already!But the Simulation Hypothesis is not just a modern idea. Philosophers like Plato have been telling us that we live in a "cave" and can only see shadows of the real world. Mystics of all traditions have long contended that we are living in some kind of "illusion "and that there are other realities which we can access with our minds. While even Judeo-Christian traditions have this idea, Eastern traditions like Buddhism and Hinduism make this idea part of their core tradition -- that we are inside a dream world ("Maya" or illusion, or Vishnu's Dream), and we have "multiple lives" playing different characters when one dies, continuing to gain experience and "level up" after completing certain challenges. Sounds a lot like a video game!Whether you are a computer scientist, a fan of science fiction like the Matrix movies, a video game enthusiast, or a spiritual seeker, The Simulation Hypothesis touches on all these areas, and you will never look at the world the same way again!

    That changes when she spots a little girl leave an anonymous wish on the local bookstore’s Christmas tree. Compelled to find the girl and fulfill the wish, Gwen enlists the aid of local business owner, Lucky Gallagher.With the help of the townspeople, a lost dog, and some holiday magic, Gwen and Lucky may see more than one Christmas wish come true.

    

    He died at the age of thirty-two, and in his lifetime he never had a pop hit. Yet since his death, J Dilla has become a demigod: revered by jazz musicians and rap icons from Robert Glasper to Kendrick Lamar; memorialized in symphonies and taught at universities. And at the core of this adulation is innovation: a new kind of musical time-feel that he created on a drum machine, but one that changed the way “traditional” musicians play.In Dilla Time, Dan Charnas chronicles the life of James DeWitt Yancey, from his gifted childhood in Detroit, to his rise as a Grammy-nominated hip-hop producer, to the rare blood disease that caused his premature death; and follows the people who kept him and his ideas alive. He also rewinds the histories of American rhythms: from the birth of soul in Dilla’s own “Motown,” to funk, techno, and disco. Here, music is a story of Black culture in America and of what happens when human and machine times are synthesized into something new. Dilla Time is a different kind of book about music, a visual experience with graphics that build those concepts step by step for fans and novices alike, teaching us to “see” and feel rhythm in a unique and enjoyable way.Dilla’s beats, startling some people with their seeming “sloppiness,” were actually the work of a perfectionist almost spiritually devoted to his music. This is the story of the man and his machines, his family, friends, partners, and celebrity collaborators. Culled from more than 150 interviews about one of the most important and influential musical figures of the past hundred years, Dilla Time is a book as delightfully detail-oriented and unique as J Dilla’s music itself.

    As they pursued their dreams, they planted their lives in the city and in their church community. Their son, James, came along unexpectedly in the fall of 2007, and just 6 months later, everything changed in a moment for this young family.On April 21, 2008, as James slept in the other room, Katherine collapsed, suffering a massive brain stem stroke without warning. Miraculously, Jay came home in time and called for help. Katherine was immediately rushed into micro-brain surgery, though her chance of survival was slim. As the sun rose the next morning, the surgeon proclaimed that Katherine had survived the removal of part of her brain, though her future recovery was completely uncertain. Yet in that moment, there was a spark of hope. Through 40 days on life support in the ICU and nearly 2 years in full-time brain rehab, that spark of hope was fanned into flame.Defying every prognosis, with grit and grace, Katherine and Jay, side by side, struggled to regain a life for Katherine as she re-learned to talk and eat and walk. Returning home with a severely disabled body but a completely renewed purpose, they committed to celebrate this gift of a second chance by embracing life fully, even though that life looked very different than they could have ever imagined. In the midst of continuing hardships and struggles, both in body and mind, Katherine and Jay found what we all long to find...hope, hope that heals the most broken place, our souls.An excruciating yet beautiful road to recovery has led the Wolf family to their new normal, in which almost every moment of life is marked with the scars of that fateful April day in 2008. Now, eight years later, Katherine and Jay are stewarding their story of suffering, restoration, and Christ-centered hope in this broken world through their ministry Hope Heals.

    Tony Evans and his four children—Chrystal Evans Hurst, Priscilla Shirer, Anthony Evans, and Jonathan Evans—on how God uses the hard things of this life to draw us into a deeper faith in Him.Divine Disruption explores the many hardships we experience in life and how God breaks through with the power of hope. In the book, Dr. Tony Evans and his four children—Chrystal Evans Hurst, Priscilla Shirer, Anthony Evans, and Jonathan Evans—discuss their faith-shaking experiences: from the deep grief of losing six loved ones in less than two years' time, with the most devastating blow being the death of Lois Evans, the matriarch of the family, to a deep dive into dealing with the various hard, unexpected things we all face. Life throws many curves—whether the loss of a job or health due to the ongoing worldwide pandemic, or marriage and relationship issues, problems with children, even the recent racial and political unrest.  The authors step together into a unique Kingdom Legacy partnership, opening themselves to the honest questions, raw emotions, and solutions they learned to cling to amid their various struggles as they honor their mother’s wish to work together. Through their bond and individual strengths, they demonstrate how even the most devastating tragedies can bring glory to God as He continues to meet their needs and build their faith.

    The Good Dog is an allegory about how to love, accept, and show compassion to others through the eyes of a girl’s love for her dog.