Empathy And Forgiveness by Dean Shrock, Ph.D. Excerpted from Why Love Heals

The relationships and situations we find ourselves in are the mirror of our thoughts and feelings. It can actually function as a wonderful feedback system to let us see and learn about ourselves. It’s also an excellent demonstration of our power to create. Your thoughts and feelings attract to you people and situations that directly reveal your deepest beliefs about yourself and the world. As Bruce Lipton noted, we develop these beliefs early in life.

What Is This Pain? by Laura Berman Fortgang, Author of The Little Book on Meaning: Why We Crave It, How We Create It

It starts as tightness in the upper solar plexus. Then it starts to droop like the top of an ice cream cone on a hundred-degree day, eventually melting over everything to form a vague coating of ambivalence. Sometimes it matures into hopelessness and, for some, even depression. The “it” is the yearning for meaning. And it can swallow you whole.

10 Tips to Creating a New Life Direction Laura Berman Fortgang, Author of Now What?: 90 Days to a New Life Direction

1. Make a list of all you can’t stand about work/life
Those who are really stuck may complain that they don’t know what they want. Not true. Make a list of all you do not want or like about your current situation and you will find on the flip side, something you DO want! Write it down.

2. Recognize that ALL change (good or bad) means loss
The ‘evil’ we know is sometimes less scary than the ‘evil’ we don’t know. It is normal to be afraid to make a change because of what you stand to lose. However, the only way is forward, so you might as well accept whatever perceived loss of status, money or identity and realize that more happiness awaits. In fact, if everyone else is telling you you are crazy for making a change, you are on the right track!

Finding Possibility in the Midst of Adversity by Alison Bonds Shapiro

What do we do when adversity hits? Is there a way to work with adversity that makes a difference and is it something we have influence over? The answer is yes. The way we approach whatever happens to us can have a profound affect on the outcome. Call it the power of positive thinking. Call it finding the good in any situation. Call it making lemonade out of lemons. Call it any cliché you like, but the truth is, our approach makes a difference.

Seven Ways & Seven Days to Renew Your Life by Carole Lynne, Author of Cosmic Connection: Messages for a Better World

To renew and reinvent our lives, we need a plan. Here it is: a seven-day process to work with over and over. This plan incorporates physical, mental and spiritual work. Use the whole seven-day process, or choose any one of the days to work with as you create the life you want.

Recommended Books, Films, Online Tools-November 2009

Limitless You: The Infinite Possiblities of a Balanced Brain (Namaste Publishing 2008) by Lee Gerdes. This book explains a revolutionary brain conditioning technology that allows the brain to see itself–to recognize where it’s out of balance and not functioning well. Once our amazing brain discovers how it has learned to limit itself, it knows just how to readjust itself. As our emotions stabilize and our mental acuity picks up, our health and physical wellbeing advance also. Gone is our insecurity, our anxiety, our anger. Gone is our inexlicable sadness, depression, and thoughts of helplessness. Life no longer feels as if we are stepping on the gas while someone else is stepping on the brake. In fact, by optimizing our brain, we optimize our entire life. This process is life-changing and offers new hope and true healing for people dealing with the impact of trauma, pain, depression, addiction or simply wanting to improve performance. I was so impressed with this process that I’m going through the brain training myself. http://www.brainstatetechnologies.com

SARK’s Awesome Anytime Adventure is a 30-day tour to the most breathtaking destinations within you! This online “adventure” is for anyone who is feeling tired or exhausted, like you’ve lost your “spark,”creatively or spiritually stuck, eager to practice self-care in new, creative ways and ripe for new wonder and adventure. I love SARK’s juicy creativity and sense of play and fun. She has other online tools for renewal as well and offers 3 days of the Adventure to try it out : http://www.planetsark.com/AwesomeAnytimeAdventure.htm

Heart of the Dragon: A Film. Over 20 years ago, Michael French flew with a film crew from Vancouver, British Columbia to Beijing and documented something extraordinary – Rick Hansen, a young man in a wheelchair accompanied by a few of his closest friends who, half-way through their Man in Motion World Tour, entered Beijing with over 1 million Chinese heralding his arrival as a hero. In that moment, the motion picture “Heart of a Dragon” was born. And since then, Michael French and his closest friends set off on a journey to make a feature film about hope and dreams that captivated him and a million Chinese people – a story of a man, who, in a test of his own self endurance, discovers the true meaning of love, loyalty, friendship, the strength of the human spirit. “Heart of a Dragon” is produced, directed and written by Michael French. Executive producers are Mark Gordon, who produced the Oscar® nominated “Saving Private Ryan” and “The Patriot”, and David Foster, 14-time Grammy® award winning producer and songwriter. http://www.heartofadragonmovie.com

Happiness from the Inside Out: The Art and Science of Fulfillment (New World Library, 2009) by Robert Mack. This book explores what it means to be happy and why many of us aren’t–even though culturally we’re wealthier than ever. Mack, dismantles two key myths about happiness. The believ that life is about reaching a destination, and that success leads to happiness. Then, he explains what happiness really is, where to loook for it and how to nurture it. http://www.newworldlibrary.com

12 Steps That Can Save Your Life (Conari Press, 2009) by Barb Rogers offers true stories of people’s experiences in the 12-step program. The important thing, she finds, is that no matter what difficulty people have with any of the steps, the only goal is to keep working the steps one day at a time. http://www.conari.com

More recommended books by clicking link below.

7 Great Affirmations for the Unemployed By Paul & Tracey McManus, Authors of The 7 Great Prayers: For a Lifetime of Hope and Blessings

Lost jobs. Lost homes. Lost hope.
It’s in the headlines, it’s on the news, and it’s in our day-to-day conversations with people we care about: family, friends, co-workers, neighbors and people within our spiritual circles. When you’re out of work, where do you turn when it seems nobody can help you or those you love?

For Tracey and I, and the thousands of people who visit our website everyday, we turn to a power greater than ourselves and we use affirmative prayers.

But what are affirmative prayers? How do you use them? And do they work?

The 7 Great Affirmations for the Unemployed
Click on Continue Reading below for full article

Doing LESS Creates More: Meaning, Satisfaction, and Results By Marc Lesser

It is easy to fall into the trap of busyness – constantly going from one thing to another – from demands at home to demands at work to emails to exercise to relationships– with no time for stopping, reflecting, or recharging. We can become like a carpenter who doesn’t have the time to stop and sharpen his or her tools. As a result, the tools become dull; more and more effort is required; less and less is accomplished. We think we must move faster, work harder. It’s a vicious circle.

Susan Boyle’s Gift By Donna VanLiere, Author of Finding Grace: A True Story About Losing Your Way in Life . . . And Finding It Again

I am one of the nearly forty-nine million You Tube viewers who have watched Susan Boyle, the unemployed cat owner from Scotland, blow away the audience of Britain’s Got Talent.

Before she takes the stage we learn that Boyle is 47, never married, never kissed, spends her days with Pebbles the cat, and by eye-balling her: frizzy graying hair, eyebrows like caterpillars, ill-fitting dress, gray pantyhose and open-toed cream colored shoes, we assume she’s not a beauty pageant winner. The audience and judges size her up, too….Cutaway shots to the audience show young people snickering and looking at Boyle as if she forgot her mop backstage.

“Okay,” Cowell says. “What’s the dream?” This is what it all boils to, really. The dream. The hope.

Book Recommendations July 2009

Happiness From the Inside Out: The Art and Science of Fulfillment (New World Library, 2009) By Robert Mack . Discover 8 Ways to Be Happier, Starting Right Now Many think that happiness, like success, comes from getting what they want. But new evidence from positive psychology suggests that happiness is something else, or at least something more. Presenting surprisingly practical wisdom in a playful and entertaining format, Rob Mack delivers a simple-to-follow instruction manual, based in both science and personal experience, for living a happier, healthier, and wealthier life, starting today. Mack describes eight tried-and-true principles for realizing unconditional happiness and achieving the unparalleled success that comes with it. With a little effort, anyone — regardless of current circumstances — can discover new levels of joy and contentment on the inside and live a wonderfully prosperous and abundant life on the outside. www.happinessfromtheinsideout.com

This is Not The Life I Ordered: 50 Ways to Keep Your Head Above Water When Life Keeps Dragging You Down (Conari Press, 2007) By Deborah Collins Stephens. Michealene Cristini Risley, Jackie Speier, Jan Yanehiro. Readers of this book will meet four ordinary women who have faced extraordinary life challenges. Together, they have a history of six marriages, ten children, four stepchildren, six dogs, two miscarriages, two cats, a failed adoption, and foster parenthood. One of them was shot and left for dead on a tarmac in South America and two have lived through the death of their spouses. This book started simply with four friends getting together for “kitchen table coaching sessions” to talk about their lives. Meeting week by week and story by story, for over a decade, they realized their great advice to each other could help other women struggling with life’s myriad issues of work, family, and love, as well as the big questions of life and death. Each section of the book concludes with action plans and exercises that the authors refer to as the WIT (Women in Transition) Kit. http://www.thisisnotthelifeiordered.com/

Fnding Grace : A Memoir (St. Martin’s Press, 2009) by Donna VanLiere is the powerful, often humorous, and deeply moving story of one woman’s journey of broken dreams. It is the story of how a painful legacy of the past is confronted and met with peace. This book is for anyone who has struggled to understand why our desires— even the simplest ones—are sometimes denied or who has questioned where God is when we need him most. It’s also about one woman’s unlikely road to motherhood. Finally, it’s a book about the “undeserved gift which is life itself.” Donna VanLiere has written an inspirational memoir about coming face to face with your greatest pain only to discover your greatest joy. http://www.donnavanliere.com

Healing Into Possibility: the transformational lessons of a stroke (H.J.Kramer and New World Library, 2009) By Allyson Bonds Shapiro. An uplifting look at the neuroplasticity of our brains and our human ability to grow and change Alison Bonds Shapiro suffered two debilitating and nearly fatal strokes in her fifties. Healing into Possibility chronicles her experience of learning, through trial and error, that her attitude would play the most important role in her remarkable recovery. In this touching book, Shapiro teaches simple principles that anyone can use when faced with illness, injury, or any other seemingly insurmountable problem to transform despair into hope and dead ends into possibilities. http://www.newworldlibrary.com

Second  Acts That Change Lives :Making a Difference in the  World (Conari Press, 2009) By Mary Beth Sammons Are you realizing that the first half of your life is over? And you’ve been so busy concentrating on building a career or raising a family, or both, it has suddenly dawned on you that you may have lost yourself in the process and that the dreams you had when you were younger were set aside for more immediate concerns. Or are you frustrated that you have not had the time to truly give back? The book offers a collection of honest and inspiring stories delving into the lives of a community of mid-life trailblazers who wanted to make changes in their lives and found that as they reached inward for the strength to change, almost unanimously reached out to share their better self, their skills, and their talents to make the world a better place. http://www.redwheelweiser.com