more books

my library card hasn't gotten much time to cool down between uses ...

Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships: Healing the Wound of the Heart I'm typically a fan of John Welwood's work, so it's no surprise that this book is currently chock full of post-it arrows pointing to quotes I wanted to remember. Like this one:

Our birthright as human beings is to have direct access to perfect love, and our privilege is to serve as a channel through which it flows. Realizing this, we can see the folly of trying to earn love through efforts, looks, or achievements. We might be able to win approval, praise, or rewards by these means, but not the love that embraces us as we are, the love that sets us free, the love that lights up this world. Rather than trying to win love, we need to fully let it enter into us.

His explanation about how past experience can color present relationships is among the clearest I've ever read, and his exercise for feeling love fully is very profound. This book gets my highest recommendation.





I had to post this cover. Look at that man! Isn't he incredible? My heart just bubbles over with joy when I see his face. This book presents the most grounded and accessible treatment of Buddhism I've ever read, and believe me, I've read a lot of 'em. The author suffered from severe anxiety as a kid, and grew up to be this endearing, transparent, authentically real guy who also happens to be a monk. He knows what we normal people are going through, and he gently shines his light on the tunnel that leads to a more peaceful mind. It's quite a lovely read.


Miracles of Mind: Exploring Nonlocal Consciousness and Spritual Healing (that typo in the title came from amazon, not me. just so you know.) Remote viewing, psi experiments, nonlocality, healing touch -- can't go wrong with a list of topics like that!

A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives You can tell I'm in a 'brain' phase ... listen to these chapter titles: The Vain Brain, The Emotional Brain, The Immoral Brain, The Deluded Brain, The Pigheaded Brain, The Secretive Brain, The Weak-Willed Brain, The Bigoted Brain, The Vulnerable Brain. Too good to pass up! And a little scary. Seems I can't trust that wrinkly little gray matter nearly as much as it wants me to ...

Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict I think I mentioned this already. I'm cogitating a whole separate post about this one. It also earned my highest recommendation.

Getting Together and Staying Together: Solving the Mystery of Marriage The library had an older edition of this called simply Staying Together. William Glasser, the father of Control Theory (which says we cannot control others, but only ourselves) shares some very solid insights into temperament and compatibility. When I mapped out my previous relationships using his system, I was rather stunned at how obvious it all suddenly appeared. There will be another post about this, too. Five stars.




Don't you just love the cover of this book? I found it a bit too wordy for my taste, but I loved his assertion that the polarization of right and wrong underlies many if not all of our societal and relationship concerns, and that a paradigm which includes room for creative and constructive energy would serve us much better.





another cover I had to include a picture of. I'm new to Sedaris. I actually laughed right out loud as I was sitting there alone reading this book. When I take this one back today, I'm heading straight to his shelf for more. Absolutely hilarious. I aspire.


Dump 'Em: How to Break Up with Anyone from Your Best Friend to Your Hairdresser Honestly, can you believe this title in light of my post about my awful haircut? How could I not check this out? It turned out to be full of scripts for getting rid of anyone without burning bridges. I was pretty impressed. Even learned some stuff. I'm feeling all verbally empowered now.