Overcoming Your Difficult Family: 8 Skills for Thriving in Any Family Situation
Eric Maisel (ISBN 978-1-60-868451-9) New World Library
www.newworldlibrary.com
For those of us who grew up in seriously dysfunctional families, it is often difficult to maintain balance when we encounter those families or are in social settings that recreate those family dynamics. Retired family therapist Maisel is telling readers there is light at the end of that tunnel. He begins by declining to embrace the paradigm that labels feelings arising from family trauma as mental disorders. He chooses words like sadness rather than words like depression. He refers to the eight skills he is delineating as a tool kit and offers readers practical, real-life applications for those skills. In the second part of his book he explains how to apply these skills to 10 common dysfunctional family types. This is a very important book by one of the modern clinical professionals who are heralding a change in the way people’s responses to toxic environments are viewed and treated.
Upside: Profiting from the Profound Demographic Shifts Ahead
Kenneth W. Gronbach (IBSN 978-0-81-443469-7) AMACOM
www.amacombooks.org
It’s not often that one hears the word fun in the same sentence as demographics, but that’s exactly what John Zogby does in the foreword of this book. He’s singing Gronbach’s praises and with good reason. As the e-world becomes an overflowing landfill of “data” most of us are overwhelmed. Gronbach, however, sees opportunities where most of us see confusion. How would your business be affected if you could predict how, what, and when your customers would be buying? That’s what Gronbach is serving up on a platter, in an easyto- absorb and, believe it or not, interesting manner. Based in science, but presented as intriguing tips and tricks, generational shifts will come into focus for you and your employees, and the paradigms you will need to apply them to your business will be handed to you. It is all good according to Gronbach, at least for the United States. We can expect less unemployment, more manufacturing, AND a sustained, diversified population of buyers.
Ancestral Medicine: Rituals for Personal and Family Healing
Daniel Foor, Ph.D. (ISBN 978-1-59-143269-2) Bear & Company
www.innertraditions.com
This powerful and timely book arrives just as transgenerational study is trending, and it presents some amazing ideas. We are all bombarded with negativity and violence, whether personally or through the media. Stopping the transmission of these negative behavior patterns is crucial for us all. Foor, with his diverse lineage of spiritual practice, has stepped into the fray with a shamanic-psychotherapeutic perspective that offers solutions not many people are considering. Compatible with most spiritual paths, this book takes on the biological transmission of trauma and intergenerational patterns of dysfunction. Customers who aren’t interested in that already soon will be.
Growing Friendships: A Kids’ Guide to Making and Keeping Friends
Dr. Eileen Kennedy-Moore & Christine McLaughlin (ISBN 978-1-48-140601-8) Beyond Words/Aladdin
www.beyondword.com
Written for kids (specifically 6 -9-year-old) this is a book that parents will want to read as well. It offers some terrific advice for helping young people navigate the complicated waters of social interaction. These authors return to the basics to explain social and face-to-face communication skills to children who are living in a mostly virtual world. What appears to be silly dialogue between a cartoon cat and dog, actually contains some powerful lessons about how to approach and interact with other children. The fact that it makes these encounters humorous allows children to feel more comfortable about risking personal contact with other children. Making friends and keeping them, joining the fun, how to share, when to say NO, dealing with bullying, joining a group, and moving past conflict are all topics which are discussed in kid friendly terms with real-world applications. In our fast-paced and disruptive world, we’re losing sight of the kitchen-table wisdom children used to take refuge in. This book puts kids and their parents back in touch with basic, tried and true social skills and the ways those skills can be used.
The Myth of the ADHA Child: 101 Ways to Improve Your Child’s Behavior and Attention Span Without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion
Thomas Armstrong (ISBN 978-0-14-311150-4) TarcherPerigee
www.penguinrandomhouse.com
This book was ground-breaking when it was first published two decades ago. Armstrong remains as convinced as he was then that he was correct in his skeptical assessment of what was then called Attention Deficit Disorder. Since then the revised label of ADHD has grown to become the most diagnosed behavioral disorder in the U.S., spawning a mega-industry of quick-fix medications and services. Armstrong has completely rewritten the original text, updating and adding insight, information, and research results that back up and enhance his position. The original 50 strategies he presented for dealing with these behaviors have been edited, and he’s added 51 new strategies. In three separate sections, he points out inconsistencies in the ADHD diagnosis story, explains why powerful psychoactive drugs should not be the first line in helping children with these issues, counters the most common defenses for continuing the ADHD myth, presents a new paradigm that puts the child first, and then details practical, non-neurobiological strategies for dealing with these behaviors. This book is cutting-edge and from the heart.
Yoga Bug: Simple Poses for Little Ones
Sarah Jane Hinder (ISBN 978-1-62-203979-4) Sounds True
www.soundstrue.com
You’re never too young to make friends with your body. In this beautifully-designed and sturdy board book, very young learners are asked to imitate 10 familiar insects with child friendly yoga poses. From Hum, hum, hum, buzzy bee to Shine and sparkle, twinkle toes to Wiggle, giggle, jiggle, hands and feet the illustrations on the double-page spreads show both serenely happy children and the insects in the poses. Hinder has already made her mark in children’s yoga libraries with Good Night Yoga and Good Morning Yoga. This charming addition to her credits further secures her place as a leader in the field. As a mindfulness teacher, she’s well aware of the self-soothing benefits of yoga and the illustrations reflect the easy peacefulness meant to accompany the stretches. The book comes with a guide for parents, but I suspect most children will just look at the pictures and make the poses their own.
Signs & Seasons: An Astrology Cookbook
Amy Zerner, Monte Farber with Chef John Okas (ISBN 978-0-06-246134-6) Harper Elixir
www.harperelixir.com
The powerhouse metaphysical couple of Zerner and Farber have joined forces with Chef Okas to bring their highly creative skill sets to the fields of astrology and cooking. It gives new meaning to the term fusion. The book includes almost 100 recipes that connect seasonal dishes to the 12 astrological signs, providing both the sensual experience of fine dining with the psychic touches provided by transiting planets. Endives with Parmesan, Olives, and Walnuts for Gemini; Roasted Radishes for Aries; Golden Tumeric Chicken for Virgo. It’s a tasty gift for stomach, eyes, and soul.
Sacred Geometry of Nature: Journey on the Path of the Divine
Francene Hart (ISBN 978-1-59-143273-9) Bear & Company
www.innertraditions.com
Hart’s quietly powerful watercolors flow across the pages of this book as she takes readers on a tour of her growth into a visionary artist and oracle deck illustrator. She begins with the realization that she was instinctively creating mandalas. That realization led her to the work of Joseph Cambell and Carl Jung and she was on her shamanic way. The book contains full-color reproductions of 80 of the 700+ paintings she has produced on her journey. Occasional photographs reference the physical world she experienced along the way, as she shares the lush inner world of her artist’s eye. Her doorway/connection point is always in nature, and the delicate proportion and mathematics of it all became clearer and clearer to her as she became more and more adept at rendering what her inner mind perceived.
Author: Anna Jedrziewski
Anna Jedrziewski is a consciousness author and consultant, as well as founder and director of Spirit Connection New York, Inc.
Website: http://spiritconnectionnewyork.org
