Every once in a while we need a little help grasping the strength to get through the day. Whether you had a bad night of sleep or overwhelmed by the stress of work, your home, or family, it is more than okay to need little help and inspiration to get your day started and keep it rolling. The books listed below are books to help you find that strength.
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Educated by Tara Westover: Tara Westover was seventeen when she first set foot in a classroom. Instead of traditional lessons, she grew up learning how to stew herbs into medicine, scavenging in the family scrap yard and helping her family prepare for the apocalypse. She had no birth certificate and no medical records and had never been enrolled in school. Westover’s mother proved a marvel at concocting folk remedies for many ailments. As Tara developed her own coping mechanisms, little by little, she started to realize that what her family was offering didn’t have to be her only education. Her first day of university was her first day in school—ever—and she would eventually win an esteemed fellowship from Cambridge and graduate with a PhD in intellectual history and political thought.
Good Morning, Monster by Catherine Gildiner: In this fascinating narrative, therapist Catherine Gildiner’s presents five of what she calls her most heroic and memorable patients. Among them: a successful, first generation Chinese immigrant musician suffering sexual dysfunction; a young woman whose father abandoned her at age nine with her younger siblings in an isolated cottage in the depth of winter; and a glamorous workaholic whose narcissistic, negligent mother greeted her each morning of her childhood with "Good morning, Monster." Each patient presents a mystery, one that will only be unpacked over years. They seek Gildiner's help to overcome an immediate challenge in their lives, but discover that the source of their suffering has been long buried. As in such recent classics as The Glass Castle and Educated, each patient embodies self-reflection, stoicism, perseverance, and forgiveness as they work unflinchingly to face the truth. Gildiner's account of her journeys with them is moving, insightful, and sometimes very funny. Good Morning Monster offers an almost novelistic, behind-the-scenes look into the therapist's office, illustrating how the process can heal even the most unimaginable wounds.
The Power of Letting Go by John Purkiss: The Power of Letting Go brings together a number of key principles that come up for anyone who is on the journey of self-enquiry and development. At some point, the choice becomes clear, whether to hold on or let go. For some, it's easy, just do it, f**k it. For many others, there are multiple layers and obstacles that have built up through one's life so far. Expectations, fear of uncertainty, well-worn inhibitive thought patterns, lack of trust, lack of acceptance, old trauma and hurt. Despite all this, there is a spark, a glimmer of hope that brightens at the thought of letting go and going with the flow, at following one's instincts and intuition rather than constantly second-guessing the outcome, at letting go of expectations and enjoying what is. This book combines both the why and the how to let go, with excellent practices that help convert the desire into action.
