As a storyteller and storycatcher myself, who knows the connecting and healing power of storytelling, listening, release and transformation, finding Baldwin’s book was a big deal, a meaningful discovery, and a manual for compassionate listening. She likens storytelling to “Tending Our Fire,” the title of chapter three, on why we make stories. She writes, “They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but we can’t get the whole picture unless we have the whole story. And the magic in words is that the story can make the picture.”

I’ve written about this book before, because I LOVE IT. It is about seeing life through the lens of “an underlying and universal pattern inherent in all transitions.” 

This book is about living in the now and being present to who and what is right here, right in front of you. Many of us struggle with being present. It is very easy to get sucked into ruminating about the past or worrying about the future.

I sent this book to a client a few months ago and she wrote back almost immediately saying, “This is exactly what I needed right now!” Permission to be different, to be herself, to just be. To breathe. Whew. What a concept!

So, in our last conversation, we were discussing Myss’s concept of Woundology and belief, based on her work, that we have become accustomed to experiencing intimacy by bonding on our wounds and that, to heal, that must change. 

I couldn’t figure out why I was getting all these nagging little illnesses, over and over again, from colds to sinus infections to high ankle sprains, aches and pains that took forever to heal. Long work days? Busy life? Asking too much of myself or my body? Out of alignment and integrity with my core values? Do I even know my core values? I wanted answers.

In her book, The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings Are Trying To Tell You, Karla McLaren is advocating for creating a conscious life, conscious relationships, and conscious communities. We need to reclaim and reinvent our relationship with our emotions, and, as a result, revive our essential natures. We are not just logical, rational, left-brain beings. We are also  intuitive, knowing, sensing and feeling, creative right brain beings. 

I read Choice Theory for the first time in 2006 as part of the Academy for Family Coach Training’s curriculum to become a Parent Coach while also serving as a consultant and enrollment specialist to the company. I have re-read it many times since and have given it to every one of my new clients. I believe it to be that substantial and impactful.

This is another book that I read over 20 years ago, when it first appeared. In fact, I still have my original copy. I bought the new one when a client asked me to come back into her workplace and do some leadership development, communications training and team building with her team. She and her peers in her work place had been reading this book so I wanted to brush up on it as a backdrop to our planning and preparation. 

Jack Canfield is the author and/or co-author of over 150 books, with over 100 million copies sold in 47 languages. The Success Principles is one of his bestselling books and “has legs,” debuting in a 10th anniversary edition in 2015. I had this book, read parts of it, let it go, got it again, listened to more of it, let it go and got it again and am reading it, and listening to it, cover to cover!

What I love most about Rick Rubin’s gem of a book is that it has invited me to play again, to create for the sake of creating, to loosen my grip a little on outcomes and enjoy the process, to realize that I am an artist, a creator. We all are.