Belong

How is it that the internet connects us to a world of people, yet so many of us feel more isolated than ever? That we have hundreds, even thousands of friends on social media, but not a single person to truly confide in? Radha Agrawal calls this “community confusion,” and in Belong she offers every reader a blueprint to find their people and build and nurture community because connectedness—as more and more studies show—is our key to happiness, fulfillment, and success.

A book that’s equal parts inspiring and interactive, and packed with prompts, charts, quizzes, and full-color illustrations, Belong takes readers on a two-part journey. Part one is Going IN—a gentle but intentional process of self-discovery and finding out your true energy levels and VIA (values, interests, and abilities). Part two is Going OUT—building on all that you’ve learned about yourself to find those few special people who feed your soul, and discovering, or creating, the ever-widening groups that align with your aims and desires.

As the Co-founder and CEO of the popular global morning dance community Daybreaker, Radha Agrawal developed an immense offline community with her team of Community Catalysts in 25 cities and on a dozen college campuses around the world by creating a physical space for people to connect, self-express, sweat, and dance. Now, Radha offers life-changing strategies, tips, and tricks for making friends that will light your fire and give you the exhale of  “Ahh, I’m home.”

Check Mates

Check Mates is an original collection of fiction and poetry written about Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder by the people who know best – Obsessive-Compulsives. Split between ‘realism’ and stories of the ‘beyond’, there is a diverse range of styles and genres, and a mix of rage, frustration, tears, violence, pain, heartache, subversion,love, strength, metaphysics, philosophy, friendship, hope, and even a bit of humour. And maybe – just maybe – it will knock away a few stereotypes.

Mind-Body Workbook for PTSD

It may not seem possible at first, but you can make a full recovery after trauma.

Many traumatic experiences naturally heal with time and become part of your past, like old scars. But when you have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumas flare up in your life again and again, causing stress and making it difficult to focus on the here and now. Months and even years may pass, but the memories don’t fade and let you move on.

A clinically proven therapeutic method called mind-body bridging can help you to finally heal and recover from these difficult experiences. Mind-Body Workbook for PTSD is a straightforward, self-guided mind-body bridging program that you can complete in ten weeks. You’ll use your body to settle your mind, develop the skills you need to recover from PTSD, and start to feel connected, confident, and in charge of your life.

• Stop feeling detached and numb and start feeling alive again
• Notice the tension in your body and experience it melting away
• Reduce flashbacks, nightmares, insomnia, and restlessness
• Keep track of your progress as you move toward making a full recovery

Rock and Water

An integrated resource for greater happiness, Rock & Water will keep you moving peacefully through the unpredictable ups and downs of life.

Just as a stream seamlessly wanders through the natural world over, around, or surrounded by rocks, the purpose of Rock and Water is to provide access to basic skills to help us enhance our happiness in the midst of the meanderings of our everyday lives, regardless of the obstacles (in particular the emotional strain of modern living). These skills are based primarily on current research and practice in the fields of cognitive-behavioral psychology and mindfulness/acceptance, two disciplines that have mostly been isolated from each other. Rock and Water is research-based and practical, while also being philosophical and personal; and includes several narratives from the life experiences of a wide variety of prominent people in history (Viktor Frankl, Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, Audrey Hepburn, Mohandas Gandhi and many others)

Uninvited

The enemy wants us to feel rejected . . . left out, lonely, and less than.
In Uninvited, Lysa shares her own deeply personal experiences of rejection from the perceived judgment of the perfectly toned woman one elliptical over to the incredibly painful childhood abandonment by her father. She leans in to honestly examine the roots of rejection, as well as rejection’s ability to poison relationships from the inside out, including our relationship with God.

With biblical depth, gut-honest vulnerability, and refreshing wit, Lysa will help you:

• Stop feeling left out by believing that even when you are overlooked by others you are handpicked by God.
• Change your tendency to either fall apart or control the actions of others by embracing God-honoring ways to process your hurt.
• Know exactly what to pray for the next ten days to steady your soul and restore your confidence in the midst of rejection.
• Overcome the two core fears that feed your insecurities by understanding the secret of belonging.

My Age of Anxiety

As recently as thirty-five years ago, anxiety did not exist as a diagnostic category. Today, it is the most common form of officially classified mental illness. Scott Stossel gracefully guides us across the terrain of an affliction that is pervasive yet too often misunderstood.

Drawing on his own long-standing battle with anxiety, Stossel presents an astonishing history, at once intimate and authoritative, of the efforts to understand the condition from medical, cultural, philosophical, and experiential perspectives. He ranges from the earliest medical reports of Galen and Hippocrates, through later observations by Robert Burton and Søren Kierkegaard, to the investigations by great nineteenth-century scientists, such as Charles Darwin, William James, and Sigmund Freud, as they began to explore its sources and causes, to the latest research by neuroscientists and geneticists. Stossel reports on famous individuals who struggled with anxiety, as well as on the afflicted generations of his own family. His portrait of anxiety reveals not only the emotion’s myriad manifestations and the anguish anxiety produces but also the countless psychotherapies, medications, and other (often outlandish) treatments that have been developed to counteract it. Stossel vividly depicts anxiety’s human toll—its crippling impact, its devastating power to paralyze—while at the same time exploring how those who suffer from it find ways to manage and control it.

My Age of Anxiety is learned and empathetic, humorous and inspirational, offering the reader great insight into the biological, cultural, and environmental factors that contribute to the affliction.

The Many Faces of Anxiety

Real-world examples abound in this resource that provides a basic context for understanding how anxiety affects people and those around them. The author shares 12 cases of various clients with whom she has worked and paints detailed, clear pictures of the many reasons people become anxious and the disguises anxiety takes in their lives. Tools and techniques for reducing anxiety are interspersed throughout each section. The dozen stories in this book are told in layman’s language with a great deal of humor and compassion and will aid sufferers, families, and friends in bringing patience and awareness to the process of identifying, understanding, and healing from panic and anxiety.

Healing Walks for Hard Times

Sometimes life’s hurdles literally stop us in our tracks, sapping vitality and preventing us from participating fully in our own lives and the lives of those we love. Carolyn Scott Kortge recognizes that a key to joyous re-engagement with the world can be—just as literally—to get moving again. With a focus on walking for wellness, Kortge outlines a compassionate, practical program for navigating your way through life’s physical, emotional, and spiritual hard times.

Within the supportive framework of this eight-week walking program you set your own pace, taking steps that restore a sense of balance and order, even if you’re weighed down by the lethargy and loss of control that often accompany illness, depression, or trauma. Discover how to link mental focus with physical movement to create healing periods of stress release. Learn to match your steps with meditation in a way that clears a path through confusion. Move forward, literally, both in good times and in tough ones, with mental and physical steps that lead you away from fear or stress and guide you toward wellness and peace. Engage in a path to recovery that attends to not just the physical, but also acknowledges healing as an emotional, spiritual, and mental journey—a journey of survivorship.