Spirituality and Mindfulness books

True story of survival

Mother and unborn child beat cancer through faith and determination

One of the truly remarkable stories of faith and determination: At age 29, Heather Choate was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was ten weeks pregnant with her sixth child. Her unborn baby became victim to the fast-spreading and highly dangerous cancer in Heather’s body that already spread to her lymph nodes. Doctors told her she needed to abort her baby to save her life. Heather told them, “I’d rather die than take the life of my baby.” Heather and her husband set out to find a way to save both mother and baby. The journey pushed them to the fringes of their stamina, tested the strength of their familial relationships and found them clinging to their faith like it was the last bit of thread on a lifeline.

Reading true stories of survival may change your life: We all have unexpected adversity in life. It’s those things that we think “will never happen to us.” It could be the loss of job, the birth of a special needs child, the downturn of the economy or an unexpected health challenge. Most of us would easily crumble under such circumstances, but Heather found that its not about what happens to you, its about what you do with it. You don’t have to almost die, to learn how to live and Heather shows us how. Despite adversity, nearly impossible challenges can be met, families can be strengthened and faith can sustain even the most desperate souls on their journey. She brings her role as cancer warrior into the real lives of readers, addressing topics that affect them most: dealing with doubt and insecurity, discovering who they really are, renewing their passion, negotiating family strife, releasing relentless regrets, succeeding against temptation, weathering their worst fears, pressing on against fatigue and illness, uprooting bitterness and more. Fighting for Our Lives will take you on a journey of self-examination and appreciation of the beauties of today, and the book could actually change your life.

What you'll learn in Fighting for Our Lives:

• Don’t just survive challenges, thrive through them
• How to use your power of choice, because it’s not what happens to you that matters, its what you do about it
• Practical ways that faith sustains and strengthens
• How to deal with doubt and insecurity
• Best ways to release negativity and find forgiveness
• How to trust your inner voice

Meaningful Answers to Hard Questions 

“Tiny Buddha is a moving and insightful synthesis of evocative stories and ancient wisdom applied to modern life. A great read!” — Jonathan Fields, author of Uncertainty

From the mind behind TinyBuddha.com, Lori Deschene brings us the latest edition of her guide to peace, purpose, joy, and more! Exploring the challenging questions we all have to answer for ourselves, Tiny Buddha can be your handbook to personal fulfillment.

You are in control of your purpose. Life has a way of giving us more questions than answers. And despite our many differences, we all ask ourselves the same things, starting with: Why am I here? Featuring varied perspectives from Twitter followers around the world, Tiny Buddha can help us choose the meaning behind our existence and find purpose in our pain, no matter how deep.

Uncertainty can be a good thing. Offering straightforward, practical advice and pieces of her own personal journey, author Lori Deschene breaks down hard yet revealing questions about life, love, happiness, and change. We may have very few concrete answers, but that means we each get to decide for ourselves what it all means and what happiness looks like for us. Let Tiny Buddha help you create and honor that vision.

Inside, you’ll find:

• The difference between searching for meaning versus creating it ourselves
• Empowering ways to answer the question “What is happiness?” and how to create it
• The importance of accepting your struggles without fully understanding the “why”
• How to find mental freedom by letting go of control

If you like self-help books or advice blogs, or if you enjoyed Living on Purpose, The Soul’s Human Experience, or The Tao of Influence, then you’ll love Tiny Buddha.

Clean Eating Lifestyle

Plant based diet and nutrition: Millions of people have turned to a plant-based diet for the sake of both themselves and the planet. Now, tens of thousands of people have put down their knives in favor of a vegan or vegetarian diet for weight loss or to control blood pressure and cholesterol.

Not-so-healthy carnivore to healthy clean eating vegan: Author Alice Mary Alvrez shares her journey from not-so-healthy carnivore to urban homesteader who turned her health around and contributes to a healthier planet as well. This utterly unique vegan cookbook offers over 100 easy-to-make vegan recipes and many basic woman eco-warrior and plant-powered cook recipes. Alvrez shares her green-living methods and cooking techniques as well as sage advice about food and nutrition. Eating your veggies is essential to good health, especially for families and children. Growing the organic veggies you eat is even better!

Living vegan and going green tips and tricks: As instructive as it is inspiring, this book is brimming with excellent information about avoiding unhealthy food additives and the importance of eating clean and getting educated about your diet. It is also packed with tips and tricks for living vegan and making sure your home and clothing are cruelty-free. Going green and vegan is easier than you think and this book offers a year's worth of ideas, yummy recipes and ways you can create a sustainable life. More than just a cookbook, Vegans Save the World is necessary

A Health and Wellness Toolkit

Health and wellness: Happy Healthy You is a multidisciplinary approach to reclaiming ultimate wellness. We are all so busy nowadays, and tackling all those to-do lists can leave us drained, worn down, and lacking energy. When you take a deeper look inside, you will also discover patterns, old habits, and past events blocking self-growth. Life coach extraordinaire KJ Landis helps identify how, why, and where we got stuck in the first place, and how we can utilize past trauma and drama as a springboard to becoming our most authentic, vibrant selves. As one of KJ's students enthuses, "She has taught me several tangible strategies to cope with stress...I am using KJ's simple techniques to achieve my lifelong health goals.'"

Stress relievers: Learn to lose the baggage and blame once and for all and step into your better self. KJ Landis herself is an exemplar of the practices she espouses. In her early career as a model, she masked years of abuse behind her beauty. Her journey to health and happiness is remarkable and truly inspiring. So many of us bury pieces of ourselves, never daring to become whole. Landis' work offers a path to wholeness for all. The variety of healing therapies and practices makes this book unique in its contribution to the self-help and wellness world. Each day, we are faced with an immense amount of daily stress. Over time, those stressors may build up to a really big deal in our lives, causing us to go into survival mode. When you are only surviving, you are not thriving. In addition to the day-to-day sources of stress, many of us are exposed to major issues such as neglect, loneliness, abandonment issues, sexual abuse, grieving after loss, breakups, workplace challenges, environmental disasters, hormonal imbalances, and nutritional deficiencies. KJ Landis tackles all the blocks to wellness with excellent practical tools for overcoming and recovering.

Inside this book you will learn:

• the origin of how we remain "stuck" in our lives
• how to use The Negative Thought Pot to rid ourselves of self-deprecating beliefs
• how hormones and epigenetics affect mental and physical wellness
• the role of nutrition in every aspect of our health
• therapeutic movement as a modality in healing
• the power of self-care through restorative practices
• and much, much more!

Stories of success, happiness and hope from the LGBT community

Stories that comprise the best of LGBT history: Pride and Joy: LGBTQ Artists, Icons and Everyday Heroestells the stories of queer citizens of the world living OUT and proud happy, fulfilling, successful lives. Diverse and global. Famous and unsung. There is a story here for everyone in the LGBT community who has ever questioned their sexual orientation or gender identity, or discovered it.

Discover LGBT community stories that will stir you and reveal:

• why Tony Kushner quit cello and how Colm Toibin found his voice.
• why Emma Donoghue calls her experience a fluke and the best advice Bill T. Jones got was from his mother.
• how being an inaugural poet changed Richard Blanco’s life and how Ugandan activist “LongJones” escaped death threats and gained asylum.

Award-winning writer and longtime LGBTQ activist Kathleen Archambeau tells the untold stories from diverse LGBT community voices around the corner or around the world. Not like the depressing, sinister, shadowy stories of the past, this book highlights queer people living open, happy, fulfilling and successful lives.

Be inspired by LGBT community stories that celebrate the human spirit:

• Be emboldened by the bravery of a Uruguayan author who was rejected by her immediate family even as she began a family of her own.
• Be inspired by the audacity to fight for justice that motivates National Center for Lesbian Rights Executive Director Kate Kendell, a Mormon who grew up in Utah.
• Learn how two couples transcend time and distance to finally be together and how one NBA sports executive summoned the courage to come out.
• Discover the message of love from the first openly lesbian United Methodist Church Bishop.
• Learn the secrets of successful OUT IBM executive based in London and the rewards of Ballroom Basix founder in Harlem.
• See how the Maori philosophy of whānau guided the MP who won marriage rights in New Zealand and how high expectations overcame disability and bullying for an acclaimed mezzo-soprano.
• Know how the Armenian Genocide and family tensions impacted a professional violinist and composer.

Pride & Joy is a window into the LGBTQ community for straight friends, allies, parents and families of this finally emerging marginalized group. There’s hope that, in the words of Dan Savage, “It Gets Better” for:

• the transgender choreographer and dancer who continues to break rules and enlighten audiences to the Dutch singer, songwriter and independent theater producer who breaks down stereotypes.
• the Russian émigré award-winning computer scientist to the Chinese folk dancer.
• the founder of an award-winning smoking cessation program to the California Political Director of the Obama re-election campaign.
• and, for Entrepreneurs and gay dads, ballroom dancers and Hungarian activists on neo-Nazi “hit lists.”

Silence the Voice of Self Doubt

“Banish Your Inner Critic provides knowledge, insight, tools and practice for getting unstuck and expressing full creative potential." ―Rebecca Stockley, Co-Founder of BATS Improv in San Francisco CA

Are you ready to boost your personal productivity—minus the fear and loathing? Are you ready to Banish Your Inner Critic and unleash the creative ideas and personal productivity within you? Help is on the way!

Blocked creative ideas. Everybody has one, an inner critic that tells you that others have more talent, you’re just faking it, and that you’ll never have those great creative ideas that seem just out of reach. This inner critic is a subconscious deterrent that stands between the seeds of great creative ideas and the fruits of achievement. It afflicts us with a mental block as deadlines approach, makes us so afraid of being judged that we hold ourselves back and don’t share our expertise, forces us to question our ability to learn ideas and technologies quickly; and makes us doubt, discount, and kill our ideas before they see the light of day.

Find a world of creative ideas. Denise Jacobs is a speaker, author and creativity evangelist who speaks at web conferences and consults with tech companies worldwide. As the Founder and Chief Creativity Evangelist of "The Creative Dose", she teaches techniques to make the creative process more fluid, how to make work environments more conducive to personal productivity, and practices for sparking innovation. Now, in Banish Your Inner Critic, Denise Jacobs shows you how to defeat barriers that are holding you back and achieve success through a positive mental attitude.

Banish Your Inner Critic and:

• Identify and quiet the voice of self-doubt
• Master three powerful practices to transform how you relate to yourself and your creativity
• Generate more creative ideas than ever before

If you’re a fan of books such as The Artist’s Way or The War of Art, you should read Banish Your Inner Critic.

Get Back to the Person You Were Before Anxiety Took Over

“This book offers practical, evidence-based exercises to assist anxiety sufferers in freeing themselves from the devastating symptoms of untreated anxiety." ―Debra Kissen, Ph.D., M.H.S.A., Clinical Director, Light on Anxiety Treatment Center; Author of The Panic Workbook for Teens

#1 Best Seller in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Mood Disorders, and Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance

Dr. Helen Odessky, Psy. D. is an anxiety expert, author, and speaker who also runs a private practice in Chicago focused on anxiety, OCD, and panic treatment.

A breakthrough program for depression and anxiety relief. Our pace of life has increased exponentially in the last few decades. We are often too busy or preoccupied to tend to our emotions until they hit with the strength of a tornado. When signs of anxiety and panic appear, they ravage our lives, our dreams, and our spirit. In Stop Anxiety from Stopping You, Dr. Odessky offers proven tools to increase mental health awareness, overcome anxiety, and stop panic attacks.

Overcome everything from OCD to social anxiety. In When Panic Attacks, David Burns walks readers through every kind of anxiety. In a similar step-by-step approach, Dr. Odessky’s refreshing anxiety book draws on years of clinical experience to guide readers through the anxiety process and toward total relief.

Learn how to apply a six-step process to:

• Panic or anxiety attacks that come "out of the blue"
• Worry, stress, and muscular tension and/or irritability
• Anxious social situations and difficulty with small talk and/or meeting new people
• Specific fears such as driving, flying on an airplane, or public speaking
• Unwanted thoughts (obsessions) or repetitive behaviors (compulsions)

If you have benefitted from psychology books, anxiety books, or mental health books―or read Dare, Unf**k Your Brain, or The Anxiety and Worry Workbook, you will want to read Stop Anxiety from Stopping You.

Retirement and Good Living

“This book is packed with wise advice for anyone staring down the barrel of retirement.” ─Marshall Goldsmith, business educator and New York Times bestselling author.

#1 Best Seller in Aging and Volunteer Work

Welcome to your new life of retirement and good living. Welcome to a purposeful retirement.

Perfect retirement gift. Are you getting ready to simplify life and move from the world of work to a life of retirement and good living─to enter a happy retirement? Purposeful Retirement is the gift for that special retiree.

Hyrum W. Smith, the author of Purposeful Retirement, is an award-winning author, distinguished speaker, and successful businessman. He is one of the original creators of the popular Franklin Day Planner, the former Chairman and CEO of Franklin Covey Co., and the recognized “Father of Time Management”. For four decades Hyrum empowered people to effectively govern their personal and professional lives. In Purposeful Retirement, Hyrum combines wit and enthusiasm with compelling principles that inspire lasting personal change. He encourages you to discover your true passion and try new possibilities. Learn how you can move from your world of work, simplify life, and enter what can be the most satisfying phase of your life─a new world of purposeful retirement.

Aging well and a happy retirement. You have had a successful career by almost all measures and now you are concerned about aging well and looking toward a happy retirement. You are definitely not a couch potato.

• How are you going to create a retirement that is meaningful and inspiring?
• Can you simplify life?
• Is there a way to make intelligent and anxiety free retirement planning choices?
• Can you learn from the lives and experiences of people who have found their pathway to happy retirement?
• What are their secrets to a happy retirement?

If you are a fan of How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free, you'll love Purposeful Retirement.

How Can a Plant-Based Diet Impact My Life?

Plant-Based living is a lifestyle: It awakens your awareness to understanding that every choice you make has a greater impact. It's a choice that can transcend the collective mind with the idea of respecting every form of life. Are you ready for the benefits of an eating clean diet? Are you seeking a happy, health-filled life?

Welcome to nourishment through plant based eating: Nourished, the debut book by plant-based chef and holistic nutrition expert Pamela Wasabi, invites you to discover a new love for and understanding of your body, and the importance of nourishment through plant based eating. Pamela shows readers how learning to cook helped her overcome medical challenges and put her on the path to health through clean eating diet recipes and plant based nutrition.

Nourishment for the body and nourishment for the spirit: This eat-clean diet book is a delicious trip through the plant based eating experience from start to finish. The book is organized to mirror the life-cycle of a plant, from when the seed is sewn to when the flower blooms. Using this delightful convention for her eat-clean diet book, Wasabi prescribes what it takes for true body nourishment, and nourishment of the mind and spirit.

Life-enhancing insights that you will gain from reading Nourished include:

• How to invite nourishment into your life to relax
• How to find peace within and let go of strict forms of dieting, perfection, and restrictions
• Understand that every symptom or food issue we deal with is an invitation to get to know ourselves better
• Inspiration to be softer, more loving, and have unconditional acceptance for who we are
• An appreciation for the joys of a plant based nutrition lifestyle
• How to be mindful and present about our choices when it comes to food and health
• How to embark on a path of health and happiness
• Some favorite clean eating diet recipes

ENJOY!

LaToya Forever ─ Life, love and laughter with a great YouTube star

YouTube star: LaToya "LaToya Forever" Ali has been putting a smile on people’s faces since 2009 when she first picked up a video camera and started sharing her fascinating thoughts, hilarious stories and moments from her life. She soon became one of the great YouTube stars. A hugely successful black woman as well as great YouTube star, LaToya continues to capture the hearts of millions with her playful, quirky, and inspirational vlog (and with the help of her adorable daughter and loving husband).

How she became LaToya Forever: However, LaToya didn’t always fit in. In this no-hold-barred inspirational memoir, she carefully looks back on her journey from friendless to “internet famous,” and her step-by-step journey from self-consciousness to self-loving. In her words, “Just being able to connect with people from all walks of life. My videos have made an impact…I feel like I’m making a positive change in the world.”

Mindfulness Mutts and Dharma Dogs

Readers of Start With Why, You Are Here and Whatever You Are, Be A Good One will love the quotes and teachings of Zen Dogs.

Advice from Zen Leaders. Join some cuddly puppies for the timeless teachings of Buddhism along with key lessons our canine companions are here to remind us of—such as how to live in the now—in Zen Dogs. Don’t let the adorable dogs fool you—they have plenty of mindfulness wisdom to share in the form of quotes and verses. These timeless verses will continue to be helpful and relevant to your life for years to come.

Daily Mindfulness. Meditate along with these verses daily. Every dog is a living example of loving kindness, a central tenet of the Buddha, which they reteach us with every affectionate lick and joy-filled wag of the tail. Learn from the dutiful dog to be true in body and mind. If you appreciated the mindfulness encouragement from Peace Is Every Step, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching and Together Is Better, get yourself a copy of Zen Dogs.

Let your inner Zen Dog guide you to enlightenment.

Mom Boss — Super Mom, Great Business Woman

Entrepreneurial Mom: Learn how to be a super mom and a great business woman in a step-by-step guide to developing, incubating, and marketing your business without taking the joy out of family life with kids—being an active parent while succeeding as a woman business entrepreneur.

Badass Business Woman: Where Sophia Amoruso’s #GirlBoss left off for young millennials breaking into the business world, Mom Boss picks up and continues the mission for all the entrepreneurial moms out there. Mom Boss proves that being successful isn’t about degrees or sacrifices, it’s about balance and power. It’s where instinct meets intelligence. Every mom has it in her to be a badass business woman. Nicole Feliciano charts the course for building a successful career without sacrificing being a great mom.

Mom Boss: The first book by Nicole Feliciano the Founder & CEO of Momtrends Media. Momtrends Media provides busy women with a daily dose of style. Each day Nicole and her team of editors, interpret trends for moms, keeping in mind that modern women want to look and feel great, but they are working with less time and less energy than they had before the kids came along. Nicole and her team are there to help and inspire women to look and feel their best. Social media is her playground, and she's built a loyal following by making fashion fun and accessible.

Successful Business Woman: Before launching Momtrends Media, Nicole graduated from Vanderbilt University with a degree in English Literature, and spent a decade working in fashion -- most notably as an executive with Polo Ralph Lauren. When she became a mom in 2005, the business woman and fashion maven embarked on her social media career and began contributing to Babble.com, Time Out New York Kids, and many more online publications. Seeing a void in the blogosphere, she launched Momtrends.com in 2007. Momtrends continues to be the cornerstone of her media empire.

Mom Boss includes:

• tips on how to develop, incubate, and market your business without taking the joy out of family life
• valuable self assessment exercises
• step by step advise, inspiration, and tried and true business and personal tips
• insights into how to be a successful and happy business woman and mom

Loss of Mother, Bereavement, and Moving On

“I wish I had read this before I lost my mom a few years ago and a dear friend soon after…" –Nina Lesowitz, author of Living Life as a Thank You

#1 Best Seller in Grief & Bereavement, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and Self-Esteem

The grieving process. Ty Alexander of Gorgeous in Grey is one of the top bloggers today with a wonderful personal connection with her readers. This is never more apparent than when she speaks about her mother. The pain of loss for mourners is universal. Yet, we all grieve differently. For Alexander, the grieving process is one that she lives with day-to-day. Learning from her pain, she connects with her readers on a deeply emotional level in her book, Things I Wish I Knew Before My Mom Died: Coping with Loss Every Day. From grief counseling to sharing insightful true stories, Alexander offers comfort, reassurance, and hope in the face of sorrow.

Coping with loss. In her early 20’s reality smacked Ty in the face. She was ill equipped to deal with the emotional and intellectual rollercoaster of dealing with her mom’s illness. Through her own trial and error, she found a way to be a caregiver, patient advocate, researcher, and a grieving daughter. She wrote Things I Wish I Knew Before My Mom Died to help others find the “best” way to cope and move on, however one personally decides what that means.

Mourning and remembrance. In the chapters of this soul-touching book, mourners find meaning and wisdom in grieving and the love that always remains.

Inside this comforting and insightful book find:

• Help with the pain of losing a loved one
• Assistance in understanding the grieving process
• Comfort and support while learning how to move on
  

If you have read grief and bereavement books such as Notes on Grief, Grief Day by Day, or Finding Meaning, you will want to read Things I Wish I Knew Before My Mom Died.

Do you find yourself waiting for the best part of your life to begin? Or those things will get better soon? Dr. Richard Carlson, author who helped millions of readers stop sweating the small stuff, reminds us all You Can Be Happy No Matter What. Interactive Edition: In this interactive edition, people can experience the book in a wholly new way with Carlson’s narration, illuminating passages about living joyfully in the present moment. This handbook for happiness is based on proven psychology, the Principles of Thought, covering thought, mood, separate realties and feelings. Every moment of every day, our minds are working to make sense out of what we see and experience; yet this is one of the least understood principles in our psychological makeup. Carlson’s breakthrough work here in understanding the nature of thought can be the foundation to a fully functional life. Dr. Richard Carlson’s wise words in his own voice bring new dimension and understanding of awakening to your own happiness. This superlative interactive book aids anyone in understanding the ups and downs of life and how to build resilience. Most importantly, Carlson reminds us to not let the downside get in the way of living joyfully, despite the daily challenges we all face. In his own words, “Happiness is a state of mind, not a set of circumstances.”

A Year of Daily Meditations

Learn how to start meditating. Learning how to meditate and how to be mindful is simpler than it looks. The whole purpose of your meditation is to show up as awake and aware as possible to your everyday life. Longtime therapist and meditator David Kundtz gives you permission not to fret about whether you're getting your meditation practice right or not. It's right.

Ponder daily quotes to help you live in this moment. Being Present has one purpose: to give you an opportunity to live in the moment once a day, every day. As you start to accumulate these mindful moments, your life will become more peaceful, more rewarding, and more awakened.

Discover the benefits of meditation for yourself. In Being Present, Kundtz guides us through the seasons of a year—and the seasons of a life—drawing inspiration and mindfulness quotes from poets and scientists, spiritual teachers and children, butterflies and big cities. With the help of this book, you will discover how to:

• Be present and become a more mindful person
• Maintain the focus, awareness, and equanimity that you need for getting through stressful situations
• Experience the peaceful moments of mindful living

If you found the daily reflections in inspirational books like A Year of Positive Thinking, The Daily Book of Positive Quotations, and Greatest Inspirational Quotes, then you'll love meditating on the mindfulness quotes and thoughts in Being Present.

Take a Deep Breath and Change the Direction of Your Thoughts from Negative to Positive

A tiny book that packs a powerful message. Learn what it takes to live happily. Change your mindset with words of encouragement, affirmations, and daily reflections.

This small book contains an enduring message of how to transform your life in simple yet profound ways. Filled with insightful quotes and empowering messages, The Inspired Life will embolden you to be the person you aspire to be. Encouraging quotes and achievable instructions help you become the triumphant person you always knew you could be. Reading this book is the first step in your journey towards a happy, purposeful, victorious life.

Take the leap and learn the secrets to:

• Living deeply every day
• Developing your passions
• Discovering your life’s purpose
• Transforming yourself into the person you want to be

If you enjoyed books like The Four Agreements, The Mindfulness Journal or The Power of Now; then you’ll love The Inspired Life.

Learn to View Your Life Through a Peaceful Lens

Life can be hectic and doesn’t always seem to slow down when we want it to. This curated, 12-step, self-help guided meditative handbook by internationally recognized bestselling author Karen Casey will teach you the importance of daily meditation and contemplation.

Bring peace into your daily life. Living Long, Living Passionately is a guide you will find yourself returning to often. The book is composed of 75 personal essays. Each essay addresses an aspect of life that helps you move one step closer to living a well-meaning life filled with happiness and peace.

Change your mindset and learn to appreciate the now. We don’t know what the future holds, but if we dwell on the future we miss our chance to appreciate the present and all the beauty it contains. Benefit from this inspirational guide that contains:

• Daily meditation and prayer practices
• A 12-Step “Course in Miracles”
• Guidance on how to live the best life you can live
• And much more

Transform your life. Throughout this book, Casey helps you explore fear and love, resistance and acceptance, willpower, and discernment. Each of her essays ends with questions and prompts that encourage you to explore your life. Savor each of the essays and practices and choose the ones that speak to you.

If you enjoyed books like The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Make Your Bed, or The Gifts of Imperfection, then you’ll want to own a copy of Karen Casey's Living Long, Living Passionately.