Sunday, August 1, 2010

Moving On: Life When Your Lover Walks Out

Life After Your Lover Walks Out: A Practical Guide
Author: Lynda Bevan
Publisher: Loving Healing Press
ISBN: 978-1-932690-26-2

Loving Healing Press is definitely the go-to publisher for all things relationship, family, personal motivation, psychology, metapsychology, trauma intervention and self help. Life After Your Lover Walks Out is the first book in the Loving Healing Press 10 Step Empowerment Series. Like all other Loving Healing Press books, this guide does not disappoint.

Lynda Bevan has written what may be the ultimate guide to moving forward when a long term relationship ends. Regardless of whether you or your mate instigated the breakup, you'll be left with numerous unresolved issues and feelings, which can include anger, fear, jealousy and regret, among others. How you resolve these issues is largely dependent on knowing the steps to a healthy resolution and taking these often tough steps forward. This book breaks it down for people of all walks of life and levels of experience.

Step by step, the reader is led through a well planned and comprehensive series of processes. Realistic and practical exercises take the reader through an introspective process, leading from the negative impact of a breakup to figuring out what your expectations really are, what is healthiest for you, and what your real emotions are telling you. The reader will understand what motivates us into healthy/unhealthy relationships, making expectations realistic and giving a sense of closure to the terminated relationship.

Purposely written in a compact style, the book can easily be read from cover to cover in just a couple of hours. It has a workable, non-overwhelming style that can be used by anyone, and would make a great therapeutic tool in any counseling practice. Highly recommended.

Why Good People Make Bad Choices: How You Can Develop Peace of Mind Through Integrity

Why Good People Make Bad Choices:
How You Can Develop Peace of Mind Through Integrity
Author: Charles Lawrence Allen
Publisher: Loving Healing Press
ISBN: 978-1-932690-25-5

This book is a part of Loving Healing Press' New Horizons In Therapy Series, an excellent and diverse series of self help/personal growth books utilizing a wide array of new techniques and ground breaking works in the field of psychology.

Charles L. Allen takes a look at the how and why of the thought processes that lead us to make both and bad choices and decisions. We all do things we know aren't the right choices for us. We may even think we truly want to make better decisions and we may really make attempts to change. A part of us fights the urge to make those healthier decisions or changes for the better.

The author's premise is that how we make decisions is based on our personal ego. Our ego has an agenda of it's own and that agenda isn't always in our best interests. We need to learn the psychological functioning of our ego and how to overcome or control it. The first thing needed to make changes involves thought and personal reflection. We need to decide just what our priorities and our personal belief system consists of. To resolve issues by a personal belief system creates personal integrity and responsibility.

This author does an outstanding job explaining integrity and how to figure out your personal value system. Each chapter contains great, helpful exercises to assist you on your way. With topics including danger, fear of change and intimacy, handling happiness and more. Several appendixes offer additional assistance to work through discovering personal ethics and values, case studies, a self image inventory, an extensive bibliography and very comprehensive index.

While the book is written at an adult level, I think it would also work great as a guidebook for parents helping kids develop a personal value system. Additionally, counselors/therapists will find it invaluable for working with clients. Outstanding reference!

Journey From Head to Heart

Journey From Head to Heart: Living and
Working Authentically
Author: Nancy Oelklaus
Publisher: Loving Healing Press
ISBN: 978-1-932690-43-9

In today's stressed. rushed and economically depressed world, many are worn out and heartsick, tired of working harder and harder to just keep from drowning, and seeing no end in sight. Nancy Oelklaus has compiled an outstanding resource to lead the reader through these exhausting and discouraging periods of life.

She offers practical advice, a map of the way out of stress and unhappiness using tools that encompass logic, emotion, reason, science, recovery and spiritually, along with age old wisdom from many sources, written to appeal to both those who embrace new age type of thinking as well as the more conventional user. It's a fantastic tool for individuals, couples or therapists to utilize while working toward the happier, authentic and more fulfilling lifestyle many are searching for in these discouraging and exhausting times.

Easily understood and well planned, anyone can successfully utilize her methodology to a more authentic lifestyle. Highly recommended.