Personal Growth Books

As we start to get back into the swing of Fall activities (at least those of us in the Northern hemisphere are), let us remember to not get so caught up in all the various commitments and/or responsibilities that come along with this time of the year that may cause us to become stressed and overly busy. And although we have missed out on many of the fun things we were used to doing, many of us have also enjoyed the slowing down –and used the time to rejuvenate our mind, body, and soul.  And if you feel bored or listless, remember how uplifting feeling relaxed and "just being" is. "Just being" offers our mind, body, and soul the energetic space to recalibrate - without us even being aware of it. And it puts us in a state where we can reflect. Modern life has often led us to ignore the reflective and feeling parts of ourselves. Our forced slowdowns this past year and a half have given us more time than usual to be calmer, more reflective, and opportunities to "just be." Links to 3 companion posts are at the end. To be happy and feel good we need to attend to our body, mind, emotions, and spiritual connection – and it is the subtler parts of ourselves that nurture these. The subtler parts of ourselves are more in tune with love – with a connection to our True Selves – to others – and everything around us. They are more based on our true reality. Being in tune with love and connected to our true reality, we navigate life adhering to love's qualities: kindness, sharing, compassion, acceptance, equality, unity, etc. We feel empowered – not in a striving for power way (based on a false strength) but from a place of inner strength (based on our true reality). This allows us to embrace the concept of me-and-you.  Humanity’s history has been based on false realities. Of separate motivations grounded in fear, greed, competition – on me-against-you. Fighting for our survival became paramount in our existence. We were reactive, rather than responsive. Although today most of us do not have to fight for our physical survival, we have maintained the competitiveness and reactive states of that survival mode. This, along with the disconnect from our True Self, has created stress and uneasiness in our beings. This has translated into the business and getting ahead ways of navigating life that has become the norm for many of us. The reactive way of navigating life that we inherited from past generations causes us to aggressively approach situations  – often bringing in past issues or being influenced by unaddressed emotions from our past – rather than responding calmly and only addressing what is currently happening. Our business, competitiveness, focus on getting ahead, and our reactive states have left no room to connect to our subtler and reflective natures – that are so important to our sense of well-being. This article/blog post is based [...]