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Therapy & Spirituality: Recommended Authors

John Welwood

Rick Hanson

Mark Epstein

Best books include "The Trauma of Everyday Life"

Jack Kornfield

Best books include "The Wise Heart"

Therapy & Spirituality: Books

Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom & Psychotherapy
John Prendergast, Peter Fenner & Shelia Krystal

Psychology Books to Help with Rumination & Procrastination

The As If Principle: The Radically New Approach to Changing Your Life

By Richard Wiseman.

William James had a theory about emotion and behavior: It isn’t that our feelings guide our actions (feel happy and you will laugh). On the contrary, it is our actions that guide our emotions (laugh and you will feel happy). This led James to a remarkable conclusion: “If you want a quality, act as if you already have it.”

The Inner Self: The Joy of Discovering Who we Really Are

by Hugh Mackay

'How can I get in touch with this real self, underlying all my surface behaviour? How can I become myself?' -Carl Rogers, US psychotherapist.
The Inner Self is a book about the ways we hide from the truth about ourselves and the psychological freedom we enjoy when we finally face that most searching question of all: 'Who am I, really?' Hugh Mackay explores our 'top 20' hiding places - from addiction to materialism, nostalgia to victimhood. He explains how it is our fear of love's demands that drive us into hiding.
He argues that love is our highest ideal, the richest source of life's meaning and purpose, and the key to our emotional security, personal serenity and confidence.  Yet Mackay exposes the great paradox of human nature, that while love brings out our best, we don't always want our best brought forward.

Relationships: Recommended Authors

Harriet Lerner

Best books include "Marriage Rules"

Harville Hendrix

Best books include "Making Marriage Simple"

John Gottman

Best books include "Seven Principles"

Relationship Books

The Five Love Languages

By Gary Chapman

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I Hear You: The Surprisingly Simple Skill Behind Extraordinary Relationships
By Michael Sorenson

Psychology Books for Self Help

Don't Over Think It

By Anne Bogel

Self Compassion

By Kristen Neff

Never Split the Difference

By Chris Voss

Non Violent Communication
By Marhsall Rosenberg

Books on Habits

Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives

by  Geretchen Rubin

Habits are the invisible architecture of everyday life. It takes work to make a habit, but once that habit is set, we can harness the energy of habits to build happier, stronger, more productive lives. So if habits are a key to change, then what we really need to know is: How do we change our habits?
Better than Before answers that question. It presents a practical, concrete framework to allow readers to understand their habits—and to change them for good. Infused with Rubin’s compelling voice, rigorous research, and easy humor, and packed with vivid stories of lives transformed, Better than Before explains the (sometimes counter-intuitive) core principles of habit formation.

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
By James Clear
No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving--every day. James Clear, one of the world's leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results.
If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Here, you'll get a proven system that can take you to new heights.

The Joy of Missing Out: The Art of Self-Restraint in an Age of Excess
By Svend Brinkman
'Because you're worth it', proclaims the classic cosmetics ad. 'Just do it!' implores the global sports retailer. Everywhere we turn, we are constantly encouraged to experience as much as possible, for as long as possible, in as many ways as possible. FOMO - Fear of Missing Out - has become a central preoccupation in a world fixated on the never-ending pursuit of gratification and self-fulfillment.
But this pursuit can become a treadmill leading nowhere. How can we break out of it? In this refreshing book, bestselling Danish philosopher and psychologist Svend Brinkmann reveals the many virtues of missing out on the constant choices and temptations that dominate our experience-obsessed consumer society. By cultivating self-restraint and celebrating moderation we can develop a more fulfilling way of living that enriches ourselves and our fellow humans and protects the planet we all share - in short, we can discover the joy of missing out

Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less

by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
Overwork is the new normal. Rest is something to do when the important things are done-but they are never done. Looking at different forms of rest, from sleep to vacation, Silicon Valley futurist and business consultant Alex Soojung-Kim Pang dispels the myth that the harder we work the better the outcome. He combines rigorous scientific research with a rich array of examples of writers, painters, and thinkers---from Darwin to Stephen King---to challenge our tendency to see work and relaxation as antithetical. "Deliberate rest," as Pang calls it, is the true key to productivity, and will give us more energy, sharper ideas, and a better life. Rest offers a roadmap to rediscovering the importance of rest in our lives, and a convincing argument that we need to relax more if we actually want to get more done.

Motivation

Emotional Success: The Power of Gratitude, Compassion, and Pride
By David DeSteno

A string of bestsellers have alerted us to the importance of grit – an ability to persevere and control one’s impulses that is so closely associated with greatness. But no book yet has charted the most accessible and powerful path to grit: our prosocial emotions. These feelings – gratitude, compassion and pride – are easier to generate than the willpower and self-denial that underpin traditional approaches to grit. And, while willpower is quickly depleted, prosocial emotions actually become stronger the more we use them. These emotions have another crucial advantage: They’re contagious. Those around us become more likely to apply them when we do.

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

by Daniel Pink
Most people believe that the best way to motivate is with rewards like money—the carrot-and-stick approach. That's a mistake, says Daniel H. Pink (author of To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others). In this provocative and persuasive new book, he asserts that the secret to high performance and satisfaction-at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.
Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of life. He examines the three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose-and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action in a unique book that will change how we think and transform how we live.

10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works
By Dan Harris
Nightline anchor Dan Harris embarks on an unexpected, hilarious, and deeply skeptical odyssey through the strange worlds of spirituality and self-help and discovers a way to get happier that is truly achievable.
After having a nationally televised panic attack on Good Morning America, Dan Harris knew he had to make some changes. A lifelong nonbeliever, he found himself on a bizarre adventure, involving a disgraced pastor, a mysterious self-help guru, and a gaggle of brain scientists. Eventually, Harris realized that the source of his problems was the very thing he always thought was his greatest asset: The incessant, insatiable voice in his head, which had both propelled him through the ranks of a hyper-competitive business and also led him to make the profoundly stupid decisions that provoked his on-air freak-out.
We all have a voice in our head. It’s what has us losing our temper unnecessarily, checking our email compulsively, eating when we’re not hungry, and fixating on the past and the future at the expense of the present. Most of us would assume we’re stuck with this voice – that there’s nothing we can do to rein it in – but Harris stumbled upon an effective way to do just that. It’s a far cry from the miracle cures peddled by the self-help swamis he met; instead, it’s something he always assumed to be either impossible or useless: Meditation. After learning about research that suggests meditation can do everything from lower your blood pressure to essentially rewire your brain, Harris took a deep dive into the underreported world of CEOs, scientists, and even marines who are now using it for increased calm, focus, and happiness.
10% Happier takes readers on a ride from the outer reaches of neuroscience to the inner sanctum of network news to the bizarre fringes of America’s spiritual scene, and leaves them with a takeaway that could actually change their lives.

A Liberated Mind: How to Pivot Toward What Matters
By Steven C Hayes

Over the last 35 years, Steven C. Hayes and his colleagues have developed Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) with many hundreds of studies supporting the impact of his approach on everything from chronic pain to weight loss to prejudice and bigotry.
A Liberated Mind is the summary of Steven’s life’s work which will teach readers how to live better, happier and more fulfilled lives by applying the six key processes of ACT. Put together these processes teach us to pivot: To “defuse” rather than fuse with our thoughts; to see life from a new perspective; and to discover our chosen values, those qualities of being that fuel meaning.
Steve shares fascinating research results like how ACT techniques decreased typing errors on a clerical test or showed that positive affirmations actually increase negative emotion. And he weaves them with stories of clients and colleagues as well as his own riveting story of healing himself of a severe panic disorder, which is how the idea of psychological flexibility was born.

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