Five Self-Help Book Recommendations to Start 2019 Off Right
Welcome to 2019! It’s a new year and it’s time for a new you. The new year is a great time to shake the patterns of the past, grow as a person, and live your best life. Here’s some recommended reading to help you get started on your path to greatness:
by Dan Goleman
Everyone knows that high IQ is no guarantee of success, happiness, or virtue, but until Emotional Intelligence, we could only guess why. Daniel Goleman's brilliant report from the frontiers of psychology and neuroscience offers startling new insight into our “two minds”—the rational and the emotional—and how they together shape our destiny. This book was originally published in 1995, but still rings true as the day it was printed.
2. Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself
by Melody Beattie
Every woman needs to read this book at least once a year. Melody Beattie’s seminal book holds the key to understanding codependency and to unlocking its hold on your life. This book reminds us that self-care is NOT selfish. If you, especially women and caretakers, are cared for and ok then you will have a heart full of love to share with everyone around you. If you’re stressed and empty, however, you can’t give the “free gifts” of unconditional love without resentment and an eventual burn out will result.
3. Intimacy & Desire: Awaken the Passion in Your Relationship
by David Schnarch
In Intimacy and Desire: Awaken the Passion in Your Relationship, Dr. Schnarch explains why couples in long term relationships have sexual desire problems, regardless of how much they love each other or how well they communicate. Through case studies of couples he worked with, Dr. Schnarch shows why normal marital conflict can be the cause of desire problems and creates a roadmap for how couples can transform marital conflict into a stronger relationship and a font of new and powerful desire for each other. He takes it a step further, giving readers simple but effective exercises that will help them reconnect with each other. No other couples’ therapist out there promotes differentiation the way he does but I agree with him completely. His 4 points are priceless, so mature and logical, you’ll wonder why everyone isn’t memorizing his ideas by heart.
4. The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert
by John Gottman
A CLASSIC!! Recently revised and reissued, John Gottman's unprecedented study of couples over a period of years has allowed him to observe the habits that can make—and break—a marriage. Here is the culmination of that work: the seven principles that guide couples on a path toward a harmonious and long-lasting relationship. Straightforward yet profound, these principles teach partners new approaches for resolving conflicts, creating new common ground, and achieving greater levels of intimacy. This book should be on the nightstand of anyone in a relationship and should be on the wedding registry of every newlywed. Gottman is a legend in the field and this book is the cornerstone of his work.
5. New Passages: Mapping Your Life Across Time
by Gail Sheehy
People are taking longer to grow up and much longer to die. The old demarcations and descriptions of adulthood--beginning at twenty-one and ending at sixty-five--are hopelessly out of date. In this book, Gail Sheehy discovers and maps out a completely new frontier--a Second Adulthood in middle life! "Stop and recalculate," Sheehy writes. "Imagine the day you turn forty-five as the infancy of another life." Instead of declining, men and women who embrace a Second Adulthood are progressing through entirely new passages into lives of deeper meaning, renewed playfulness, and creativity--beyond both male and female menopause. This book revitalizes the way we look at our lives and our goals. It permanently changes the way you think about yourself.
