MY FAVORITE BOOKS
The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships
-Harriet Lerner, Ph.D
I must have read The Dance of Anger 10 years ago and the words on those pages remain an old friend. I was hooked after reading the first two pages. It was a perspective on anger I'd never heard. All I knew was my anger made me seem masculine and it was better just to suppress emotions like these. Harriette words, "Anger is a sign and one worth listening to" opened me up to a whole new knowing about myself. For the first time in my life, it was as if someone had not only given me permission to feel and express anger, but more importantly - explore it. I changed the fabric of who I am and the trajectory of my life.
The Year of Magical Thinking
- Joan Didion
Grief was an ordinary word in the dictionary until I experienced it. My grief made me feel messy to the outside world. My thoughts and feelings were consumed by the loss and I wasn't my usual self for a good deal of time. Joan describes grief as dislocating your physical selves from your emotional ones. I can't begin to tell you how comforting it was to know that my grief and the way it impacted me was not only normal, but that I would be able to move through it and find happiness again.
Life Is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age
-Bruce Feiler
Change is the only thing that is constant. Ten years ago I had a pile up of life changing events and tragedies happen in a short amount of time. Bruce refers to the pile up as "life quakes" and the events as "disruptors". He describes how life quakes are higher on the Richter scale and can be disorienting to most. This book helped me to realize that all life quakes have a messy middle. That in order to create a new story, I would have to let go of the old one, reevaluate what was important to me and create my very own new life.
