Category — self-discovery

There’s a great, great, great list of tips to rejuvenate your creativity from Lifehack today. My faves: …. well all of ‘em! In a nutshell, if you’re stuck, change things up. See/experience things you don’t normally see/experience. Also, keep capture device(s) on you at ALL times (camera, notebook, etc.).

Go read the tips: 30 Tips to Rejuvenate Your Creativity

Joe wrote to show a cool little pamphlet from Mega Blocks. Here’s part of it:

Check out the whole thing at FourHMan: How Creativity Saved the World

I stumbled upon a nice list of tips to trick your brain to take a fresh look at things, and maybe, spark some creative stuff at: Creative Creativity

They are:

1. The George Costanza Method
2. Change Your Commute
3. Calling Things By The Wrong Name
4. Write WIth the Wrong Hand
5. Listen to a Radio Talk Show That Pisses You Off

So go check out 5 Tips On How To Trick Your Brain Into Taking A Fresh Look At The World to get all the details!

Martha Beck

Thoughts/Words/Reviews:

Put the telescope away; the North Star mentioned here is a human body, not a heavenly one. And like Polaris, which has guided sailors for centuries, the human body’s gut feelings and emotions can help guide a wayward soul back to his or her “essential self.” In this absorbing combination of detailed self-awareness exercises and true stories from her own counseling experience (equal parts sobering and hysterically entertaining), Harvard-trained sociologist Martha Beck invites readers to explore their heart’s desires and the vast social webs that keep such desires in check. The goal is not to forsake the “social self” and indulge every emotional impulse of the “essential self.” Rather, Beck gives readers the tools and the encouragement to achieve maximum happiness by harmonizing these typically divergent voices.

Beck (author of Expecting Adam) admits that repairing a damaged emotional compass and setting out on such a vital journey–which often involves painful realizations and changes–”has all the combined attractions of suicide and childbirth.” But the payoff, she concludes, is a love affair with real life. To that end, she walks readers through a lengthy exercise to evaluate their current lifestyle’s pleasures and pains, teaches the process of listening to the body for directional cues, describes how to extract “soul shrapnel” (healing all those nasty, self-defeating emotional wounds), and provides an intriguing “Map of Change” to achieve an authentic life. Beck’s impressive knowledge, her engaging (if somewhat irreverent) voice, and her ability to parse this scary process into achievable steps make her a new champion in the self-help arena. –Liane Thomas

View More about Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live

Julia Cameron

Thoughts/Words/Reviews:
Now in paperback, the national bestseller that is breaking down the mythology behind the “writing life.”

What if everything we have been taught about learning to write was wrong? In The Right to Write, Julia Cameron’s most revolutionary book, the author asserts that conventional writing wisdom would have you believe in a false doctrine that stifles creativity.

With the techniques and anecdotes in The Right to Write, readers learn to make writing a natural, intensely personal part of life. Cameron’s instruction and examples include the details of the writing processes she uses to create her own bestselling books. She makes writing a playful and realistic as well as a reflective event. Anyone jumping into the writing life for the first time and those already living it will discover the art of writing is never the same after reading The Right to Write.

View More about The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life

Check out the official site: http://www.thesilenceoftrees.com/

Too often the women of history have been silenced, but their stories have power to reveal, to teach, and to transform. This is one such story . . .

Valya Dudycz Lupescu

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Oblivious of the dangers that surround her in World War II Ukraine, sixteen-year-old Nadya sneaks out in the middle of the night to ask a fortuneteller about her lover. She returns to find her house on fire, her family missing, and her boyfriend suspected in their disappearance. The couple flees to escape the invading Russian army, but only Nadya survives, ending up in a Displaced Workers camp in Germany. There she meets Pavlo, and fear and loneliness bind her to him. She chooses to leave the past behind as they begin anew in America. After a lifetime of love and loss, Nadya is forced to confront her ghosts when an envelope arrives from Ukraine. In Nadya’s world, myth and magic are a part of daily life-house spirits misplace eyeglasses and sewing needles, a fortuneteller’s cards can predict the future, and the dead softly whisper secrets in the night. Nadya must decide how to appease her dead, and in doing so she may finally find a way to start living.

View More about The Silence of Trees - Official ABNA Entrant

Sark

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Thoughts/Words/Reviews:
acidfreeink.com says: My partner sent me this book (via Amazon!) when I was going through a particularly hard time in my life. He had not read it, but a coworker mentioned the book to him and he thought it would be something I would like. While laying on my couch at home sick with pneumonia the doorbell rang and this book was delivered. I read it that day from cover to cover that day. This book touched me deeply - I credit it (and SARK) with helping me take my first step to making my creative dreams real. (I have also gone on to buy every other book SARK has written). If you are having trouble remembering what it is to live life with joy, Inspiration Sandwich will help you take the first steps to getting there.

an amazon.com customer says: Believe in daily miracles!
And let discovering SARK’s books be one of them! This book is filled with SARK’s distinctive handwritten thoughts and doodles. The colored inserts are a touch that adds some visual jump to the book. I particularly like the inserted small book ‘Daily Miracles’: there are miracles everywhere, relax, fill your heart with wonder, you are not alone, have an adventure, relax. These thoughts are the backbone of “Inspiration Sandwich” and SARK gives all kinds of great examples and suggestions on how to incorporate them into your life. If you’re looking for some ideas on how to add joy and passion to your life, in SARK’s words, “Eat this book”.

View More about Inspiration Sandwich: Stories to Inspire Our Creative Freedom

Paulo Coelho

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Thoughts/Words/Reviews:
An inspirational tale about following your dreams.

My Heart Is Afraid that it will have to suffer,” the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky.”Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams.”

Every few decades a book is published that changes the lives of its readers forever. The Alchemist is such a book. With over a million and a half copies sold around the world, The Alchemist has already established itself as a modern classic, universally admired. Paulo Coelho’s charming fable, now available in English for the first time, will enchant and inspire an even wider audience of readers for generations to come.

The Alchemist is the magical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure as extravagant as any ever found. From his home in Spain he journeys to the markets of Tangiers and across the Egyptian desert to a fateful encounter with the alchemist.

The story of the treasures Santiago finds along the way teaches us, as only a few stories have done, about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, learning to read the omens strewn along life’s path, and, above all, following our dreams.

View More about The Alchemist