A 2019 Nautilus Silver Book Award Winner You can't fix what you don't see. But with awareness and the right tools, real change can and does happen. No matter how hard we try, many of us struggle to make love work with our partners. The problem, as clinical psychologist Dr. Ron Frederick explains, is that our brains are running on outdated software. Without us knowing it, our early relationship programming causes us to fear being more emotionally present and authentic with our partners—precisely what’s needed to build loving connections. But we don’t have to remain prisoners to our past. Grounded in cutting-edge neuroscience and attachment theory, Loving Like You Mean It shares a proven four-step approach to use emotional mindfulness to break free from old habits, befriend your emotional experience, and develop new ways of relating. The capacity for deep, loving connections is inside all of us, waiting to come out. By practicing the science behind loving like you mean it, your relationships can be fuller and richer than you ever imagined.
In LIVING LIKE YOU MEAN IT, author Ronald J. Frederick, does a brilliant job of describing why people are so afraid of their emotions and how this fear creates a variety of problems in their lives. While the problems are different, the underlying issue is often the same. At the core of their distress is what Dr. Frederick refers to as feelings phobia. Whether it s the experience of love, joy, anger, sadness, or surprise, our inborn ability to be a fully feeling person has been hijacked by fear--and it s fear that s keeping us from a better life. The book begins with a questionnaire-style list that help readers take an honest look at themselves and recognize whether and how they are afraid of their feelings. It then moves on to explore the origins of fear of feeling and introduces a four-part program for overcoming the fear: (1) Become aware of and learn to recognize feelings--anger, sadness, joy, love, fear, guilt/shame, surprise, disgust. (2) Master techniques for taming the fear. (3) Let the feeling work its way all the way through to its resolution. (4) Open up and put those feelings into words and communicate them confidently. With wisdom, humor, and compassion, the book uses stories and examples to help readers see that overcoming feelings phobia is the key to a better life and more fulfilling relationships.
Triumphant wins, gut-wrenching losses, last-second shots, underdogs, competition, and loyalty—it’s fun to be a fan. But when a football player takes a hit to the head after yet another study has warned of the dangers of CTE, or when a team whose mascot was born in an era of racism and bigotry takes the field, or when a relief pitcher accused of domestic violence saves the game, how is one to cheer? Welcome to the club for sports fans who care too much. In Loving Sports When They Don’t Love You Back, acclaimed sports writers Jessica Luther and Kavitha A. Davidson tackle the most pressing issues in sports, why they matter, and how we can do better. For the authors, “sticking to sports” is not an option—not when our taxes are paying for the stadiums, and college athletes aren’t getting paid at all. But simply quitting a favorite team won’t change corrupt and deplorable practices, and the root causes of many of these problems are endemic in our wider society. An essential read for modern fans, Loving Sports When They Don’t Love You Back challenges the status quo and explores how we might begin to reconcile our conscience with our fandom.
Having successfully helped readers develop a solid prayer life with the best-selling release of A Praying Life, author Paul Miller applies his expertise to an even more important issue—love. After all, love is what holds all things together, it's what we're looking for, it's what we all need, and it's what we must learn how to give. But loving people is hard. Our neighbors, friends, kids, spouses, and even our enemies require a relentless, self-giving demonstration of love that only God can produce within us. Taking his cues from the perseverance and faithfulness portrayed in the book of Ruth, Miller sheds light on a biblical portrait of love that is sure to give us hope and transform our souls. Here is the help we need to embrace relationship, endure rejection, cultivate community, and reach out to even the most unlovable as we discover the power to live a loving life.
The most ambitious work of fiction by a writer widely considered the most important novelist working in China today In this darkly comic novel, a group of women inhabits a world of constant surveillance, where informants lurk in the flowerbeds and false reports fly. Conspiracies abound in a community that normalizes paranoia and suspicion. Some try to flee—whether to a mysterious gambling bordello or to ancestral homes that can only be reached underground through muddy caves, sewers, and tunnels. Others seek out the refuge of Nest County, where traditional Chinese herbal medicines can reshape or psychologically transport the self. Each life is circumscribed by buried secrets and transcendent delusions. Can Xue's masterful love stories for the new millennium trace love's many guises—satirical, tragic, transient, lasting, nebulous, and fulfilling—against a kaleidoscopic backdrop drawn from East and West of commerce and industry, fraud and exploitation, sex and romance.
I have been standing on the side of life, watching it float by. I want to swim in the river. I want to feel the current. So writes Mamah Borthwick Cheney in her diary as she struggles to justify her clandestine love affair with Frank Lloyd Wright. Four years earlier, in 1903, Mamah and her husband, Edwin, had commissioned the renowned architect to design a new home for them. During the construction of the house, a powerful attraction developed between Mamah and Frank, and in time the lovers, each married with children, embarked on a course that would shock Chicago society and forever change their lives. In this ambitious debut novel, fact and fiction blend together brilliantly. While scholars have largely relegated Mamah to a footnote in the life of America’s greatest architect, author Nancy Horan gives full weight to their dramatic love story and illuminates Cheney’s profound influence on Wright. Drawing on years of research, Horan weaves little-known facts into a compelling narrative, vividly portraying the conflicts and struggles of a woman forced to choose between the roles of mother, wife, lover, and intellectual. Horan’s Mamah is a woman seeking to find her own place, her own creative calling in the world. Mamah’s is an unforgettable journey marked by choices that reshape her notions of love and responsibility, leading inexorably ultimately lead to this novel’s stunning conclusion. Elegantly written and remarkably rich in detail, Loving Frank is a fitting tribute to a courageous woman, a national icon, and their timeless love story. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Nancy Horan's Under the Wide and Starry Sky. Advance praise for Loving Frank: “Loving Frank is one of those novels that takes over your life. It’s mesmerizing and fascinating–filled with complex characters, deep passions, tactile descriptions of astonishing architecture, and the colorful immediacy of daily life a hundred years ago–all gathered into a story that unfolds with riveting urgency.” –Lauren Belfer, author of City of Light “This graceful, assured first novel tells the remarkable story of the long-lived affair between Frank Lloyd Wright, a passionate and impossible figure, and Mamah Cheney, a married woman whom Wright beguiled and led beyond the restraint of convention. It is engrossing, provocative reading.” ——Scott Turow “It takes great courage to write a novel about historical people, and in particular to give voice to someone as mythic as Frank Lloyd Wright. This beautifully written novel about Mamah Cheney and Frank Lloyd Wright’s love affair is vivid and intelligent, unsentimental and compassionate.” ——Jane Hamilton “I admire this novel, adore this novel, for so many reasons: The intelligence and lyricism of the prose. The attention to period detail. The epic proportions of this most fascinating love story. Mamah Cheney has been in my head and heart and soul since reading this book; I doubt she’ ll ever leave.” –Elizabeth Berg
If he had been with me everything would have been different... I wasn't with Finn on that August night. But I should've been. It was raining, of course. And he and Sylvie were arguing as he drove down the slick road. No one ever says what they were arguing about. Other people think it's not important. They do not know there is another story. The story that lurks between the facts. What they do not know—the cause of the argument—is crucial. So let me tell you...
How do you forgive when the wound is still open? People often ask Sarah, "How did you forgive your alcoholic mother?” How do you forgive someone who carelessly brushed aside your pain, who caused such destruction, and who doesn’t show remorse? How do you know when to stay and when to go? In The Complicated Heart, you will travel through Sarah's story with her, from age 14 and beyond, as she wrestles with these very questions. Prepare yourself: she holds nothing back. If you’ve struggled with a difficult relationship, if you’ve felt torn-up and crazy and confused because of it, if you just want to know how to move forward and be okay, this story is for you. Dysfunction does not have to be your destiny or your identity. Victory is on the table. What's more: you’ll not only travel with Sarah, you’ll travel with her mom as well as you read her mom’s journal entries and letters. What goes on in the mind of the person who hurt you the most? In this story, you’ll get a rare peek into that mind and heart. In these pages you'll be reminded that light always finds a way in, even in the deepest darkness, and redemption and joy are possible in the midst of trauma and unmet needs. If you want to learn how to forgive when your wound is still open, heal when circumstances don't change, and become a generational bondage-breaker, The Complicated Heart is for you. And if not for you, for someone you know. Pass it along.
This beloved book has touched hundreds of thousands of lives with its profound and actionable advice. Retaining the core message of becoming more mindful in our relationships, this edition includes new and revised material that addresses how we live and love today. A new preface touches on David Richo’s experience with the book over time and outlines the key updates, including attention to online dating and modern communication styles as well as new perspectives on anger and ending relationships. “Most people think of love as a feeling,” says Richo, “but love is not so much a feeling as a way of being present.” How to Be an Adult in Relationships explores five hallmarks of mindful loving and how they play a key role in our relationships. Adult love is based on a mutual commitment to what Richo calls the “five A’s”: attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, and allowing. Brimming with practical exercises for couples and singles, How to Be an Adult in Relationships offers heartening insights into a lifelong journey of love. Topics include: • Becoming conscious of our relationship patterns and how they relate to childhood • Recognizing and attracting someone who can show adult love • Understanding the phases relationships go through • Creating and maintaining healthy boundaries • Overcoming fears of abandonment and engulfment • Expressing anger and other emotions in adult and loving ways • Surviving break-ups with our self-esteem intact • Understanding love as a spiritual journey
