Compassion Fire is about my seasons of journaling years with God. • Seasons of mountaintops and valleys • Lessons that could only be learned through faith and dependence in God It’s in those valley seasons that we experience God and His presence at a deeper level than when on the mountaintops. I wouldn’t trade any of those experiences that I had for anything. Through these seasons I truly learned to trust God. My faith was strengthened, and I emerged out of the fire not consumed by it, but refined though not as silver, but as gold. – Chavonda Thompson
Praise for Practicing Compassion Everybody believes in compassion, but nobody tells you how to practice it. Until now. Frank Rogers turns compassion into a doable, daily practice—as simple as catching your breath and taking your pulse. If you want to read a book that actually has the capacity to change your life (and the world), beginning today, this is the book to read. —Brian D. McLaren Author/speaker/blogger/activist (brianmclaren.net) If you want clear, practical guidance on how to cultivate the inner resources to become a healing presence and force of good for the world, there is no better book than this and no better guide than Frank Rogers. —John Makransky Professor of Comparative Theology, Boston College Author of Awakening through Love Compassion is more than a sympathetic feeling—it's the bond of human connection. Most religions lift up compassion, yet few people actually teach how to practice it. Through rich and moving stories of people from various faiths, Frank Rogers shows ways to incorporate compassion in our daily lives. His interfaith perspective on mercy, kindness, and caring for one another trains us to Pay attention, Understand empathically, Love with connection, Sense the sacredness, and Embody new life (PULSE).
The world is full of chaos. Frustration. Fear. Do you want your life to be different? Through the practical wisdom of God’s Word, you can gain a fresh focus and purpose, become a person of character, and shine a light into the darkness. You can experience a life beyond amazing—starting today. Why is there such a gap between how Christ wants us to live and how we are living? In A Life Beyond Amazing, bestselling author and gifted Bible teacher Dr. David Jeremiah uncovers God’s strategy for change and challenges you to make nine important decisions that will transform your heart, your life, and your world. This life-changing book explores the nine qualities of character that carry us forward. Three of these have to do with our relationship with ourselves, three deal with interactions with other people, and three focus on our relationship with God. A Life Beyond Amazing: Provides much needed wisdom in a divisive world of low tolerance Emphasizes the danger of concentrating more on what you DO rather than who you ARE Sounds a wake-up call to believers everywhere on how they are responding to culture Offers a renewed sense of purpose to Christian believers A Life Beyond Amazing answers the questions that keep us up at night and shows us that the way forward is a reminder of who we are in Christ and why it matters. With Dr. Jeremiah’s sound biblical teaching, inspiring stories, and practical suggestions, you’ll discover how you can live a life beyond amazing. Don’t miss out on the life that the Lord has for you—a life of peace, joy, and victory. You don’t have to wait for heaven to impact your world.
Sure to be welcomed by caregivers of all types, the groundbreaking new Medicine and Compassion can help anyone reconnect with the true spirit of their caregiving task. It is estimated that some 54 million people in the U.S. act as informal caregivers for ill or disabled loved ones. We can add to these countless workers in the fields of health and human service, and yet there is still not enough help to go around: as many as three fourths of our informal caregivers report "going it alone." It's no wonder that "caregiver burnout" and depression afflict so many. Sure to be welcomed by caregivers of all types, the groundbreaking new Medicine and Compassion can help anyone reconnect with the true spirit of their caregiving task. In a clear and very modern voice, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche and Dr. David R. Shlim use the teachings of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy to present practical tools for revitalizing the caring spirit. Readers, in turn, will find their patience, kindness, and effectiveness re-energized. Offering practical advice on dealing with people who are angry at their medical conditions or their care providers, people who are dying, or the families of those who are critically ill, Medicine and Compassion will strike resonant chords with medical professionals, hospice workers, teachers, and parents of children with special needs, and those caring for aging and infirm loved ones.
Written by an emergency responder, this book offers the education and insight needed by emergency responders to become aware of the tremendous impact that they have during even the most brief encounters with people going through significant emotional events. It offers tools for scene compassion without becoming too wrapped up in someone else's emotions. The book discusses the nature of crisis response, the responsibility of emergency responders, and special considerations in dealing with children and the elderly as survivors. The subject of compassion fatigue and caring for oneself is also touched upon.
What is compassion, how does it affect the quality of our lives and how can we develop compassion for ourselves and others? Humans are capable of extreme cruelty but also considerable compassion. Often neglected in Western psychology, this book looks at how compassion may have evolved, and is linked to various capacities such as sympathy, empathy, forgiveness and warmth. Exploring the effects of early life experiences with families and peers, this book outlines how developing compassion for self and others can be key to helping people change, recover and develop ways of living that increase well-being. Focusing on the multi-dimensional nature of compassion, international contributors: explore integrative evolutionary, social constructivist, cognitive and Buddhist approaches to compassion consider how and why cruelty can flourish when our capacities for compassion are turned off, especially in particular environments focus on how therapists bring compassion into their therapeutic relationship, and examine its healing effects describe how to help patients develop inner warmth and compassion to help alleviate psychological problems. Compassion provides detailed outlines of interventions that are of particular value to psychotherapists and counsellors interested in developing compassion as a therapeutic focus in their work. It is also of value to social scientists interested in pro-social behaviour, and those seeking links between Buddhist and Western psychology.
Kristin Neff, Ph.D., says that it’s time to “stop beating yourself up and leave insecurity behind.” Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind offers expert advice on how to limit self-criticism and offset its negative effects, enabling you to achieve your highest potential and a more contented, fulfilled life. More and more, psychologists are turning away from an emphasis on self-esteem and moving toward self-compassion in the treatment of their patients—and Dr. Neff’s extraordinary book offers exercises and action plans for dealing with every emotionally debilitating struggle, be it parenting, weight loss, or any of the numerous trials of everyday living.
Too Small to Ignore will encourage you to turn your good, loving intentions into strategic actions and empower you to help change the world–and the future–forever, one child at a time. The time has come for a major paradigm shift: Children are too important and too intensely loved by God to be left behind or left to chance. Children belong to all of us and we are compelled to intervene on their behalf. We must invest in children all across the world. In Too Small to Ignore, Dr. Stafford issues an urgent call for change. His adventures as a boy raised in a West African village provide an often-humorous and always-captivating backdrop to his profound and inspiring challenges. Wess lived the reality of “it takes a village to raise a child” and calls us to “be that loving village for children everywhere.”
Reconciling the scientific principles of medicine with the love essential for meaningful care is not an easy task, but it is one that Gregory L. Fricchione performs masterfully in Compassion and Healing in Medicine and Society. At the core of this book is a thought-provoking analysis of the relationship between evolutionary science and neuroscience. Fricchione theorizes that the cries for attachment made by seriously ill patients reflect an underlying evolutionary tenet called the separation challenge–attachment solution process. The pleadings of patients, he explains, are verbal expressions of the history of evolution itself. By exploring the roots of a patient’s attachment needs, we come face to face with a critical component of natural selection and the evolutionary process. Medicine engages with the separation challenge–attachment solution process on many levels of scientific knowledge and human meaning and healing. Fricchione applies these concepts to medical care and encourages physicians to fully understand them so they can better treat their patients. Compassionate humanistic care promotes physical, emotional, and spiritual healing precisely because it is consonant with how life, the brain, and humanity have evolved. It is therefore not a luxury of modern medical care but an essential part of it. Fricchione advocates an attachment-based medical system, one in which physicians evaluate stress and resiliency and prescribe an integrative treatment plan for the whole person designed to accentuate the propensity to health. There is a wisdom or perennial philosophy based on compassionate love that, Fricchione stresses, the medical community must take advantage of in designing future health care—and society must appreciate as it faces its separation challenges.
