The author of "Intimacy and Solitude" offers a brilliantly clear, optimistic book which shows how the great humane virtues can help in times of hardship and lead to a joyful, trusting, enriched life.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Chair of The Elders, and Chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, along with his daughter, the Reverend Mpho Tutu, offer a manual on the art of forgiveness—helping us to realize that we are all capable of healing and transformation. Tutu's role as the Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission taught him much about forgiveness. If you asked anyone what they thought was going to happen to South Africa after apartheid, almost universally it was predicted that the country would be devastated by a comprehensive bloodbath. Yet, instead of revenge and retribution, this new nation chose to tread the difficult path of confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Each of us has a deep need to forgive and to be forgiven. After much reflection on the process of forgiveness, Tutu has seen that there are four important steps to healing: Admitting the wrong and acknowledging the harm; Telling one's story and witnessing the anguish; Asking for forgiveness and granting forgiveness; and renewing or releasing the relationship. Forgiveness is hard work. Sometimes it even feels like an impossible task. But it is only through walking this fourfold path that Tutu says we can free ourselves of the endless and unyielding cycle of pain and retribution. The Book of Forgiving is both a touchstone and a tool, offering Tutu's wise advice and showing the way to experience forgiveness. Ultimately, forgiving is the only means we have to heal ourselves and our aching world.
2016 Books For A Better Life Award winner Drawing on the latest research and remarkable tales of forgiveness from around the world, journalist Megan Feldman explores how forgiveness, when practiced in the right ways, can save lives, make us happier and healthier, and lead to a better world. Veteran journalist Megan Feldman was still smarting over a bitter breakup when she began working on a feature article about a father named Azim who had truly forgiven the man who killed his son. She had found herself totally and completely unable to forgive her ex-boyfriend, and yet Azim had managed to forgive his own son’s murderer. Forgiveness has long been touted by religious leaders as a moral imperative. But Megan wanted to know exactly what it means from a scientific perspective, and why forgiving those who have wronged you is one of the best things you can do for yourself. In Triumph of the Heart, Feldman embarks on a quest to understand this complex idea, drawing on the latest research showing that forgiveness can provide a range of health benefits, from relieving depression to decreasing high blood pressure. The journey takes her from New Zealand and the Maori who practice their own form of restorative justice, to a principal in Baltimore who uses forgiveness techniques to eradicate violence in her school, and to recovered addicts who restarted their lives by seeking and receiving forgiveness. She travels to Rwanda to learn about forgiveness in the face of unthinkable atrocities. This book is a guide for how the practice of forgiveness can help us all in our search for a satisfying, fulfilling, good life.
Too many of us feel trapped in stagnant romantic, family, or workplace relationships. Weighed down by toxic thoughts and emotions, we might be quick to judge and slow to pardon, and self-righteous about our feelings as we dwell on memories of what we or others did (or failed to do). In this tradepaper edition, Iyanla Vanzant challenges us to liberate ourselves from the wounds of the past and to embrace the new power of forgiveness. With Iyanla’s 21-Day Forgiveness Plan, you’ll explore relationship dynamics with your parents, children, friends, partners, co-workers, bosses, yourself, and even God. With journaling work and Emotional Freedom Techniques (also known as "tapping"), you’ll learn to live with more love; gain new clarity on your life, lessons, and blessings; and discover a new level of personal freedom, peace, and well-being. Forgiveness doesn’t mean agreeing with, condoning, or even liking what has happened. Forgiveness means letting go and knowing that—regardless of how challenging, frightening, or difficult an experience may seem—everything is just as it needs to be in order for you to grow and learn. When you focus on how things "should" be, you deny the presence and power of love. Accept the events of the past, while being willing to change your perspective on them. As Iyanla says, "Only forgiveness can liberate minds and hearts once held captive by anger, bitterness, resentment, and fear. Forgiveness is a true path to freedom that can renew faith, build trust, and nourish the soul."
In Forgiveness, acclaimed producer and director Helen Whitney covers a compelling range of stories from adultery and personal betrayal to reconciliation after genocide; the struggle of 1960s radicals to cope with the consequences of violent acts of protest; families fractured by abandonment; and the spontaneous demonstration of forgiveness following the shooting of Amish children at Nickel Mines. With sensitivity and insight, Whitney explores why the process and discussion of forgiveness seems to dominate our culture, and its power, its limitations, and in some instances, its dangers.
What is forgiveness? When is it appropriate? Is it to be earned or can it be freely given? Is it a passion we cannot control, or something we choose to do? Glen Pettigrove explores the relationship between forgiving, understanding, and loving. He examines the significance of character for the debate, and revives the long-neglected virtue of grace.
A co-founder of the Women's Press in England and a trained psychotherapist explores the paradox of needing to enjoy solitude before one can be truly intimate with another. In this critically acclaimed work, Dowrick moves readers through the realms of solitude, intimacy, and desire, offering spiritual as well aspsychological guidance.
‘This is a generous and genuinely sustaining book. It offers as much through its story of Roger Cole's own profound spiritual development as through the many compelling stories he tells. This is not a book 'about dying'; it's a book about the whole rich brew of existence, of which dying is just a part.' Stephanie Dowrick Fear of illness and death and the threat of being separated from loved ones affect us all. Often those diagnosed with serious and life-threatening illnesses, including their families and loved ones, have to face intense challenges before they can begin to heal and find peace. In Mission of Love, a palliative care specialist recounts the stories of people who have faced their greatest fears and have healed their lives through acceptance, inner peace and love. DR ROGER COLE’s observations and insights are informed by his own spiritual journey, which began in a workshop with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in 1984 and later led him to India where his meditation practice deepened. His message is one of hope and compassion: we can transform our lives and experience acceptance and peace. He explains the benefits of meditation and includes healing meditation exercises to aid self-transformation, to help focus the mind and to cultivate positive qualities. In describing the spiritual path, Dr Cole makes compelling arguments for the existence of an afterlife, and includes a moving personal account of the stages of spiritual transformation, its practices and rewards and the promise of self-discovery.
The book contains sixteen sermons from the book of Job. I take something as horrible as Jobs condition, and I compare it with something as totally constraining as a straitjacket. The book traces Job through the many seasons of his situation and will help people realize that, while they may indeed have some extremely difficult times, they too can find some hope and solace with God, as did Job.
"With Radical Acts of Love, Janie Brown demonstrates the power of a book to transform, in fact to turn things upside down. She turns death into life, despair into hope, sorrow into joy, and pain into love with these twenty astonishing encounters with the dying. We all know somewhere in the back of our minds that a deeper understanding and acceptance of death is supposed to release us into an even fiercer embrace of life—this wonderful book made me, for the first time, truly feel and believe it." —Stephen Fry In this profound and moving book, oncology nurse Janie Brown recounts twenty conversations she has had with the dying, including people close to her. Each conversation uncovers a different perspective on, and experience of death, while at the same time exploring its universalities. Offering extremely sensitive and wise insight into our final moments, Brown shows practical ways to facilitate the shift from feeling helpless about death to feeling hopeful; from fear to acceptance; from feeling disconnected and alone, to becoming part of the wider, collective story of our mortality. As Janie Brown writes, "Most people now under sixty have never seen a person die, and so have become deeply fearful about death, their own and the deaths of their beloved others. They have had no role models to show them how to care for a dying person, and therefore no confidence in being able to do so. My hope is that the baby boomer cohort who pushed for the return of the midwives to de-medicalize birth will also be instrumental in reclaiming the death process. This book is my contribution to the re-empowerment of all of us to take charge of our lives and our deaths, remembering that we know how to die, just as we knew how to come into this world. We also know how to heal, and to settle our lives as best we can, before we die. In my view, this is the greatest gift we could give our loved ones: to be prepared and open and accepting when the time comes for us to leave this world."