The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity: A Course in Discovering and Recovering Your Creative Self by Julia Cameron is a fabulous book and a 12-week fantastic experience. I’ve done the course twice. At the end of my first course, the other participants created a protection circle for me. It was a life-altering experience to be in the middle of the circle surrounded by the strength of unconditional love and powerful prayers.
My SARK Books
My SARK books are all lined up like visiting friends because that’s what they are ~ delightfully funny, candid, creative, refreshing, nurturing, loving, accepting, wise, embracing, wild, and succulent friends. We dance and laugh and celebrate and find joy together.
SARK is one of us. She experienced physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her brother. She adopted the name SARK which stands for Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy.
Today’s post is in a rainbow of colors because that’s how SARK writes her books. They are a riot of colors in SARK’s scrawling handwriting. She beautifully illustrates all her books in ways guaranteed to make you smile.
V-Girls: I AM AN EMOTIONAL CREATURE by Eve Ensler
When Ms. Ensler debuted her new idea at the TED India conference in November, 2009, she addressed how we silence girls’ authentic voices ~ tell them not to show their brilliance ~ tone it down ~ don’t be too intense. We sell them and objectify them and turn them into commodities to be bought and sold. In essence, we render them invisible.
Money: The Secret Currency of Love edited by Hilary Black”Women, Men & Money ~ and How It Can Muck Up True Love” book review by Kate Ashford.
Book Review: Freeing Yourself from the NarcIssist in Your Life by Linda Martinez-Lewi
To survive and flourish, we all need healthy narcissism.
– Linda Martinez-Lewi, Ph.D.
Narcissists are actors on the stage of life. Beneath their masks, narcissists are a fraud.
In Freeing Yourself from the Narcissist in Your Life, Linda Martinez-Lewi rips off the mask to expose the ruthless tyrant hiding behind it. In an age when narcissists are “treated like royalty,” we need solid information and advice on how to recognize and deal with the terminally self-absorbed.
Book Review: The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists by Eleanor D. Payson
Eleanor D. Payson’s marketing strategy for The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists: Coping with the One-Way Relationship in Work, Love, and Family was more solid than the content of her book. I recommend it highly if you need to learn how to timely recognize a person with a malignant (deadly) narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). After reading the book, I realized most abusive people have a malignant NPD. The book, unfortunately, is light on coping skills.
Book Review: It’s MY Life Now: Starting Over After an Abusive Relationship or Domestic Violence
The consistent message in the book is that we are not to blame for our present circumstances. Our issues are a normal response to the abuse we experienced. Yes, the toxic clean-up isn’t any fun, but we can do it. We’re strong, courageous, and resilient. We had to be to survive.
Book Review: The Survivors Club
The Survivors Club is one we all want to join.
Ben Sherwood didn’t include child abuse or domestic violence survivors in his best-selling book, The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science that Could Save Your Life. But, the Avon Foundation is featured in his list of survivor causes. And, he has a web page devoted to the stories of survivors of child abuse.
The Survivors Club: The Place for Surviving and Thriving is his website.
“Soldier’s Heart” was coined after the Civil War to describe what is now diagnosed as post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. The authors of Soldier’s Heart are Vietnam veterans who suffer from PTSD. William Schroder is a writer, and Dr. Ronald Dawe is a psychologist who specializes in the connection between PTSD and substance abuse. They decided to talk to other veterans with PTSD in order to try to better understand their own symptoms and experiences.
Soldier’s Heart: Close-up Today with PTSD in Vietnam Veterans was recommended to me at the Field’s End Writers’ Conference. I decided to read it because viable treatment protocols for PTSD will most likely arise from the military. The book is expensive: $49.95. I was lucky our library system had a copy.
If you are a veteran or are concerned about a veteran with PTSD, the soldiers’ stories will give you a candid glimpse into life in a combat zone. Dr. Dawe inserted diagnostic explanations into each soldier’s story. I will be focusing this review on what I learned about PTSD. Read more. . .
Anne Caroline Drake 