Elevated Existence September 2016 Self-Help Book Picks

Posted on by Tammy

Each month, a ton of new spiritual and self-help books hit the market. It’s easy to get overwhelmed or miss out on some new releases.

We created Elevated Existence Monthly Book Picks to help our readers narrow down their search, and make sure they don’t miss some great options!

The books for this month were chosen by our editor’s as their picks for September 2016. They are listed below in alphabetical order. Click on each title to go directly to Amazon and find out more about the book.

“Believe, Ask, Act: Divine Steps to Raise Your Intuition, Create Change and Discover Happiness,” by MaryAnn DiMarco — Psychic medium, intuitive counselor and spiritual teacher, MaryAnn DiMarco shares her teachings for developing intuition to us to control life using three powerful steps: Believe, Ask & Act. This includes belief in a higher power, asking the right questions to our personal team of angles, guides and departed loved ones, and take action to create change. She also shares how to identify and remove the spiritual, emotional and real-world obstacles holding us back.

“The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World,” by Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu and Douglas Carlton Abrams — Two great spiritual mentors His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, share their wisdom about living with joy, even when faced with adversity. Both have been tested with personal and national adversity, and they share their personal stories of struggle and renewal, as well as the most recent findings in the science of deep happiness and daily practices to anchor our emotional and spiritual lives.

“Let Your Spirit Guides Speak: A Simple Guide for a Life of Purpose, Abundance and Joy,” by Debra Landwehr Engle — Are you ready to build a relationship with your spirit guides? Learn how to connect to them for help with everything from simple to challenging life decisions. Learn how to utilize spirit guides to fulfill your life purpose, make decisions to move forward faster, stop sabotaging and judging yourself and more.

“Making Friends with Your Mind,” by Pema Chodron — Bestselling author Pema Chodron help us stop fighting with our thoughts and reopen ourselves to wonder as naturally as we breathe. During the sessions in this audio, she helps the listener bring awareness to inflexible thoughts through meditations, daily practices and small changes that can impact our lives.

“Marrow: A Love Story,” by Elizabeth Lesser — New York Times bestselling author of “Broken Open,” Elizabeth Lesser’s new memoir,” Marrow: A Love Story,” chronicles the journey of donating bone marrow when her sister needs a transplant, and the lessons learned, including acceptance, authenticity and love. The sisters delve into what Lesser calls a “soul marrow transplant,” examining family history, having difficult conversations, offering forgiveness and more. When her sister’s body is not strong enough to fight, the story evolves into how even our most difficult experiences offer opportunities for spiritual growth.

“Radical Beauty: How to Transform Yourself from the Inside Out,” by Deepak Chopra and Kimberly Snyder — Bestselling author Deepak Chopra teams up with Hollywood nutritionist and New York Times bestselling author of The Beauty Detox Solution, Kimberly Snyder to teach their six pillars of healthy living focused on internal and external nourishment, sleep, living naturally, avoiding excess stress and better understanding the relationship between emotions and inflammatory foods. The authors offer practical tips, tools, innovative routines and foods to help us reaching our highest potential of beauty and health, including do-it-yourself home skin care and beauty remedies and delicious recipes.

“The Recovering Spender: How to Live a Happy, Fulfilled, Debt-Free Life,” by Lauren Greutman — After years of struggling with too many bills and not enough money to pay for them, Lauren Guetman found herself drowning in debt until she finally faced her extreme spending habits and took action. Now she shares the strategies she developed to change her own life and bring her family budget back to black, including taking inventory of spending, decluttering finances, doing an expense audit, curbing spending and defining values.

“Uncharted: The Journey Through Uncertainty to Infinite Possibility,” by Colette Baron-Reid — Our September YouTube interview, Colette Baron-Reid shares how we can all learn to sail into uncharted waters, away from the familiar ways not working for us anymore, to discover the infinite potential we have access to in order to co-create the life we desire along with Sprit. She teaches us how to draw our own map of the soul for an inward journey through five interconnected realms of co-creation — Spirit, Mind, Light, Energy and Form.

“The Universe Has Your Back: Transform Your Fear to Faith,” by Gabrielle Bernstein — The New York Times bestselling author teaches readers how to transform fear into faith in order to live a divinely guided life. Each story and lesson guides readers to release blocks to happiness, security and clear direction, and explain how to find strength, support, safety and joy, while unleashing the power of their true presence.

“What if This is Heaven? How Our Cultural Myths Prevent Us from Experiencing Heaven on Earth,” by Anita Moorjani — Elevated Existence September 2016 cover story interview, and author of “Dying to Be Me,” Anita Moorjani reveals the biggest myths that are holding us back from being authentically who we are, and who we planned to be before incarnating in this life. She uses examples from her own life and others to break these common myths, including spiritual people don’t have egos and we get what we deserve in life.

Brene Brown, Joan Halifax Roshi Talk Women & Balance at Omega Women & Power Conference

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Authors Brene Brown and Joan Halifax Roshi joined co-founder of the Omega Institute Elizabeth Lesser on stage during the opening evening session of the Omega Institute’s “Women and Power Retreat” on September 20, 2013 to discuss the strength, vulnerability and authenticity at the heart of women’s leadership today.

In discussing authenticity, Brown shared her personal mantra: ‘Don’t shrink, don’t puff up and stand your sacred ground.’

“When I first started the research I though there are authentic people and inauthentic people, but what I learned was there is no such thing … there are just people who practice authenticity, and it’s this daily practice. I wanted to have a mantra as part of my practice,” she said.

She came up with hers after taking a trip to attend a board meeting for the Nobel Women’s Initiative. Upon returning, she was confronted by a women when picking her children up from school – a women who in the past had made her feel guilty or “like she had been slimed.”

“She said who took care of the kids while you were gone, and so shrinking would have been for me to say, ‘oh, I was gone and mom had to come in,’ and puffing up would be ‘I was changing the world with the noble women’s initiative, what were you doing last week? How was the bake sale,’” she told the audience laughing. “But that would be hurtful and not authentic and not me.” Instead she discovered her mantra.

Finding a Balance
Part of the evening’s discussion covered finding balance in our lives by taking the time we need for what Halifax Roshi calls the “in breath,” and also changing our view of gender roles.

Lesser explained many of us feel concerned for the world, worry about our children and want to give of ourselves in a way that makes a difference. But in order to give, we must take time to receive. “What good are we if we are the angry peacemaker?” she asked.

Halifax Roshi compared giving and receiving to the act of breathing. “It’s what the body teaches us – at this moment it’s an exhale and the next moment it’s an inhale. It’s just as important to have the inhale. It’s really knowing your capacities and claiming them,” she said.

Brown’s research has shown her we can’t give to people what we don’t have, and that although for many women the “in breath” time can be a shame trigger, it is necessary.

“I can’t give love and kindness to my kids or to the world or the Earth if I can’t give love and kindness to myself,” she said.

For many women, their identity is caught up in the archetype of the “do gooder,” said Halifax Roshi. “Our social approval comes from us being caregivers and that we are looked on as being self-centered and narcissistic [otherwise].”

Additionally, part of finding balance is for women to begin encouraging men to become caretakers as well, Lesser noted. “It must be a shared responsibility because humans and the Earth need care,” she said.

Brown told the audience as of Oct. 1, her husband was pulling back at work and would be home three days a week – what she called a “shared care, shared work model” – and in her research she is finding men are actually more open to this then women may think.

“What I see is men so teetering close to the edge of sheer grief about what they are missing in their lives that it is almost painful to acknowledge it. It is much easier to express it as power and rage,” Brown explained. “I think women are exhausted…we are holding our breath, not taking our deep breaths in because we want to be perceived as ‘do it all, do it perfectly, and never let them see you sweat,’ and men are holding their breath because ‘yes, we are missing out, and yes we are disengaged from stuff that we really love, but we don’t know how else to do it, and we don’t have support, not just from the systems we work in but from the female partners in their lives.’”

In fact, Brown said the No. 1 source of shame for men – according to what they have told her in her research – is women and usually the women who love them.

“I think we have a lot of healing work to do together, and I think vulnerability is that path back to each other – and the breathing.”

Omega Institute Women & Power Retreat Free Live Stream: Elizabeth Lesser, Brene Brown & Joan Halifax Roshi

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The Omega Institute is offering a free live stream of the opening evening session for this year’s Women & Power Retreat on September 20, 2013 from 8:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Elizabeth Lesser, cofounder of Omega and the Omega Women’s Leadership Center, will open the evening with a very short talk about the importance of having a soft front and strong back in life.

Following this, she will lead a conversation with Brene Brown, author of “Daring Greatly,” and “The Gifts of Imperfection,” and Joan Halifax Roshi, author and abbot of the Upaya Zen Cetner. They will discuss the strength, vulnerability and authenticity at the heart of women’s leadership today, and explore whether there is a uniquely female kind of strength; how vulnerability can make us stronger; and how we can courageously walk our talk.

If you cannot join live, the program will be available on demand until 11:00 p.m. September 23, 2013.

Omega Institute to Hold Annual Omega NYC April 20-22

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The Omega Institute is heading back to New York City for its annual Omega NYC conference – and this time 16 teachers will be on hand at the Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers, April 20–22, 2012.

Also, for the first time ever, Omega plans to broadcast live from the Women & Happiness workshop, so people around the world can watch for free online as renowned author Brené Brown presents “The Anatomy of Joy.”

Omega NYC begins Friday evening at 8:00 p.m. with a keynote talk, “With An Open Heart,” by Elizabeth Lesser, author of “Broken Open” and co-founder of Omega, as well as a special performance by musician David Wilcox.

Participants at Omega NYC dive deeper on Saturday and Sunday, when they can choose from one of seven in-depth workshops:

– Women and Happiness: The Give & Take of Finding Joy: Elizabeth Lesser, Carla Goldstein, Geneen Roth, Brené Brown*, Loung Ung, Gretchen Steidle Wallace, and Leslie Salmon Jones

– Loving What Is: Byron Katie

– Touching the Unseen World: Discovering Your Spiritual Self: James Van Praagh

– Energy Medicine: A Hands-On Workshop: Donna Eden and David Feinstein

– Breaking Through the Shadow of Fear: Debbie Ford

– Crazy Sexy Life: Creating a Daily Self-Care Game Plan: Kris Carr and Nicolas Ortner

– Meditation Skills for Life: Sharon Salzberg

To sign up for the live online event, featuring Brené Brown’s “The Anatomy of Joy,” or to register for a workshop, visit www.eOmega.org/nyc.