Here are 100 books that The Awakened Family fans have personally recommended if you like
The Awakened Family.
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I saved many lives as a doctor working in the hospital, the ER, and the ICU. But the people whose lives I couldn’t save fascinated me the most. Many of them found a place of peace, healing, and profound knowledge before they died. This made me question what I learned in medical training. I loved science but knew there was something beyond what we could see and measure. I wasn’t religious, but I could sense some kind of ultimate and eternal love just beyond our grasp, creating and maintaining everything. I adore books that capture this sense of radical love and show us who we really are—so we can discover it today.
I love this book because it shows how to leave the ego behind and live in freedom. A passage in the Introduction immediately caught my attention. The author, who had a history of depression, finds himself saying, “I cannot live with myself any longer.” He suddenly realizes that he must be the “I” and that the “self” he can’t live with is just a fiction. This stuns him, his mind stops, and he wakes up, simple as that.
The rest of the book simply develops and amplifies that critical thought. It’s a realization we can all have. In fact, we’ll all have that realization at the moment we die—or now if we choose.
**CHOSEN BY OPRAH AS ONE OF HER 'BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH'**
The international bestselling spiritual book, now with a new look for its 20th anniversary. Eckhart Tolle demonstrates how to live a healthier, happier, mindful life by living in the present moment.
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'I keep Eckhart's book at my bedside. I think it's essential spiritual teaching. It's one of the most valuable books I've ever read.' Oprah Winfrey
To make the journey into The Power of Now we will need to leave our analytical mind and its false created self, the ego, behind. Although the journey is challenging, Eckhart…
The reason I’m so fascinated by stand-up and books on writing is because I have done both. For a brief time I was a comedian, and the lessons in creativity and writing I learned along the way helped me find the career of copywriting. I’m passionate about learning how great writers write, and more importantly, keep writing, even when they don’t feel like it. I like to be inspired with lessons I can bring with me to every Word doc I open up.
Ryan Holiday, like Steven Pressfield, is a no-nonsense writer whose words inspire you to start that project you’ve been putting off.
Already started it but running into some, well, obstacles? Holiday describes in his book how obstacles are a good thing and inspires us to look for creative solutions. This book made me reframe how I look at challenges, both personally and professionally.
We give up too easily. With a simple change of attitude, what seem like insurmountable obstacles become once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. Ryan Holiday, who dropped out of college at nineteen to serve as an apprentice to bestselling 'modern Machiavelli' Robert Greene and is now a media consultant for billion-dollar brands, draws on the philosophy of the Stoics to guide you in every situation, showing that what blocks our path actually opens one that is new and better.
If the competition threatens you, it's time to be fearless, to display your courage. An impossible deadline becomes a chance to show how dedicated you…
As someone who has experienced a lot of loss in my life, I’ve done a good amount of research and exploration into the soulful nature in all of us (the living and the dead) through reading nonfiction (Laura Lynn Jackson, Brian Weiss, Edgar Cayce, Jane Roberts, John Edward and Suzane Northrop among them) and fiction that deals with strong soulful connections. Through my own work as an author, I seek to provide the message love, in any form, transcends life and death. We only have to be open to the possibility to know it and experience it. Nothing is a coincidence and we are all connected. I hope these selections open you to the possibility.
Mitch Albom creates a heavenly world for the main character, Eddie, who has just ascended from earth after saving someone at the carnival where he worked; thus, meeting his own tragic demise.
What strikes me most in this story are the seemingly irrelevant connections we make in life and how those connections could have a deep and lasting impact. Every single thing we do or say or the people we touch is purposeful here, and drives us, our souls, to seek grace in all that we do.
A STUNNING 20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION OF THE MASTER STORYTELLER'S INSPIRATIONAL CLASSIC
To his mind, Eddie has lived an uninspiring life. Now an old man, his job is to fix rides at a seaside amusement park.
On his eighty-third birthday, Eddie's time on earth comes to an end. When a cart falls from the fairground, he rushes to save a little girl's life and tragically dies in the attempt. When Eddie awakens, he learns that the afterlife is not a destination, but a place where your existence is explained to you by five people - some of whom you knew, others…
These are the books that changed my life and were the catalyst for a change in career from litigation attorney to life coach. I am also a Friendship expert who is currently traveling the US, meeting a stranger in every state to share a meal with. These books align with the way I live and the energy and lessons that I hope to share with everyone I meet. These are not just books to entertain but also books that have helped me get through some difficult times in life and have helped me find real purpose and meaning in the way I move through life.
This book changed my life. This is the book that taught me the power of journaling.
I found the journal prompts that the book offers to be useful and appreciate that they provided a guide that helped me define my core beliefs and taught me to listen to my inner voice in a way that brought about an easy method to figure out not only what is truly important to me but this method also helped me to define my goals and purpose in a no-fuss bare bones way.
This book was the catalyst that eventually led me to my career as a life coach.
Your bucket list. Quarterly objectives. Strategic plans. Big dreams. Goals. Lots of goals and plans to achieve those goals-no matter what. Except ...
You're not chasing the goal itself, you're actually chasing the feeling that you hope achieving that goal will give you.
Which means we have the procedures of achievement upside down. We go after the stuff we want to have, get, or accomplish, and we hope that we'll be fulfilled when we get there. It's backwards. And it's burning us out.
So what if you first got clear on how you actually wanted to feel in your life,…
I began writing my book when my older son was two, and my youngest was less than six months. And if that sounds like a bad idea to you–it was! But despite the madness of trying to write a novel in 5-minute parcels of time, for me, it was a necessary way to reclaim some of my individuality at a time when I often felt I was losing it. I’m so glad I have my book to remind me of the very particular challenges of new parenthood. These are some books I found that helped me do just that.
Books offering support to parents have come on in leaps and bounds since the days when Gina Ford and Supernanny-style discipline reigned supreme. This book is my go-to book for practical advice.
Perry, a psychotherapist with more than 20 years of experience, is not interested in manipulating children’s behaviour with naughty steps and sticker charts. Her approach may incidentally help to get your children to brush their teeth and eat their vegetables, but her emphasis is on the far deeper and more important business of how to build a mutually respectful and cooperative relationship. Her voice is wise and refreshingly nonjudgmental.
This is one for parents who, in Perry’s words, "Not only love their children but want to like them, too”.
From the UK's favourite therapist, as seen on Channel 4's Grayson's Art Club.
'A wonderful book' Richard Osman
'So clear and true ... Helpful for all relationships in life' Nigella Lawson
'A fascinating read on the emotional baggage we all carry' Elizabeth Day ______________________________________________________________________________________
How can we have better relationships?
In this Sunday Times bestseller, leading psychotherapist Philippa Perry reveals the vital do's and don'ts of relationships. This is a book for us all. Whether you are interested in understanding how your upbringing has shaped you, looking to handle your child's feelings or wishing to…
Growing up in the South Wales Valleys during the 1970s and 80s, I witnessed firsthand the effects of multiple adversities on the lives of those around me. Life was difficult for many families in the area as they battled with poverty, ill health, and lack of opportunity. I watched many amazing, creative, and talented young people fail to realise their potential. This sparked a passion and a career for supportive intervention with families and young children. It is my aim to help equip the workforce to better understand and respond to childhood adversity, be trauma aware, advocate for children’s rights, and make a positive difference in the lives of children and young people.
I love that this book is written primarily for parents. It presents the idea that by “flicking the strengths switch” and focusing on children’s many strengths rather than highlighting their weaknesses, parents can enjoy a better relationship with their children, help them develop optimism and resilience, and help protect against anxiety and depression.
It encourages parents to look for the good, become strength spotters, and help children build on positive emotions. However, the book is very nuanced and rejects a simplistic understanding of simply building children’s self-esteem in favour of research-based practices to help children become the best version of themself, especially in tough circumstances.
The book is very readable and filled with practical examples and compelling storytelling. It shows how a small shift in parenting approach can yield strong and lasting benefits for children and for families as a whole.
Unlock your child's potential by helping them build their strengths.
As a strengths-based scientist for more than 20 years, Dr Lea Waters has witnessed first-hand how focusing on our children's strengths, rather than correcting their weaknesses, can help build resilience and optimism, and offer protection from depression and anxiety.
In this game-changing book, she argues that by throwing the 'strength switch' parents can encourage creativity, develop their children's self-esteem and energy, and enhance achievement - and she offers easy-to-follow steps to teach parents how.
With specific tips for interacting with your kids and your teens, The Strength Switch offers all…
One of the main things I do for work is encourage parents to awaken their playful and empathic hearts and play with their kids—roughhousing play, dramatic play, games—and really listen to their kids. The connection this brings is unmistakable, and irreplaceable. Because so many adults, myself included, seem to have forgotten what it was like to be a child, I am always amazed when someone gets it. These are five books that brought me back there, from writers who somehow remembered, and share that understanding with compassion. (I was limited to books, but if I could have included a movie I would recommend C’mon C’mon.)
If you have read a parenting book or taken a parenting course in the last sixty years, chances are you have been influenced by the wisdom of Haim Ginott, even if you didn’t realize it.
He and his students, including the authors of How to Talk So Children Will Listen, set the groundwork for what is known today as connection parenting, conscious parenting, gentle parenting, playful parenting, and authoritative (but not authoritarian) parenting.
When my mom passed away and I looked through her books, I saw she had a first edition of Between Parent and Child, first published when I was a young boy.
When I read it, I felt a strong flash of recognition about the way she raised me. Ginott gets children, and he gets parents.
Strengthen your relationship with your children with this revised edition of the book by renowned psychologist Dr. Haim Ginott that has helped millions of parents around the world.
In this revised edition, Dr. Alice Ginott, clinical psychologist and wife of the late Haim Ginott, and family relationship specialist Dr. H. Wallace Goddard usher this bestselling classic into the new century while retaining the book’s positive message and Haim Ginott’s warm, accessible voice. Based on the theory that parenting is a skill that can be learned, this indispensable handbook will show you how to: • Discipline without threats, bribes, sarcasm, and…
As a social historian, I have helped to direct scholarly attention to the history of family life and helped to create the field of history of children. I'm the editor of a pioneering three-volume encyclopedia on the history of children and the author of six books and editor of three others based on extensive research about children’s experiences in the United States and the Western world. I've also been widely interviewed on the subject. The End of American Childhood brings this research experience and broad expertise in the field to a subject of urgent interest to today’s parents who want to understand how their own views about children and their child-rearing perspectives are grounded historically.
Anxious Parents: A History of Modern Childrearing in America probes what I consider to be the basic dilemma of modern American parenting – how the love for children and concern for their welfare has led to growing anxiety among parents eager to do it right.
In imaginative research into different dimensions of culture, Stearns shows that middle-class parents became increasingly self-conscious and self-questioning about meeting the needs of their children starting in the early twentieth century. The book probes the emotional consequences of modern parenting’s commitment to encouraging child expression and individual happiness.
Stearns’s exploration demonstrates one of the consequences of the revolution—from viewing children as having utility to having only emotional value—first defined by Zelizer. It suggests how even the best-intended changes can have unexpected consequences.
An examination into the history of modern parenting
The nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw a dramatic shift in the role of children in American society and families. No longer necessary for labor, children became economic liabilities and twentieth-century parents exhibited a new level of anxiety concerning the welfare of their children and their own ability to parent effectively. What caused this shift in the ways parenting and childhood were experienced and perceived? Why, at a time of relative ease and prosperity, do parents continue to grapple with uncertainty and with unreasonable expectations of both themselves and their children?
Peter N.…
I’ve been fascinated by relationships since I was a kid. I grew up a keen observer of the relationships in my own family, mostly focused on the way in which the dynamics were difficult for me. This led me to develop a strong interest in psychology, a passion I pursued in my undergraduate education. I became acutely intrigued by an idea a professor exposed me to early on – that experiences of safety and security within attachment relationships are essential in order for children to thrive, and that without safety/security, they can experience chronic struggles. This early interest paved the way for what developed into my career as a psychology professor and therapist.
This book is the best, hands-on guide for how to talk to children that I have ever seen. It’s kind of like a how-to-talk to children for dummies.
It’s as though the authors spent years dissecting every aspect of what makes conversations between adults and kids go well and what makes them flop and then put that down in a book. And then the authors convey this information so clearly and concretely, including through the use of cartoons and worksheets.
The book also clearly exposes (in a humorous, light-hearted way) why certain ways of talking to kids fail. This is an old book but one I wish I had discovered before I had my own kids. I now intend to give it to all of my clients and friends when they become new parents.
30th Anniversary Edition updated with new insights from the next generation. You can stop fighting with your children! Here is the bestselling book that will give you the know-how you need to be more effective with your children--and more supportive of yourself. Enthusiastically praised by parents and professionals around the world, the down-to-earth, respectful approach of Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish makes relationships with children of all ages less stressful and more rewarding. Now, in this thirtieth-anniversary edition, these award-winning experts share their latest insights and suggestions based on feedback they've received over the years. Their methods of communication--illustrated with…
Throughout my teen years, I heard the narrative that mothers are powerless doormats who should be doing something better with their lives. But in time, I realized motherhood is a position of profound power. And I knew that the prevailing messaging on motherhood needed to change! As an author, speaker, and policy advisor for an NGO at the United Nations, I have spent the past 10 years inspiring women to embrace their potential—including their irreplaceable roles as mothers. I have a degree in English, but my finest education came from raising my four college-age daughters and my one young son. Mothers are miraculous!
Reading this book made me a better mom almost overnight! It impacted me and changed the way I approach my relationship with my kids more than I thought was possible.
I’m a mom of five kids and a pretty darn good one, but this book took parenthood to the next level for me. I wish I had read it years ago! Now I can hardly imagine parenting without this insightful, informative, inspiring, book.
'Mate's book will make you examine your behaviour in a new light' Guardian
'bold, wise and deeply moral. [Mate] is a healer to be cherished' Naomi Klein, author of No Logo and The Shock Doctrine
Children take their lead from their friends: being 'cool' matters more than anything else. Shaping values, identity and codes of behaviour, peer groups are often far more influential than parents.
But this situation is far from natural, and it can be dangerous - it undermines family cohesion, interferes with healthy development, and fosters a hostile and sexualized youth culture. Children end up becoming conformist, anxious…
