Positive Psychology

Book: “Positive Psychology for Overcoming Depression– Self-Help Strategies to Build Strength, Resilience and Sustainable Happiness” by Miriam Akhtar

Book Review by Mary Mikawoz

This books is relatively short for a self-help book. It is 254 pages on a digital copy. It is full of good information some of which is common sense but others that are the result of research studies. Miriam Akhtar suffered being “visited by the black dog” but no more based on practices she has implemented in her life.

Miriam spends a good portion of the beginning book explaining what “depression” is and is not. It is rather exhaustive and I wonder when you truly deal with depression, do you need such a lengthy explanation. Depression is a lengthy and continuous feeling of being hopeless, helpless and worthless. It is much more than a passing fancy. It is intense. There are psychological, physical and social symptoms to depression but too many to list here. It is the black hole that you simply can not get out of. There are various spirals you can take down with you from psychological, social to physical and pessimistic spirals.

She starts off the book about the ‘Tale of the Two Wolves.’ The grandfather is explaining to his grandson that there is a struggle going inside each person. A wolf that is evil and mean and a wolf that is good and positive. The grandson asks, which wolf wins to which the old man responds “Which ever one you feed?” It is very important then to feed the positive part of yourself and with determination, deny the negative of any feeding to the evil or bad one.

Miriam suggest doing positive things each day even if it is small and for example involves simply walking in the mall. Many approaches involves using your mental capacity to make changes and as this is the case, it will take time and constant repetition to do so.

Some of the arsenal in the positive kit are: Gratitude, Savouring, Acts of Kindness, Connecting with Loved Ones, Using your Strengths, Mindfulness Meditation, Loving-Kindness Meditation, Physical Activities, and Visualizing Your Best Possible Self (seeing your future positively).

Miriam Akhtar highlights many books that offer further insights into the positive parts of the kit. She references these book as places to get more information to deal with depression.

With gratitude, it is dependent upon the senses you relate to most as to what you are most thankful for. With visual, it might be seeing beautiful art and with touch, it might be a massage or hot bath. With smell, it might be smelling flowers and with auditory, it might be listening to good music or a listening to a choir.

French author, Albert Camus, speaks of “In the midst of winter, I found there was inside me an invincible summer.” We all need to see the beauty and positives in the negative and the cold.

With Loving-Kindness meditation, there are three aspects available – a Visualization of imagining a person smiling at you, of Reflection – reflecting upon positive aspects of a person or yourself and Sound – repeating a sound or mantra such as “Loving Kindness.”

Some tactics for dealing on worrying are: distract yourself, write down your fears, avoid the triggers that set you off and taking one small step towards solving the problem in a s positive way.

These are some of the methods that Miriam has used in dealing with her depression and it can help you too. I recommend this book to people who deal with depression. There is more in the latter part of the book.

Tags: Positive Psychology, Depression, Self-help, Strength, Resilience, Happiness, Visited by the Black Dog, Anxiety, Gratitude, Savouring, Acts of Kindness, Connecting with Loved Ones, Using your Strengths, Mindfulness Meditation, Loving-Kindness Meditation, Physical Activities, and Visualizing Your Best Possible Self

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Healing and Transformation

 

 

Book: “Healing and Transformation: Moving from the Ordinary to the Extraordinary” by Eric Alsterberg, Ph. D.

Book Review by Mary Mikawoz

This book is a combination psychological book and spiritual book. It discusses case examples and references many books. The overall encompassing message is that we, as a people, are having a spiritual experience while in human form. This message is emphasized throughout the book.

I like the case examples including the ones from the author’s life. He brings insight into the spiritual life and of that entering into the New Golden Age. The author covers many life subject areas from masculinity and femininity roles, intimate relationships to parenting.

Eric Alsterberg says there are no coincidences – that everything is as it should be. However, depending upon how we think positively or negatively determines what kind of world we will have. Depending upon our actions to be Christ-like or opposite also determines the kind of Earth we will live in.

He speaks of listening to the inner voice, the higher self or God presence in our intuition or while we meditate. We can hear from angels, ascended masters or our guides. We will be only give so much information as we can handle. We make decisions based on what we know and sometimes information is withheld for our own benefit.

Dr Alsterberg says there are many traditional methods for healing which include psychotherapy, self-help groups, twelve step tradition groups, self-help books and technologies, seminars and workshops, massage therapy, Reiki, meditation and prayer.

He uses hypnotherapy in his practice and sometimes deals with past-life regression. He believes that many issues that we currently deal with may have their karmic beginnings in past lives. This is something we need to deal with.

Dr. Alsterberg mentions some of his client’s problem with abuse. In one situation, a woman kept attracting abusive partners. He concludes that “Guilt is often an attack on us for not being able to forgive ourselves.” Further forgiveness is important because God is Pure Love and has already forgiven us. Yet people struggle to forgive themselves. We need to release the negative and fear-based emotions within ourselves. Dr. Alsterberg makes his clients visualize positive and love-based emotions leaving and then coming back down a beam of light from higher dimensions and going back into the person.

This book tries to cover many aspects of life. It is am ambitious project. It is an interesting book. Some points, I do not agree with because they have not been proved but they are minor problems with the book. You will know them when you see them. I recommend this book to those who like psychological and spiritual books.

Tags: psychological, spiritual, New Golden Age, coincidences, angels, ascended masters, guides, psychotherapy, self-help groups, twelve-step traditional groups, self-help books and technologies, seminars, workshops, massage therapy, reiki, meditation, prayer, abusive partners, higher dimensions, beam of light

Until Today

“Until Today” By Iyanla Vanzant

Book: “Until Today: Daily Devotional for Spiritual Growth and Peace of Mind” by Iyanla Vanzant

Book Review by Mary Mikawoz

This book will take you a year to read; at least, it should. It is daily devotional book dated each day for an entire year. I read the book at a number of sittings because I did not know if I could wait a year to read all the amazing insights that Iyanla has to offer.

Iyanla’s insights are so incredible and in depth. Her wisdom is of sage advice. I enjoyed reading her book and think it would be very good to focus on one aspect each day. Each month has a different focus. From January to December, the devotee is supposed to focus on different elements such as the following: life, love, awareness, acknowledgment, acceptance, forgiveness, understanding, faith, trust, worth, service and peace.

It is difficult to discuss everything Iyanla goes over so I will keep my comments to a minimum by quoting a couple of days in the book. On July 30, the beginning of the day starts with “I will gain more understanding when I realize…there is a place called home where I am always welcome.” There are four paragraphs that follow expounding further on this concept. It ends off the page with a focal point. In this case, it reads, “Today I am devoted to finding my way back home!”

Other example pages have poems or quotes or sayings in it. One of my favourites is found on December 29 where the following is given.

“You are here:

To gain character as you lose ego

To gain integrity as you lose dishonesty

To gain strength as you lose fear

To gain compassion as you lose disappointment

To gain discipline as you lose willfulness

To gain equality as you lose separation

To gain appreciation as you lose resentment

To gain enthusiasm as you lose hostility

To gain tenderness as you lose rigidity

To gain boldness as you lose bitterness

To gain generosity as you lose selfishness

To gain optimism as you lose inadequacy

To gain excitement as you lose embarrassment

To gain gratitude as you lose greed

To gain love as you lose ignorance.”

The book in my estimation is fantastic. Iyanla puts down in writing many of her inner peaceful secrets and understandings of God. This a a great spiritual book that could be read first thing in the morning each and every day for years to come with new insights being found all the time. I highly recommend this book.

Tags: devotional, book, 365 days, year, life, love, awareness, acknowledgment, acceptance, forgiveness, understanding, faith, trust, worth, service, peace, character, ego, integrity, honesty, strength, fear, compassion, disappointment, discipline, willfulness, equality, separation, appreciation, resentment, tenderness, rigidity boldness, bitterness, generosity, selfishness, optimism, inadequacy, excitement, embarrassment, gratitude, greed, love, ignorance.

The Fear Cure

The Fear Cure

Book: “The Fear Cure” by Dr. Lissa Rankin

Book Review by Mary Mikawoz

In reviewing this book, I found the concepts quite sane. Dr. Rankin covers a number of medical studies. She differentiates between “true fear” and “false fear.” Essentially, a real fear is being chased down by a brown bear whereas a false fear is carrying on a belief system or fear in areas that don’t make any more sense but affect the same part of the brain. These are areas including fear of losing your job even though you just got a promotion. Believing that something bad is going to happen when there is no indication that it will. It is that constant worrying and fear that brings a lot of grief to your life.

It is normal to grieve the loss of your parents, but to think everybody else important in your life is going to die tragically and leave you alone is taking it a step too far. Fear has its purpose when it is a true fear, it is part of our defence mechanism that we needed as lived long ago in primitive times. Today, we get fearful and we signal the brain to produce the same fear triggers that put us into action, however, it is not needed and causes us problems to constantly be in a state of fear.

The author discusses the Small Self or ego which is concerned about your image and how things should be done according to societal expectations. Then there is the Inner Pilot Life which is basically the Higher Self and is run mainly by your intuition. This is a skill that you need to develop. We are inter-connected and so the oneness that we feel with the Universe puts us in a good position of listening to your intuition in all times, not only in fearful times. How many times have you had a hunch to do or say something but did not do so or fell silent? Did you not take that right hand turn driving home and proceeded straight only to find that there is a traffic delay due to an accident, whereas had you listened to your intuition, you would have by-passed the entire accident? Listening to your intuition can make your life easier and more fulfilling.

If you challenge yourself with things that scare you, you can become more desensitized to it and act from a position of courage. It takes courage to deal with your false fears. By being able to “win” over your fears, you will feel stronger and more able to deal with other fears. You can start by beginning with baby goals that are not as fear inducing. With each step, you will find that you are able to do more and more. In essence, it is more important to choose soul alignment instead of security and comfort to continue to become more aligned with your Inner Pilot Light. You can always pray when fear is hitting you between the eyes.

In reviewing this book, I particularly liked the Appendices as they seem to tidy up all the main concepts of the book and put them into actionable bits. As well, throughout the book, Dr. Rankin has placed Courage-Cultivating Exercises which make you think of how and why fear is dominating your life and what you can do to change it. I think this book is good for anyone who has excessive amounts of fear in their lives which could be almost everybody. I think it is especially good for people dealing with depression, anxiety and panic disorders. It helps to create some sanity over the illogical excessive use of fear. In the end, Dr. Rankin pushes the envelope of what “medicine” can be and how it is to be interpreted. I reviewed every part of the book and found it quite interesting and so recommend it highly.

Goddesses Never Age

Book: “Goddesses Never Age” by Christiane Northrup M.D.

Book Review by Mary Mikawoz

I took a long time to read this book due to a number of factors. First of all, personally, I was very busy in my life and was not able to dedicate a lot of time to this book. Second of all, it is such a thorough compendium of information that it took awhile to read. Dr. Northrup provides many studies to back up her theories and insights.

The biggest thing to know is that Dr. Christiane Northup acknowledges the unity of mind, body, emotions and spirit. Her book, therefore, provides insights into this collective knowledge base. Did you know for example that the emotional pain that you have registers in the same part as your brain does for physical pain? Did you know that the gene expression of a person is strongly influenced by their beliefs and emotions as well as lifestyle choices? Did you know that laughter releases nitric oxide and beta-endorphins into your bloodstream boosting your immunity?

These tidbits of information are some of the insights that Dr. Northrup provides. She shows how we can age without being caught up in what society expects of someone our age. She shows how baby boomers have impacted many generations and that they will continue to do so as they age. It is no longer a world revolving around the young. Older people are worthy and deserve respect. Dr. Christiane Northrup challenges us to do things for ourselves from being more active by moving around and challenging gravity to doing something special and fun like learning to dance. Christiane provides a 14 day outline of what to do each day to become an Ageless Beauty.

This book is particularly good for anyone turning 50 or more. It is basically geared towards the baby boomers who are looking towards having an engaging life towards being a centenarian. It is hope-filled and directive towards not buying into the negativity as one ages in this North-American world who values and glorifies youth. Unlike other cultures and countries where ageism is not a problem and elders are appreciated and revered. There is a lesson for us to learn here.

I was not financially compensated for this post. I received the book from Hay House for review purposes. The opinions are completely my own based on my experience.

Tags: factors, Doctor, Christiane, Northrup, Medical, brain, physical pain, emotional pain, genes, beliefs, emotions, physical pain, brain, gene expression, beliefs, emotions, lifestyle choices, nitric oxide, laughter, beta-endorphins, bloodstream, expectations, generations, agelessness, beauty, baby boomer, Mary, Mikawoz, book reviewer.

Chocolate for a Woman’s Spirit

Chocolate for a Woman’s Spirit

Book: “Chocolate for a Woman’s Spirit: 77 Stories of Inspiration to Life Your Heart and Soothe Your Soul” by Kay Allenbaugh

Book Review by Mary Mikawoz (Author of “Northern Lake Adventures: The Encounter”)

This book is very similar to the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series. The difference is that the stories are all written by women for women. I am not saying a man could not or would not appreciate the stories, however, they focus around women’s issues.

I find the stories are helpful in that they provide insights into women’s lives. The book carries a wide range of stories, some of them quite heartfelt. Other stories are just average.

I would recommend reading this book if you are looking for some inspiring or uplifting stories. It would be a nice present for a good friend. This book is part of a series of contributed stories and so there other “chocolate” books in the series.