Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow By Elizabeth Lesser

Epub boeken openen

One of the most important books in my adult life This book has been my friend since I started reading it in mid May I continue to re read parts of it when I need encouragement facing the upheaval that my life has become It has helped me to jump into the fray without fear Like playing hide and seek as a child this book knows the secrets we think we have kept really well It offers simple honest reflections about life s situations and allows the reader to make the most of the bleakest situations It truly honors the reader allowing space to make the choice of facing personal issues and strength for understanding and using the Phoenix Process to rise from the ashes of our lives and become vibrant and alive and whole I have asked for and received several of the suggested books as gifts and at the moment am struggling to make time in my life again to read them 0375759913 Look if you want to bone the poncho wearing douche in the beret while married to someone else then just bone him and own it Your life your problem But when dress it up in Shaman Lover rhetoric and invoke Dante in some bizarre attempt to make it seem like betraying yourself and your family is an optimal and necessary life event in order to become your true self then it becomes all of our problem I hate to break it to you lady but some of us knew ourselves well enough not to marry the wrong person as a teenager Some of us found our feminine mystic with no berets involved While there were a few decent insights scattered throughout the book none of them were the author s The whole thing just left me annoyed and wishing I d made a better selection in reading material 0375759913 I realize that this book is out of character with the sorts of things that I normally read I was led to this book by both a coworker s recommendation and by my personal struggles of this past year Last March an old friend of mine committed suicide A month later my first real boyfriend broke up with me Together these two events have dictated how I feel in my daily experience when I m with friends or on a date with someone new or even just spending time alone with my thoughts my mind will try to lead me back into the despair I felt in losing a friend and then losing a lover I often try to tell myself that I don t deserve happiness or love simply because someone chose not to live and someone else chose not to love me back It s been a heavy burden for me and Lesser s philosophy on grief and loss is partially consoling and healing for my current state of mind For the most part I enjoyed this book Lesser is a wonderful writer and the stories she tells as well as her own journey to happiness and healing are inspiring multifaceted and even mythic She describes being broken open by pain death and other losses rather than being broken down and consumed by them In being broken open we should give this grief due consideration but also be able to grow from it a process that Lesser dubs the Phoenix Process I like this message Pain and heartache are intrinsic to the human experience so they should be processed naturally and even celebrated as a gateway to greater wisdom and self understanding This is a process I am undergoing anyway and it helped to put a cheesy name on it and to read success stories My main problem with this book isn t really a problem it s a bit too spiritual for my liking There is nothing wrong with spiritual and religious conceptualizations and interactions with the world meditation prayer etc they ve just never brought me much solace or deeper understanding Traditional spirituality aside other portions started to feel like New Age hoo ha the visions of psychics are revered and some instances of pain and grief are even treated as preordained by the unseen forces of the universe for the Phoenix Process For instance Lesser writes of the September 11th attacks as being mandated by God or whatever deities powers forces oversee this universe in order to break open Americans and to bring them closer to the miracles and wonders they still have in their everyday lives I can t accept that It feels akin to the sick fucks who claim that the recent Sandy Hook tragedy is a blessing in disguise for delivering children from the pain of this world to Jesus and Heaven I can understand wanting to grow from such tragedies and utilizing the pain and confusion of these events to make constructive changes to the status quo but don t make them acts of God. Broken open productions Yet despite my misgivings I enjoyed Lesser s writing and themes and I definitely walk away from this book with a greater sense of the processes of grief and how to grow from them 0375759913 One of my favorite books of all time My dearest Jennifer Cox recommended this book at a particularly tough time in my life The first time I read it I cried pretty much the entire read Lesser s writing is like a warm bath on a chilly day I look forward to passing this book on to people in the future It helped me move forward and overcome I mean this truly It was a gift to read it again from an emotionally improved place Great stuff 0375759913 INCREDIBLE If I could personally hand out a copy of this book to every single person living in this pandemic right now I would READ this book Buy a copy borrow a copy get the audiobook the e book I don t care how you read it just READ IT 0375759913 In the than twenty five years since she co founded Omega Institute now the world s largest center for spiritual retreat and personal growth Elizabeth Lesser has been an intimate witness to the ways in which people weather change and transition In a beautifully crafted blend of moving stories humorous insights practical guidance and personal memoir she offers tools to help us make the choice we all face in times of challenge Will we be broken down and defeated or broken open and transformed Lesser shares tales of ordinary people who have risen from the ashes of illness divorce loss of a job or a loved one stronger wiser and in touch with their purpose and passion And she draws on the world s great spiritual and psychological traditions to support us as we too learn to break open and blossom into who we were meant to be Broken Open How Difficult Times Can Help Us GrowIf you re wanting to learn how to cope with life s trials this book is an excellent tool to teach you how to do just that Its not so much a self help book but of an instruction manual on how to look at trials in a different perspective and to graciously welcome life s opportunities to grow and learn instead of resisting them and feeling beaten up by the process A book you ll want to refer to often Highly recommended 0375759913 EVERYONE who has gone through a personal crisis whether it be death depression divorce or just a simple personal evolution should read this book And everyone else should read it too Elizabeth Lesser speaks to psychological and spiritual awakening in an understandable lighthearted voice 0375759913 An alright self help book about how we can use difficult times to grow Elizabeth Lesser co founder of the Omega Institute known for spiritual retreat and personal growth shares her own story of loss as well as the journeys of those she has encountered through her work She mixes theory with memoir with metaphor to address difficult experiences and the potential pockets of revitalization these types of trials can bring. Book broken pieces I wanted a little definition from this book While Lesser took a nuanced approach to her storytelling I found myself glossing over certain sections of Broken Open because of their circularity I would have gotten wisdom from this book if Lesser had connected of her themes together in a concrete way And while I agree that certain meanings and feelings transcend words I thought Broken Open veered into New Age wish washy territories at times. Broken pencil cartoon Overall this book might inspire at least one person and just one makes it worth it Not the first book I would recommend to someone going through a tough time but perhaps I would share it with people who dig self help books Of course I always appreciate the general theme of resilience in times of hardship 0375759913 I borrowed this from a friend who tends to be what I consider over the top wacky spiritual Watching her move through life easily make friends and enjoy what I so often take for granted is amazing and makes me a little jealous all the while resisting and occasionally mocking Thankfully this book was believable and down to earth which allowed my over logical mentality to connect to the writing Lesser writes beautifully about her experiences not quite as well when making generalities The quotes and poetry at the beginning of the chapters were part of my favorite bits and inspired a few additional book purchases I also bought a copy of this book for myself so now that I have to give it back to my friend I will always be able to go back to remind myself to breath and be open to change. Broken pencil magazine Yes I m rereading this book Its quick and positive Glad I bought my own copy 0375759913 Full of hope and excited to begin reading this book as the title seemed promising especially when one feels so broken at the tragic loss of a family member The book had me realize that I am human and accepted myself with all my flaws because what I consider flaws are not bad it s just being human and being human is good I have negative thoughts ugly bad mean etc But I m not a bad person Author goes on to explain that we are all bozos on the bus There is no cool crowd bus where people have everything together and life is easy Another way of saying the grass is greener on the other side However somewhere after the half marker point the author shares a BIG detail about her divorce A detail I felt changes the whole introduction of the book changes the trust and confidence I found in the author as an expert in writing such material After that point she went on writing about her children and step children none of which I can relate to In retrospect I feel the author wrote this book to forgive herself and her conscience of the adultery she committed which led to her divorce which broke her open She wrote the beginning of her book as though her husband and her were some horrible match after many years of marriage and that she was struggling to keep the marriage together having the reader infer the husband is not trying if she is struggling so much But in fact he had nothing to do with it she cheater not him She was battling her own thoughts of herself I had to re evaluate my thoughts about the book and the author I realized the author is not handing out priceless advise she is looking to heal herself and maybe adulteress such as herself I immediately started skimming through the book at that point to the end Copied the chapter Before and After which is a letter one of her students had written to her kept it and tossed the book to the back of my library Broken Open How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow 0375759913