"Self Awareness" Books
As I've been writing up my monthly reviews of books, I've left a few out that I wanted to comment on more extensively. Over the last six months or so I've read a number of self-help (or as one wants to call itself, "self-awareness") books. The following three are ones that I found to be particularly interesting:
Nice Women Get Divorced: The Conflicts and Challenges for Traditional Women by Geneva Sugarbaker
This book was published in the early 1990s and is currently out of print. It focuses on women who grew up during the 50s and 60s, so it didn't necessarily apply directly to me. However, it was a good start on my journey to finding out more about my own voice and recognizing my own needs. I like how she really makes clear the difference between being assertive and aggressive, because I often worry that I'll go straight from being passive to being overbearing and strident.
Loving Him Without Losing You: How to Stop Disappearing and Start Being Yourself by Beverly Engel
This was also a good book about learning to be assertive. It had a lot of good advice, and I appreciated that it focused on women without denigrating men (and without denigrating women either). It gave me a lot to think about in terms of how I interact with people and the things I do and say in all my relationships, not just my marriage. It's so easy to just want to be "nice" and polite and end up having fake relationships because you never act like yourself.
I Know I'm In There Somewhere: A Woman's Guide to Finding Her Inner Voice and Living a Life of Authenticity by Helene Brenner
I recently finished this book and it was my favorite. I need to buy a copy so I can reread it. I liked the fact that the focus was just life in general, not just relationships. I also really connected with the need to align ourselves with our own inner thoughts/feelings that will give us a sense of our unique mission and talents. That resonated with my belief system and made this book feel very comfortable. It also had a lot of good practical examples and "innercizes" to do. One of my favorite passages from the book is:
"A successful individual is someone who sees her uniqueness, who perceives even some very small differences that set her apart from others, and uses them to launch her life...Think of the times when you feel best about who you are, when your particular constellation of values, personality traits and abilities all click together and you feel totally in your element. That's the seed of your inner vision. That's when you are truly being an instrument of Creation, in it's never ending process of expanding, discovering, and expressing Itself. You yourself are a one-of-a-kind creation, never to be repeated, so what you have most to offer is equally unique to you."
I've been really trying to listen to myself lately, to figure out what I want, what I really enjoy doing, and what I should do with my life. I feel like too often I see the things that seem to separate me from others or that make me different in a negative light and I want to change them. Instead, I can use them for good. One example I've been thinking about is the fact that I tend to be "soft" on people rather than "hard" on them. I can always see both sides of an issue and sometimes I feel like I should be more outraged about certain things than I really am. I think I'm being vague here, but this really has been bothering me. But as I reread my patriarchal blessing, which I view as a source of accurate information about myself, I noticed that it mentioned several times that my personal style is unassuming and mild-mannered. That's a great comfort to me and a reminder that there are variety of people and a variety of ways of communicating our feelings. Through these books I've read I've learned how to work more on my assertiveness, but I think I will always be quietly assertive. And that's OK with me.
Nice Women Get Divorced: The Conflicts and Challenges for Traditional Women by Geneva Sugarbaker
This book was published in the early 1990s and is currently out of print. It focuses on women who grew up during the 50s and 60s, so it didn't necessarily apply directly to me. However, it was a good start on my journey to finding out more about my own voice and recognizing my own needs. I like how she really makes clear the difference between being assertive and aggressive, because I often worry that I'll go straight from being passive to being overbearing and strident.
Loving Him Without Losing You: How to Stop Disappearing and Start Being Yourself by Beverly Engel
This was also a good book about learning to be assertive. It had a lot of good advice, and I appreciated that it focused on women without denigrating men (and without denigrating women either). It gave me a lot to think about in terms of how I interact with people and the things I do and say in all my relationships, not just my marriage. It's so easy to just want to be "nice" and polite and end up having fake relationships because you never act like yourself.
I Know I'm In There Somewhere: A Woman's Guide to Finding Her Inner Voice and Living a Life of Authenticity by Helene Brenner
I recently finished this book and it was my favorite. I need to buy a copy so I can reread it. I liked the fact that the focus was just life in general, not just relationships. I also really connected with the need to align ourselves with our own inner thoughts/feelings that will give us a sense of our unique mission and talents. That resonated with my belief system and made this book feel very comfortable. It also had a lot of good practical examples and "innercizes" to do. One of my favorite passages from the book is:
"A successful individual is someone who sees her uniqueness, who perceives even some very small differences that set her apart from others, and uses them to launch her life...Think of the times when you feel best about who you are, when your particular constellation of values, personality traits and abilities all click together and you feel totally in your element. That's the seed of your inner vision. That's when you are truly being an instrument of Creation, in it's never ending process of expanding, discovering, and expressing Itself. You yourself are a one-of-a-kind creation, never to be repeated, so what you have most to offer is equally unique to you."
I've been really trying to listen to myself lately, to figure out what I want, what I really enjoy doing, and what I should do with my life. I feel like too often I see the things that seem to separate me from others or that make me different in a negative light and I want to change them. Instead, I can use them for good. One example I've been thinking about is the fact that I tend to be "soft" on people rather than "hard" on them. I can always see both sides of an issue and sometimes I feel like I should be more outraged about certain things than I really am. I think I'm being vague here, but this really has been bothering me. But as I reread my patriarchal blessing, which I view as a source of accurate information about myself, I noticed that it mentioned several times that my personal style is unassuming and mild-mannered. That's a great comfort to me and a reminder that there are variety of people and a variety of ways of communicating our feelings. Through these books I've read I've learned how to work more on my assertiveness, but I think I will always be quietly assertive. And that's OK with me.
Comments
I will be definately checking into that last book- thanks posting this