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Resiliency

Bouncing Back by Linda Graham -

Resilience is the ability to face and handle life’s challenges, whether everyday disappointments or extraordinary disasters. While resilience is innate in the brain, over time we learn unhelpful patterns, which then become fixed in our neural circuitry. But science is now revealing that what previously seemed hardwired can be rewired, and Bouncing Back shows us how. With powerful, time-tested exercises, Linda Graham guides us in rebuilding our core well-being and disaster-proofing our brains.

 

Resilient by Rick Hanson-

These days it’s hard to count on the world outside. So it’s vital to grow strengths inside like grit, gratitude, and compassion—the key to resilience, and to lasting well-being in a changing world. 
True resilience is much more than enduring terrible conditions. We need resilience every day to raise a family, work at a job, cope with stress, deal with health problems, navigate issues with others, heal from old pain, and simply keep on going. 
With his trademark blend of neuroscience, mindfulness, and positive psychology, New York Timesbestselling author Dr. Rick Hanson shows you how to develop twelve vital inner strengths hardwired into your own nervous system. Then no matter what life throws at you, you’ll be able to feel less stressed, pursue opportunities with confidence, and stay calm and centered in the face of adversity. 
This practical guide is full of concrete suggestions, experiential practices, personal examples, and insights into the brain. It includes effective ways to interact with others and to repair and deepen important relationships.
Warm, encouraging, and down-to-earth, Dr. Hanson’s step-by-step approach is grounded in the science of positive neuroplasticity. He explains how to overcome the brain’s negativity bias, release painful thoughts and feelings, and replace them with self-compassion, self-worth, joy, and inner peace.

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Mindfulness

Wherever You Go There You Are by Jon Kabat Zinn-

In his follow-up to Full Catastrophe Living--a book in which he presented basic meditation techniques as a way of reducing stress and healing from illness--here Jon Kabat-Zinn goes much more deeply into the practice of meditation for its own sake. To Kabat-Zinn, meditation is important because it brings about a state of "mindfulness," a condition of "being" rather than "doing" during which you pay attention to the moment rather than the past, the future, or the multitudinous distractions of modern life. In brief, rather poetic chapters, he describes different meditative practices and what they can do for the practitioner. The idea that meditation is "spiritual" is often confusing to people, Kabat-Zinn writes; he prefers to think of it as what you might call a workout for your consciousness. This book makes learning meditation remarkably easy (although practicing it is not). But it also makes it seem infinitely appealing. --Ben Kallen

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Mindfulness For Beginners by Jon Kabat Zinn-

We may long for wholeness, suggests Jon Kabat-Zinn, but the truth is that it is already here and already ours. The practice of mindfulness holds the possibility of not just a fleeting sense of contentment, but a true embracing of a deeper unity that envelops and permeates our lives. With Mindfulness for Beginnersyou are invited to learn how to transform your relationship to the way you think, feel, love, work, and play—and thereby awaken to and embody more completely who you really are.
Here, the teacher, scientist, and clinician who first demonstrated the benefits of mindfulness within mainstream Western medicine offers a book that you can use in three unique ways: as a collection of reflections and practices to be opened and explored at random; as an illuminating and engaging start-to-finish read; or as an unfolding “lesson- a-day” primer on mindfulness practice.
Beginning and advanced meditators alike will discover in these pages a valuable distillation of the key attitudes and essential practices that Jon Kabat-Zinn has found most useful with his students, including:

• Why heartfulness is synonymous with true mindfulness

• The value of coming back to our bodies and to our senses over and over again

• How our thoughts “self-liberate” when touched by awareness

• Moving beyond our “story” into direct experience

• Stabilizing our attention and presence amidst daily activities

• The three poisons that cause suffering—and their antidotes

• How mindfulness heals, even after the fact

• Reclaiming our wholeness, and more

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Positive Emotions

Positivity by Barbara Erickson-

Positive psychology pioneer Fredrickson introduces readers to the power of harnessing happiness to transform their lives, backed up by impressive lab research. The author lays out the core truths and 10 forms of positivity—joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe and love—in a book that promises to change the way people look at feeling good. Disdainful of Pollyannaism, Fredrickson remains realistic in her treatment and provides scientific evidence to illustrate her findings that maintaining a 3:1 positivity ratio of positive thoughts to negative emotions creates a tipping point between languishing and flourishing. The book includes compelling case studies, concrete tips, a Positivity Self Test and a tool kit for decreasing negativity and raising the positivity ratio. Although many of Fredrickson's methods and theories (notes on meditation and karma) will seem familiar to anyone versed in yoga or eastern religions, the scientific foundation of her arguments and additional online resources (www.positivityratio.com) offer readers a chance to experiment with positivity and very possibly lead richer lives

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General

The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo - 

The Book of Awakening, a cult favorite since its original publication in 2000, catapaulted to fame in 2010 after it was chosen as one of Oprah Winfrey's favorite things. This gift edition with sewn binding and a ribbon marker reflects the book's odyssey as a well-beloved daily companion. Mark Nepo wrote the book more than a decade ago, in response to his journey through cancer a decade before that. That experience led him to create a day book not only for people going through life-threatening situations but for everyone.

Nepo calls it, "a book to help people meet their days and inhabit their lives. I had a commitment to create a book that could serve up inner food, that could be turned to as a spiritual first aid kit." That this book continued to find its readers affirms its quality as a life affirming companion. Again, in Nepo's words, "I think it confirms the yearning of people everywhere for meaningful and humble work that invites readers on a journey together. The premise of the book is that people everywhere have a wisdom of their own and the book is there to guide them to their own wisdom.

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Waking The Tiger by Peter Levine -

Waking the Tiger offers a new and hopeful vision of trauma. It views the human animal as a unique being, endowed with an instinctual capacity. It asks and answers an intriguing question: why are animals in the wild, though threatened routinely, rarely traumatized? By understanding the dynamics that make wild animals virtually immune to traumatic symptoms, the mystery of human trauma is revealed.
Waking the Tiger normalizes the symptoms of trauma and the steps needed to heal them. People are often traumatized by seemingly ordinary experiences. The reader is taken on a guided tour of the subtle, yet powerful impulses that govern our responses to overwhelming life events. To do this, it employs a series of exercises that help us focus on bodily sensations. Through heightened awareness of these sensations trauma can be healed.

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Mans Search For Meaning by Victor Frankel -

Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the experiences of others he treated later in his practice, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl's theory-known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos ("meaning")-holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful.

 

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Why Has Nobody Told Me This by Julie Smith

Filled with secrets from a therapist's toolkit, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? teaches you how to fortify and maintain your mental health, even in the most trying of times. Dr Julie Smith's expert advice and powerful coping techniques will help you stay resilient, whether you want to manage anxiety, deal with criticism, cope with depression, build self-confidence, find motivation, or learn to forgive yourself. The book tackles everyday issues and offers practical solutions in bite-sized, easy-to-digest entries which make it easy to quickly find specific information and guidance.

Your mental well-being is just as important as your physical well-being. Packed with proven strategies, Dr Smith's empathetic guide offers a deeper understanding of how your mind works and gives you the insights and help you need to nurture your mental health every day. Wise and practical.

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Optimal Happiness: The Fastest and Surest Way To Reach Your Happiest Potential  by Roman Russo

Ask a million people to define happiness, and you get a million answers. They won’t all be good answers, or at least the people who give you these answers won’t be as happy as they wish they could be. After all, living in the most advanced society the world has ever seen, most people are still negative, depressed, and deal with a host of other problems that prevent them from being truly happy. Current literature does not have a solution to this problem either, as it does not address how all the different bits of happiness advice come together. With this, Optimal Happiness is the first model which combines different pieces of happiness advice and clearly states what we need to do to reach our maximum happiness potential today and how to maintain it forever.

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