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And can the right foods heal you? Dr. Neil D. Barnard believes, “Hidden in everyday foods are the causes of a surprising range of health problems: infertility, weight gain, breast and prostrate cancer, thyroid problems, low moods, and hot flashes.”

What you eat matters. Your body is an interdependent system. It cannot do its job if it is not provided with the essential nutrients to do so. Barnard tells us, “It becomes more and more clear why we have epidemics of disease because people are not getting the nutrients that they need.” And, “Many of our desires for food are really dictated by addictions rather than what our bodies actually need.” When we get back into balance with food choices many diagnoses may melt away.

Results come very quickly with a change of diet. Dr. Barnard’s new book, Your Body In Balance: The New Science of Food, Hormones, and Health Illustrates the new understanding surrounding the role of hormones in the body and how various food choices affect them and lead to a variety of potential symptoms.

I know a neighbor who thrives on a raw food diet, her husband looks like he could use a double cheese burger. At home, we’ve got two vegetarians and two carnivores. A friend of mine swears by the Keto diet and another had to call it quits due to constant headaches and the inclination to faint. I’ve found a strict Pitta diet from the Ayurvedic tradition can work miracles on my health in times of stress, emotionally and physically.  Yes, what we eat matters.

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“Part crime narrative and part soul-searching memoir, Emma Copley Eisenberg’s The Third Rainbow Girl has so much wisdom to offer. It’s about the corrosiveness of preconceived notions, and about how trauma ripples through cultures and generations, and about finding connections in others and strength in oneself. Rich in detail and sensitivity and intelligence and honesty, this is a book you won’t want to put down, one that will stay with you for a long time.” – Robert Kolker, New York Times bestselling author of Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery. 

Elizabeth Loftus, “The degree to which a witness is convinced of the truth of their memories is not always an accurate predictor of their actual basis of fact.”

Emma Copely Eisenberg, “I dismantled every system to make a new world, but then I had to live in it.”

The Third Rainbow Girl

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We want to be captivated! And Oprah, Tiffany Haddish, Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep and Apple’s Tim Cook have what it takes to do just that. They wittingly, or unwittingly, offer up the 8 qualities that invariably endear us:

Steven Goldstein, television producer, Congressional lawyer, leader of state and national civil rights organizations, and communications advisor to corporate and political leaders, has unraveled the lifelong mystery of what it takes to be likable. And in his compelling new book, The Turn On: How the Powerful Make Us Like Them -From Washington to Wall Street to Hollywood,  he shares those secrets. He tells us what the most elite image makers know – even if they don’t know they know it. Why is it we like Ellen DeGeneres and Morgan Freeman, but Gwyneth Paltrow can get under our skin?  Why do we admire Warren Buffett, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Google’s Sundar Pichai rather than envy their wealth?

Steven assures us, with the right attention likability can be produced. We too can become likable.

The Turn On

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What’s my purpose in life? Survival, self-expression, creativity, exploration, love, enjoyment, connection – the “whys” of our lives.  Humanity.

At the core, we all share similar struggles regardless of our circumstance. We all want to communicate, to relate, to be close. We come into the world ready to connect. “It’s our innate destiny, but so much depends on how that goes.” The success of our early relational programming depends on how able our initial caregivers are in their ability to authentically attach, be reliable, and emotionally available. We need them to be emotionally present so that we may learn to do the same.

As Ronald J. Frederick, so adeptly explains in his new book, Loving Like You Mean It: Use the Power of Emotional Mindfulness to Transform Your Relationships, all of our earliest caregiver experiences program our relational software; they are coded into our brains, stored implicitly and then we move forward into the world running on this software. As adults, if we haven’t downloaded the most effective systems,  our challenge lies in our ability to free ourselves up from the ways we’ve been shaped and our nervous systems have been shaped, by growing our capacity to connect. And the missing link in this psychological transformation is rewiring our habitual, emotional responses. Moving from insight to change with the reward of the emergence of our true self, our best self.

We aren’t screwed up. “Our brain was wired in a certain way and through new experience we re-work wiring so our whole self can come on line.” We’ve been taught to ignore, push past and suppress our feelings and emotional cues. So we learn to suppress, not to process and ignore until we no longer even register the internal experience.

We change and we grow through our emotional relational experience. “The trick lies in getting out of our heads, away from the intellectual understanding and contemplation and into being present with self and therapist emotionally, and that’s where things happen. Disentangling the nervous system from early wiring, so I can be present with myself and those I love.”

“We are all wired to heal, we are all wired to transform, we are all wired to actualize.… We just need the right help for that to be able to happen. We can learn to abide our feelings, be with them and let them move through us… Learning to lean into our distress is actually what works to decrease it.”

“The core of our work is to free ourselves from a fear that is no longer warranted and reclaim our innate emotional capabilities so that we can have better relationships.” And Frederick leads the way.

https://www.cfcliving.com/

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Emily Dickinson was not a recluse by any means; she just needed some time to think. In Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life, award-winning author Marta McDowell illuminates Dickinson’s deep passion for the rich life of nature and how it inspired and informed her writing. Exploring the relationship between Dickinson’s social life and her immense love of gardening and the outdoors, McDowell reveals the authentic Dickinson and grows our appreciation of this incredible poet and vibrant woman.

Emily Dickinson is one of America’s most celebrated and enigmatic figures. Miss Dickinson was especially active and outgoing in her youth. She loved nothing more than setting out for an adventure with her beloved dog, Carlo, “They are better than Beings-because they know-but do not tell.”

She had deep relationships with nature and the people she held close in her life. She appreciated their essence and their beauty. Emily was experiencing the heaven that exists on earth – eyes, ears, senses and heart open “So instead of getting to heaven, at last- I’m going all along.” She intuitively understood the connection of heaven to earth and writes about it in her poem of the poppy and the sun. And she could see connections that most of us miss, “The pink lily you gave loo, has had five flowers sine I came, and has more buds. The girls think it my influence.“

She was intrigued by the intensity of personal connection, “Is not an absent friend as mysterious as a bulb in the ground, and is not a bulb the most captivating floral form.” And She was also playful, witty and funny beyond compare, “I send you a little Antidote to the love of others -Whenever you feel yourselves enticed, cling to it’s Admonition.” Forget me nots and bleeding hearts. Ahe mimicked in warm jest some writers of the day including Robert Burns with the morning glory.

Mostly, Emily Dickinson was reverent. After the publication of her poems in the 1890s, a newspaper reviewer speaks of the real reverence that underlies the most startling of her utterances. She loved words and she loved life. Her poems relating to nature provide a pathway into lost relationship with our physical world. She took plants with her when she traveled. “as for my sweet flowers. I shall know each leaf and every bud that bursts, while I am from home.” She knew each leaf and bud that burst.

Marta McDowell is the author of Beatrix Potter’s Gardening life, The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder and All the Presidents; Gardens. In 2018 Marta was the Emily Dickinson Museum’s Gardener in Residence and the 2019 winner of the Garden Club of America’s award for outstanding literary achievement.

https://www.martamcdowell.com/

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Bill Wilson had been a drunk. He became a visionary with a singular mission. He believed in two unwavering propositions. First, a true alcoholic has no power over the calling of the first drink ;and second, one has to have a vital spiritual experience so they are able to successfully erect a  barrier between them and having that first drink.  His is a fascinating and miraculous tale, uplifting and inspiring. Wilson was on a crusade to get people sober all across America, and on that quest he became responsible for starting one of the greatest spiritual movements of the twentieth century.

And author/detective,  William H. Schaberg  has written the definitive history of this incredible visionary and the creation of Alcoholics Anonymous in his book,  Writing the Big Book: The Creation of A. A..  Wilson’s Big Book was published in  April 1939, the 12 steps put down in print. Schaberg traces the evolution and the story of creating  Alcoholics Anonymous – the incredible spiritual movement that has helped millions of people survive and better their lives. .

The 1930s was a challenging time, mid depression, alcoholism was thought to be a problem for the weak, and temperance and prohibition were the thinking of the day. In general, drunks were considered pretty hopeless. But Wilson had hope and unwavering determination. His trials and tribulations would create a movement that would save millions of lives, and it plays like a Netflix original series.  The hard won success of the book and its message ultimately exploded with over 37 million copies sold and a spiritual movement that has swept the Nation and the world.

http://www.writingthebigbook.com/

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When Nike and our culture tell us 2nd place is the first looser, we’ve got a problem of epic proportion. And one that is especially devastating for our young Olympic hopefuls. By defining success only in terms of wins, we create a community full of people, including children, who feel like losers,  living unfulfilled lives more prone to anxiety and depression.

Woven tightly into this mindset of the only worthy level of achievement being first place is the professionalism of youth sports. The post 1990s model opening the Olympics up to professionals shifted the focus of sport from growing and developing one’s ability to the need to monetize. With that shift the intrinsic enjoyment of athleticism was lost and a singular focus on the potential for future extrinsic value was developed.

There is however a shining exception to this unfortunate rule, and New York Times sports writer, Karen Crouse, exquisitely depicts it in her gem of a book, Norwich: One Tiny Vermont Town’s Secret to Happiness and Excellence. In Norwich, Vermont, kids are taught to enjoy their sport, be coachable and develop lifelong friendships. Life skills are acquired as the result of their participation. In Karen’s words, “This is not a town that values participatory ribbons, but at the same time they see that there is more to a sport than the ribbons… It’s about the community and the self-improvement that you foster.”

Norwich develops in its children a pride of place that really knew no egotistical boundaries. A larger community exists to serve as a social safety net. Every child in Norwich is seen as a child of the town and worth rooting for. Kids are not only valued for their performance in a sport but, first and foremost, for being a part of the larger community, with an unshakeable sense that what they are good at is what they do, not who they are.

And, Norwich’s most successful Olympic athlete, mogul skier, Hannah Carney, had this community safety net to catch her when her third place at the Olympics felt like a broken heart while defending her prior first place win from 2010. Hearing Hannah’s sentiment that she felt like a failure who had let herself and her town down, the town galvanized, put on a parade and celebrated Hannah and her performance. They celebrated all that she’d accomplished to make them proud and demonstrated the values they cherish most.

Karen Crouse

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“Something that was brought home with me from that war, found its way into my life ever-after, has stayed there, and now has wormed its way into my Dad’s Maybe Book.” Tim O’Brien, best selling author of The Things They Carried, was determined to be a good father, focused and present. Intent to leave some love through stories and a little bit of knowledge to his precious little boys, he began writing love letters, validating the experience of parenthood and motivating other to leave their voice for their children.

A magician and a novelist, Tim is fascinated with the mysteries of magic and life: who we are, why we do what we do and where we go after we die. He loves how as a novelist he is doing a kind of magic, not slight of hand but slight of mind -disentangling the threads of reality, sorting out what’s illusion from some sort of factual experience.

He understands the fickle nature of memory and the dangers of absolutism. In relation to the aftermath of intense moments in fatherhood and Vietnam, Tim O’Brien writes, “When something so excruciatingly present became so shockingly absent.”

On war and killing, he hopes for his boys a life of outrage. He wants them to be thinking, moral human beings that are unwilling to kill people for less than great reasons. Of Vietnam he says, “Our country was divided and the best that you can say about Vietnam was that certain blood was shed for uncertain reasons.”

O’Brien believes stories die of dullness, that writing is an intense listening, an intense dreaming as the fingers try to catch up in putting down language. The challenge and the goal is to trust the story as it unfolds and convey it in the hopes that it will mean something to the reader – to their heart, stomach and nape of the neck, tear ducts, laughter ducts and appeal to the wholeness of the human being. The opposite of explanation which, as in magic, diminishes by making it explicable.

“As a writer you just kind of brush up against people. They don’t always take what you write as you think they may.” O’Brien reminds us that truth is an elusive creature in fact and fiction, “Of course, the truths of an invented story are rarely verifiable by empirical means. We cannot prove for instance that Thumbelina was a young lady whose stature was, to put it kindly, on the smallish side.” And truth in fact is at times, at best, a maybe.

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Oprah Winfrey says of Lisa Taddeo’s, new book, “An instant feminist classic…Utterly engrossing…Game-changing.” Dave Eggers  applauds Taddeo’s depiction of these women, “Taddeo’s beautifully written and unflinching portraits of desire allow her protagonists to be wholly human and wholly, blessedly complex…” And finally, Esther Perel’s praises Lisa’s mastery of this essential, often unspoken, conversation, “Three Women offers a fascinating excavation of the intricacies of love and desire where they conspire and where they conflict.”

Three Women is a profoundly impactful non-fiction literary triumph with its sights set on unraveling the complexities of desire. True life stories of how desire thrills us, torments us and controls our thoughts. Desire, loyal to its polarizing form, wrecks lives and makes life worth living. This journalistic wonder is an unashamed and generous exploration of women, desire, passion, sexuality, power and the narratives that define, confine and free us.

Lisa Taddeo set out to register the heat and sting of female want, so that men and other women might more easily comprehend before they condemn. And she’s done so exquisitely – with a passion and integrity that shines through every page.

Three Women

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The super wealthy Americans of the late 19th and early 20th century, Carnegie, Rockefeller and the like, all started out without much; but through grit, perseverance and lucky breaks, they amassed incredible wealth. This has always been part of our great American mythos – the Gold Rush, heading West, or being an oil Wild Cat. Through pluck and ingenuity, fortunes were made. However, this shifted around the time of WWII with a turn toward the knowledge economy. Then when mobility happened, it happened through higher education. Now, we are shifting once again. And the question on the minds of those concerned with the health of our democracy and the growth of our Nation’s economy is whether higher education will remain the best path forward.

Journalist, and New York Times bestselling author, Paul Tough has been grappling with the question of social mobility for a long time. He is drawn to understand the path for success for young Americans and the impact the process of mobility has on an individual’s life.

Prior to WWII, college was for rich kids. The GI bill changed this. Farm boys from Iowa, street kids from New York. began seeking higher education in droves when this opportunity opened up, and it changed their lives and the country. Education became the golden ticket for social mobility. In Paul Tough’s new book, The Years That Matter Most: How College Makes or Breaks Us, he sets out to unravel the current mysteries of American higher education. What he finds is full of surprises; it is at once disheartening, enlightening and inspiring.

Tough discovers higher education has become both a pathway and a barrier. For the individual, college still works as this engine of social mobility and can provide a future beyond imagination. But for the nation as a whole, as a system, it is not working.

As confusing as it was to Tocqueville, mobility has always been the cornerstone of our democracy, In America, the rich people aren’t always rich and the poor people aren’t always poor; and for the good of us all, we need to keep it that way.

https://www.paultough.com/

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