Tools to Transform

Natural Brilliance

By Paul R. Scheele

This is such a wonderful book. Paul Scheele has really brought together a few, simple tools that encompass and help with the actual practical practice of spiritual/personal mastery. It’s compact, but don’t be deceived. This book really focuses on some very important tools to support transformation with your personality along for the ride.

You Think You Use Your Mind?

Thinking Clearly: An Adventure in Mental Fitness

Jerry Stocking

Jerry Stocking is one of my favorite teachers. He has such a different energy and insights, all in the direction of helping people release themselves from illusion and learn how to be deeply intimate with themselves and others.

This book is a brilliant introduction to how the mind actually works, and it’s probably not the way you might think. I especially like his explanation of “grounded” vs. “ungrounded” assessments as an alternative to “truth” or “reality”.

If You Can Only Buy One Book

Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

Marshall B. Rosenberg

If you can only buy one book to help you in a practical way, with your relationships in life, this is the one. Marshall Rosenberg, in his audio workshop on Nonviolent Communication, admits to having regrets about choosing the name for his work. He said he really doesn’t a name that says what it isn’t.

I understand. And I understand why he did call his work “Nonviolent” communication. Think about it. So much of our communications spark upsetting feelings because the method of communication is inherently flawed.

Marshall teaches us how to speak to one another (and for those of you who fancy yourselves advanced students, I dare you to regale me with stories of how you used NVC on your own self talk) in a completely different way than anything we were raised with in our homes and institutions.

I’ve been a student of his work for 16 years (the age of my daughter) and I’ve only scratched the surface. I miss the mark many times. But it’s so worth the practice. And the payoff comes in peace, peace of mind, intimacy, and trust of myself and others.

Couple this work with Forgiveness work (see Colin Tipping’s Radical Forgiveness) and the idea of making amends when you’ve made a mistake…and we truly could change our world in a heart beat.