Download or read book Braving the Wilderness written by Brené Brown and published by Random House. This book was released on 2017-09-12 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A timely and important new book that challenges everything we think we know about cultivating true belonging in our communities, organizations, and culture, from the #1 bestselling author of Rising Strong, Daring Greatly, and The Gifts of Imperfection. ‘True belonging doesn't require us to change who we are. It requires us to be who we are.’ Social scientist Brené Brown, PhD, LMSW has sparked a global conversation about the experiences that bring meaning to our lives – experiences of courage, vulnerability, love, belonging, shame and empathy. In Braving the Wilderness, Brown redefines what it means to truly belong in an age of increased polarisation. With her trademark mix of research, storytelling and honesty, Brown will again change the cultural conversation while mapping out a clear path to true belonging. Brown argues that what we're experiencing today is a spiritual crisis of disconnection, and introduces four practices of true belonging that challenge everything we believe about ourselves and each other. She writes, ‘True belonging requires us to believe in and belong to ourselves so fully that we can find sacredness both in both being a part of something, and in standing alone when necessary. But in a culture that's rife with perfectionism and pleasing, and with the erosion of civility, it's easy to stay quiet, hide in our ideological bunkers, or fit in rather than show up as our true selves and brave the wilderness of uncertainty and criticism. But true belonging is not something we negotiate or accomplish with others; it's a daily practice that demands integrity and authenticity. It's a personal commitment that we carry in our hearts.’ Brown offers us the clarity and courage we need to find our way back to ourselves and to each other. And that path cuts right through the wilderness. Brown writes, ‘The wilderness is an untamed, unpredictable place of solitude and searching. It is a place as dangerous as it is breathtaking, a place as sought after as it is feared. But it turns out to be the place of true belonging, and it's the bravest and most sacred place you will ever stand.’

Download or read book A Quest for Belonging written by Allan Irizarry-Graves and published by . This book was released on 2020-12-30 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have you ever felt out of place or that you didn't belong? If so, you're not alone. We all have been there. I know I have. Allan chronicles his journey of figuring out who he is and where he belongs in life while battling and overcoming the long-term ramifications of drug-addicted parents, foster care, abuse, and identity crisis. By the end of A Quest for Belonging, you will understand the power of knowing who you are and the importance of embracing the journey that got you to where you are in life.

Download or read book Futureface written by Alex Wagner and published by One World. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the host of MSNBC’s Alex Wagner Tonight, “a rich and revealing memoir” (The New York Times) about her travels around the globe to solve the mystery of her ancestry, confronting the question at the heart of the American experience of immigration, race, and identity: Who are my people? “A thoughtful, beautiful meditation on what makes us who we are . . . and the values and ideals that bind us together as Americans.”—Barack Obama The daughter of a Burmese mother and a white American father, Alex Wagner grew up thinking of herself as a “futureface”—an avatar of a mixed-race future when all races would merge into a brown singularity. But when one family mystery leads to another, Wagner’s post-racial ideals fray as she becomes obsessed with the specifics of her own family’s racial and ethnic history. Drawn into the wild world of ancestry, she embarks upon a quest around the world—and into her own DNA—to answer the ultimate questions of who she really is and where she belongs. The journey takes her from Burma to Luxembourg, from ruined colonial capitals with records written on banana leaves to Mormon databases, genetic labs, and the rest of the twenty-first-century genealogy complex. But soon she begins to grapple with a deeper question: Does it matter? Is our enduring obsession with blood and land, race and identity, worth all the trouble it’s caused us? Wagner weaves together fascinating history, genetic science, and sociology but is really after deeper stuff than her own ancestry: in a time of conflict over who we are as a country, she tries to find the story where we all belong. Praise for Futureface “Smart, searching . . . Meditating on our ancestors, as Wagner’s own story shows, can suggest better ways of being ourselves.”—Maud Newton, The New York Times Book Review “Sincere and instructive . . . This timely reflection on American identity, with a bonus exposé of DNA ancestry testing, deserves a wide audience.”—Library Journal “The narrative is part Mary Roach–style participation-heavy research, part family history, and part exploration of existential loneliness. . . . The journey is worth taking.”—Kirkus Reviews “[A] ruminative exploration of ethnicity and identity . . . Wagner’s odyssey is an effective riposte to anti-immigrant politics.”—Publishers Weekly

Download or read book Belonging written by Nora Krug and published by Scribner. This book was released on 2019-09-17 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: * Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award * Silver Medal Society of Illustrators * * Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, Comics Beat, The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Kirkus Reviews, and Library Journal This “ingenious reckoning with the past” (The New York Times), by award-winning artist Nora Krug investigates the hidden truths of her family’s wartime history in Nazi Germany. Nora Krug was born decades after the fall of the Nazi regime, but the Second World War cast a long shadow over her childhood and youth in the city of Karlsruhe, Germany. Yet she knew little about her own family’s involvement; though all four grandparents lived through the war, they never spoke of it. After twelve years in the US, Krug realizes that living abroad has only intensified her need to ask the questions she didn’t dare to as a child. Returning to Germany, she visits archives, conducts research, and interviews family members, uncovering in the process the stories of her maternal grandfather, a driving teacher in Karlsruhe during the war, and her father’s brother Franz-Karl, who died as a teenage SS soldier. In this extraordinary quest, “Krug erases the boundaries between comics, scrapbooking, and collage as she endeavors to make sense of 20th-century history, the Holocaust, her German heritage, and her family's place in it all” (The Boston Globe). A highly inventive, “thoughtful, engrossing” (Minneapolis Star-Tribune) graphic memoir, Belonging “packs the power of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and David Small’s Stitches” (NPR.org).

Download or read book Tribe written by Sebastian Junger and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2016-05-24 with total page 103 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We have a strong instinct to belong to small groups defined by clear purpose and understanding--"tribes." This tribal connection has been largely lost in modern society, but regaining it may be the key to our psychological survival. Decades before the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin lamented that English settlers were constantly fleeing over to the Indians-but Indians almost never did the same. Tribal society has been exerting an almost gravitational pull on Westerners for hundreds of years, and the reason lies deep in our evolutionary past as a communal species. The most recent example of that attraction is combat veterans who come home to find themselves missing the incredibly intimate bonds of platoon life. The loss of closeness that comes at the end of deployment may explain the high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder suffered by military veterans today. Combining history, psychology, and anthropology, Tribe explores what we can learn from tribal societies about loyalty, belonging, and the eternal human quest for meaning. It explains the irony that-for many veterans as well as civilians-war feels better than peace, adversity can turn out to be a blessing, and disasters are sometimes remembered more fondly than weddings or tropical vacations. Tribe explains why we are stronger when we come together, and how that can be achieved even in today's divided world.

Download or read book Violence and Belonging written by Vigdis Broch-Due and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Violence and Belonging explores the formative role of violence in shaping people's identities in modern postcolonial Africa.

Download or read book You Are Your Best Thing written by Tarana Burke and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2022-01-25 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Tarana Burke and Dr. Brené Brown bring together a dynamic group of Black writers, organizers, artists, academics, and cultural figures to discuss the topics the two have dedicated their lives to understanding and teaching: vulnerability and shame resilience. Contributions by Kiese Laymon, Imani Perry, Laverne Cox, Jason Reynolds, Austin Channing Brown, and more NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY MARIE CLAIRE AND BOOKRIOT It started as a text between two friends. Tarana Burke, founder of the ‘me too.’ Movement, texted researcher and writer Brené Brown to see if she was free to jump on a call. Brené assumed that Tarana wanted to talk about wallpaper. They had been trading home decorating inspiration boards in their last text conversation so Brené started scrolling to find her latest Pinterest pictures when the phone rang. But it was immediately clear to Brené that the conversation wasn’t going to be about wallpaper. Tarana’s hello was serious and she hesitated for a bit before saying, “Brené, you know your work affected me so deeply, but as a Black woman, I’ve sometimes had to feel like I have to contort myself to fit into some of your words. The core of it rings so true for me, but the application has been harder.” Brené replied, “I’m so glad we’re talking about this. It makes sense to me. Especially in terms of vulnerability. How do you take the armor off in a country where you’re not physically or emotionally safe?” Long pause. “That’s why I’m calling,” said Tarana. “What do you think about working together on a book about the Black experience with vulnerability and shame resilience?” There was no hesitation. Burke and Brown are the perfect pair to usher in this stark, potent collection of essays on Black shame and healing. Along with the anthology contributors, they create a space to recognize and process the trauma of white supremacy, a space to be vulnerable and affirm the fullness of Black love and Black life.

Download or read book Home written by Jo Swinney and published by Hodder & Stoughton. This book was released on 2018-09-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Where is Home? This question troubles many of us. We may live far from where we grew up, away from those we love or in a culture not our own. But we all need somewhere to belong, to find a sense of home in this world. Jo Swinney was born in the UK, but grew up in Portugal and France. She went to an English boarding school, did a gap year in southern Africa and in her twenties studied theology in Canada, where she met her American husband. Now back in the UK, she's had more reason than most to wonder what 'home' really means. Is home where you come from - where you live now - where the people you love are - or what? Interweaving a frank and poignant retelling of her own story with theological and psychological insights, Jo's original and authentic exploration of home in all its many and varied forms is a heartfelt call to find our home in the things that are truly of most value.

Download or read book The Quest for Citizenship written by Kim Cary Warren and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2010-09-13 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Quest for Citizenship, Kim Cary Warren examines the formation of African American and Native American citizenship, belonging, and identity in the United States by comparing educational experiences in Kansas between 1880 and 1935. Warren focuses her study on Kansas, thought by many to be the quintessential free state, not only because it was home to sizable populations of Indian groups and former slaves, but also because of its unique history of conflict over freedom during the antebellum period. After the Civil War, white reformers opened segregated schools, ultimately reinforcing the very racial hierarchies that they claimed to challenge. To resist the effects of these reformers' actions, African Americans developed strategies that emphasized inclusion and integration, while autonomy and bicultural identities provided the focal point for Native Americans' understanding of what it meant to be an American. Warren argues that these approaches to defining American citizenship served as ideological precursors to the Indian rights and civil rights movements. This comparative history of two nonwhite races provides a revealing analysis of the intersection of education, social control, and resistance, and the formation and meaning of identity for minority groups in America.

Download or read book Down from the Mountaintop written by Joshua Dolezal and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2014-03-01 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lyrical coming-of-age memoir, Down from the Mountaintop chronicles a quest for belonging. Raised in northwestern Montana by Pentecostal homesteaders whose twenty-year experiment in subsistence living was closely tied to their faith, Joshua Doležal experienced a childhood marked equally by his parents’ quest for spiritual transcendence and the surrounding Rocky Mountain landscape. Unable to fully embrace the fundamentalism of his parents, he began to search for religious experience elsewhere: in baseball, books, and weightlifting, then later in migrations to Tennessee, Nebraska, and Uruguay. Yet even as he sought to understand his place in the world, he continued to yearn for his mountain home. For more than a decade, Doležal taught in the Midwest throughout the school year but returned to Montana and Idaho in the summers to work as a firefighter and wilderness ranger. He reveled in the life of the body and the purifying effects of isolation and nature, believing he had found transcendence. Yet his summers tied him even more to the mountain landscape, fueling his sense of exile on the plains. It took falling in love, marrying, and starting a family in Iowa to allow Doležal to fully examine his desire for a spiritual mountaintop from which to view the world. In doing so, he undergoes a fundamental redefinition of the nature of home and belonging. He learns to accept the plains on their own terms, moving from condemnation to acceptance and from isolation to community. Coming down from the mountaintop means opening himself to relationships, grounding himself as a husband, father, and gardener who learns that where things grow, the grower also takes root.

Download or read book You Belong written by Sebene Selassie and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A POWERFUL WORK OF SPIRITUALITY AND ANTI-RACISM"—Publishers Weekly "IF YOU READ ONE BOOK IN 2020, MAKE IT THIS ONE."—Tricycle From much-admired meditation expert Sebene Selassie, You Belong is a call to action, exploring our tangled relationship with belonging, connection, and each other You are not separate. You never were. You never will be. We are not separate from each other. But we don’t always believe it, and we certainly don’t always practice it. In fact, we often practice the opposite—disconnection and domination. From unconscious bias to “cancel culture,” denial of our inherent interconnection limits our own freedom. In You Belong, much-admired meditation expert Sebene Selassie reveals that accepting our belonging is the key to facing the many challenges currently impacting our world. Using ancient philosophy, multidisciplinary research, exquisite storytelling, and razor-sharp wit, Selassie leads us in an exploration of all the ways we separate (and thus suffer) and offers a map back to belonging. To belong is to experience joy in any moment: to feel pleasure, dance in public, accept death, forgive what seems unforgivable, and extend kindness to yourself and others. To belong is also to acknowledge injustice, reckon with history, and face our own shadows. Full of practical advice and profound revelations, You Belong makes a winning case for resisting the forces that demand separation and reclaiming the connection—and belonging—that have been ours all along.

Download or read book Selfish Scared and Stupid written by Kieran Flanagan and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-12-08 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Appealing to humans' basic instincts to increase influence, buy-in and results Survival of the species comes down to three basic instincts, say behavioural research strategists Dan Gregory and Kieran Flanagan—fear, self-interest and simplicity. These basic human behaviours come into play in all types of relationships, including those between businesses and customers. Selfish, Scared and Stupid: Stop fighting human nature and increase your performance, engagement and influence, demystifies these behaviours and examines the psychology behind why even the best ideas sometimes fail. This book helps businesses design their organisations for reality rather than perfection, and also offers strategies to head off unprecedented levels of disengagement within, and outside, the business. It answers baffling questions around why the public sometimes fails to engage despite overwhelming data suggesting otherwise, why so many new products end up on clearance shelves and why so many great salespeople often fall short of their monthly targets. Learn how the survival of the species plays into business, including delusionary realities and the reasons ideas can fail Discover how to offer customers strategic rewards, thereby making the buying process more attractive to selfish natures Examine the link between fear and the unknown, including strategies for quelling fears and turning them into action Learn to use a simple mindset to create low-involvement products, helping appeal to instinct and making products hard to resist This provocative book is built on the idea that businesses must return to a more human engagement methodology in order to succeed. It is an informative read for anyone interested in improving influence, growing business reach, improving sales figures or understanding the complexities of human behaviour.

Download or read book Community written by Peter Block and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2009-09-01 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most of our communities are fragmented and at odds within themselves. Businesses, social services, education, and health care each live within their own worlds. The same is true of individual citizens, who long for connection but end up marginalized, their gifts overlooked, their potential contributions lost. What keeps this from changing is that we are trapped in an old and tired conversation about who we are. If this narrative does not shift, we will never truly create a common future and work toward it together. What Peter Block provides in this inspiring new book is an exploration of the exact way community can emerge from fragmentation. How is community built? How does the transformation occur? What fundamental shifts are involved? What can individuals and formal leaders do to create a place they want to inhabit? We know what healthy communities look like—there are many success stories out there. The challenge is how to create one in our own place. Block helps us see how we can change the existing context of community from one of deficiencies, interests, and entitlement to one of possibility, generosity, and gifts. Questions are more important than answers in this effort, which means leadership is not a matter of style or vision but is about getting the right people together in the right way: convening is a more critical skill than commanding. As he explores the nature of community and the dynamics of transformation, Block outlines six kinds of conversation that will create communal accountability and commitment and describes how we can design physical spaces and structures that will themselves foster a sense of belonging. In Community, Peter Block explores a way of thinking about our places that creates an opening for authentic communities to exist and details what each of us can do to make that happen.

Download or read book Belonging written by Toko-pa Turner and published by Her Own Room Press. This book was released on 2017-12-19 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2018 Readers' Favorite Gold Winner 2019 IAN Book of the Year Award 2017 Nautilus Award Gold Winner Feel like you don’t belong? You’re not alone.The world has never been more connected, yet people are lonelier than ever. Whether we feel unworthy, alienated, or anxious about our place in the world — the absence of belonging is the great silent wound of our times. Most people think of belonging as a mythical place, and they spend a lifetime searching for it in vain. But what if belonging isn’t a place at all? What if it’s a skill that has been lost or forgotten? With her signature depth and eloquence, Toko-pa maps a path to Belonging from the inside out. Drawing on myth, stories and dreams, she takes us into the origins of our estrangement, reframing exile as a necessary initiation into authenticity. Then she shares the competencies of belonging: a set of ancestral practices to heal our wounds and restore true belonging to our lives and to the world.

Download or read book Dare to Lead written by Brené Brown and published by Random House. This book was released on 2018-10-09 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Brené Brown has taught us what it means to dare greatly, rise strong, and brave the wilderness. Now, based on new research conducted with leaders, change makers, and culture shifters, she’s showing us how to put those ideas into practice so we can step up and lead. Don’t miss the five-part HBO Max docuseries Brené Brown: Atlas of the Heart! NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BLOOMBERG Leadership is not about titles, status, and wielding power. A leader is anyone who takes responsibility for recognizing the potential in people and ideas, and has the courage to develop that potential. When we dare to lead, we don’t pretend to have the right answers; we stay curious and ask the right questions. We don’t see power as finite and hoard it; we know that power becomes infinite when we share it with others. We don’t avoid difficult conversations and situations; we lean into vulnerability when it’s necessary to do good work. But daring leadership in a culture defined by scarcity, fear, and uncertainty requires skill-building around traits that are deeply and uniquely human. The irony is that we’re choosing not to invest in developing the hearts and minds of leaders at the exact same time as we’re scrambling to figure out what we have to offer that machines and AI can’t do better and faster. What can we do better? Empathy, connection, and courage, to start. Four-time #1 New York Times bestselling author Brené Brown has spent the past two decades studying the emotions and experiences that give meaning to our lives, and the past seven years working with transformative leaders and teams spanning the globe. She found that leaders in organizations ranging from small entrepreneurial startups and family-owned businesses to nonprofits, civic organizations, and Fortune 50 companies all ask the same question: How do you cultivate braver, more daring leaders, and how do you embed the value of courage in your culture? In this new book, Brown uses research, stories, and examples to answer these questions in the no-BS style that millions of readers have come to expect and love. Brown writes, “One of the most important findings of my career is that daring leadership is a collection of four skill sets that are 100 percent teachable, observable, and measurable. It’s learning and unlearning that requires brave work, tough conversations, and showing up with your whole heart. Easy? No. Because choosing courage over comfort is not always our default. Worth it? Always. We want to be brave with our lives and our work. It’s why we’re here.” Whether you’ve read Daring Greatly and Rising Strong or you’re new to Brené Brown’s work, this book is for anyone who wants to step up and into brave leadership.

Download or read book Momentum written by Michael McQueen and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-11-21 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Achieve the ultimate state of continual success Momentum is your personal guidebook to the art and science of success. Momentary victories and small wins don't last, and the frustration of reclaiming that energy is real. This book shows you how to cultivate a different type of achievement – measureable, sustainable and constant. It's the difference between winning a battle and winning the war, and requires more than a single brilliant move. It's about activity, focus and consistency, and working smarter instead of harder. This insightful guide helps you dig to the core of who and where you are, and start implementing the core practices and characteristics that keep the successes coming. You'll discover the traps that have been pushing you off course, and learn when to push through and when to change course entirely. Case studies illustrate the pitfalls of momentum-traps through the lens of individuals and organisations who ignored early warning signs at their own peril – and ultimately, detriment. Momentum is not a fleeting or transient feeling. It's a skill that can be fostered, encouraged and nurtured, and it's the biggest success tool in the box. This book walks you through the principles, practices and ideas that help you build and maintain a positive trajectory. Achieve breakthrough results and sustainable success Overcome baggage, monotony and the appeal of immediacy Build, maintain or reclaim your dynamism and vitality Avoid the common traps that hinder forward progress Whether you've had a taste of success and long for its return, or feel that something's holding you back from achieving your potential – momentum is your missing piece. Find it and grab it with both hands using the invaluable guidance in Momentum, the handbook for long-term success.

Download or read book The School of Greatness written by Lewis Howes and published by Rodale. This book was released on 2015-10-27 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When a career-ending injury left elite athlete and professional football player Lewis Howes out of work and living on his sister’s couch, he decided he needed to make a change for the better. He started by reaching out to people he admired, searching for mentors, and applying his past coaches’ advice from sports to life off the field. Lewis did more than bounce back: He built a multimillion-dollar online business and is now a sought-after business coach, speaker, and podcast host. In The School of Greatness, Howes shares the essential tips and habits he gathered in interviewing “the greats” on his wildly popular podcast of the same name. In discussion with people like Olympic gold medalist Shawn Johnson and Pencils of Promise CEO Adam Braun, Howes figured out that greatness is unearthed and cultivated from within. The masters of greatness are not successful because they got lucky or are innately more talented, but because they applied specific habits and tools to embrace and overcome adversity in their lives. A framework for personal development, The School of Greatness gives you the tools, knowledge, and actionable resources you need to reach your potential. Howes anchors each chapter with a specific lesson he culled from his greatness “professors” and his own experiences to teach you how to create a vision, develop hustle, and use dedication, mindfulness, joy, and love to reach goals. His lessons and practical exercises prove that anyone is capable of achieving success and that we can all strive for greatness in our everyday lives.