Creative writing - From think to ink - Lindstrom Simeon 2015
Other books by this author
Self-Compassion - I Don't Have To Feel Better Than Others To Feel Good About Myself: Learn How To See Self Esteem Through The Lens Of Self-Love and Mindfulness and Cultivate The Courage To Be You
The world is a vast, complicated and sometimes downright hostile place. Today, more than ever, human beings have had to learn new ways to be resilient, know themselves and have the courage to be who they are. Our hyper connected world bombards us with images of phenomenally successful celebrities together with the expectation that we should want nothing but the best for ourselves at all times. But in a bustling world of 7 billion people, carving out a meaningful niche for ourselves can be daunting to say the least.
It's understandable that people feel the need to bolster their self esteem. Faced with millions of glossy images in the media about how we should live our lives, some have turned to trying even harder still to keep up. Others have merely given up. It's no exaggeration that people in the 21st century live in a world of infinitely more possibilities than any generation before them. We have experts and gurus of all stripes telling us that the life we have now is nothing compared to what we could achieve — and yet, we're as depressed and lacking in confidence as ever.
Self help books on the market today will tell you one of two things: either that you are perfect already as you are and needn't worry, or that with just a little (well, a lot) of effort, you can reach those goals. Be the best, smartest, most successful, thinnest and relentlessly happiest version of yourself possible. No excuses!
This book takes a different approach to self esteem altogether. If you're feeling overwhelmed and worthless, inundated with information, struggling to juggle life, expectations, and disappointments... it may be time for a little self-compassion.
Unlike self esteem or an inflated confidence level, self-compassion is a different way of looking at yourself and others, warts and all, and a way more realistic acceptance of the way things are. With self-compassion, you become unflappable, calm and self-assured - without the risk of narcissism or becoming self-absorbed. Through a series of exercises, this book will suggest a new, gentle yet extremely powerful attitude shift that can end feelings of self-hatred, doubt, shame and low self-worth forever.
Download this book and continue reading by clicking here, or visit http://www.amazon.com/Simeon-Lindstrom/e/B00LHUJSAK/
How To Stop Worrying and Start Living - What Other People Think Of Me Is None Of My Business
Stress is a lot like love — hard to define, but you know it when you feel it.
This book will explore the nature of stress and how it infiltrates every level of your life, including the physical, emotional, cognitive, relational and even spiritual. You’ll find ways to nurture resilience, rationality and relaxation in your every day life, and learn how to loosen the grip of worry and anxiety. Through techniques that get to the heart of your unique stress response, and an exploration of how stress can affect your relationships, you'll discover how to control stress instead of letting it control you. This book shows you how.
But this book is not just another “anti-stress” book. Here, we will not be concerned with only reducing the symptoms of stress. Rather, we'll try to understand exactly what stress is and the role it plays in our lives. We'll attempt to dig deep to really understand the real sources of our anxiety and how to take ownership of them. Using the power of habit and several techniques for smoothing out the stressful wrinkles in our day-to-day lives, we'll move towards a real-world solution to living with less stress, more confidence and a deep spiritual resilience that will insulate you from the inevitable pressures of life.
By adopting a trusting, open and relaxed attitude, we'll bring something more of ourselves to relationships of all kinds. This book will take a look at dating and relationships without stress and worry, as well as ways to bring tranquility and balance into your home and family life. Again, this book is not about eradicating stress from your life forever. We'll end with a consideration of the positive side of negative thinking, and how we can use stress and worry to our advantage.
We will address physical, emotional, relational, spiritual, and cognitive and behavioral symptoms of stress.
And while most stress-management solutions offer relief for symptoms in only one or two of the above areas, this book will show you how all five areas are important, and a successful stress solution will touch on each of them.
Download this book and continue reading by clicking here, or visit http://www.amazon.com/Simeon-Lindstrom/e/B00LHUJSAK/
The Minimalist Budget: A Practical Guide On How To Save Money, Spend Less And Live More With A Minimalist Lifestyle
What's the first thing you think of when you hear the word “budget”? It's a meager little word, one that all too often comes after “tight”. Maybe you think of this word as an adjective, something to describe a cheap and substandard car or hotel. “Budget” brings to mind rationing, a kind of money diet. If you're like many people, budgeting is something you do with a kind of deflated spirit: budgeting means bargain bin quality and the sad sense that what you want is going to be just out of reach.
This book will try a different approach to budgeting all together. It's a pity that the idea of living within one's means should be experienced as such a deficit — this book will try to show that when you apply the principles of minimalism to budgeting, you are neither in a state of self-denial or trying to survive a financial scrape. In fact, a minimalist budget is a particular approach to abundance and fulfillment that may seem counterintuitive to most.
Undoubtedly, what came into your mind when you heard the word “budget” was simple: money. Money is a thing to be feared, to be saved, to be celebrated when it's there and mourned when it isn't. Budgeting, we are told, is necessary. When you live in a world where there is always one more thing to buy, being cognizant of the fact that you don't have endless resources is just the practical thing to do.
However, budgeting can be much more than this. To put it simply, money is only one of the resources that we should be managing in our lives, and possibly not even the most important one.
As humans, it is our lot to deal with being finite beings: we have only so much time to spend on this earth, only so much time that we are allotted each day, only so much energy that we can give away before we run into a deficit.
In a sense, the principles of minimalism rest on a more fundamental interpretation of “budget”. Just as you need to match your financial expenditure with your income, minimalism encourages us to match our needs with our actions. It doesn't make sense to buy food for 12 when you have a family of 4 in the same way it doesn't make sense to clutter up your home with things you don't want, like or need. Trimming away at unessential elements in your day-to-day life is an exercise in budgeting and minimalism both, whether you are trimming away excess expenses, destructive thoughts or junk in your spare room.
This book will offer an expanded notion of what it means to budget. We'll look at how money is not the only resource that needs to be managed, and a “life budget” that acknowledges your emotional, behavioral, social and even spiritual capital is more likely to lead to smarter decisions.
Minimalism is not, of course, about starvation or punishment. It's not about doing with less than you need. Rather, minimalism is about finding what you need and fulfilling that need exactly, without excess. It's a subtle point and one that the average person who has grown up in an industrialized capitalist society can miss: to have exactly enough is not suffering. Budgeting is therefore about understanding what you need to have enough, and how best you can allocate your resources to that end.
Most of the budgeting advice out there will come firmly out of the scarcity paradigm — you're usually offered a few ways to shave off money here and there. You are asked to look at all the instances where you are not spending or living on the bare minimum, and usually anything extra is framed as unnecessary, indulgent or, depending on who you talk to, bordering on immoral. These tips will tell you that after enough cheap toothpaste, homemade laundry soap and clothes bought out of season, you'll save enough money and make it all work. You're asked to look over your life and find places where you could manage, without too much discomfort, to do with less or even without.
While thriftiness and being money-conscious are excellent skills to have (and for some, absolutely necessary), minimalist budgeting is more about conscious decision making and less about stinginess and trying to endure a lack.
To show the difference, consider a purchase someone might make: a new dishwasher. On paper, the initial cost of a dishwasher might make it look like a kind of luxury. After all, you can simply wash the dishes for free yourself, right? In traditional budget land, a dishwasher may fall well into the category of “unnecessary”. Can you do without it? Of course. Then, it doesn't belong in your pared down budget. On the face of it, this logic seems sound. In fact, while you're laboring away washing dishes by hand, you may even get the impression that doing it all yourself is kind of noble.
The “minimalist budgeting” in this book will ask you to take a more expanded view of the dishwasher. Not buying one will certainly result in less of your money spent. But, as mentioned, since money is not your only resource, by focusing on only this aspect you're not getting the full picture. Is the cost of doing dishes by hand really free? In your budget, have you factored in the fact that washing dishes saps hours of your life each week and makes you grumpy? If you're so wiped out at the prospect of another 45 minutes of housework at the end of the day that you give up and splash out on expensive restaurant food, you haven't even saved money, anyway.
When you lay alone in bed at night and ponder your existence, which will mean more to you: the extra cash you saved by not buying a dishwasher, or the lifestyle you gave up as the person who never has to worry about dishes again? You can’t take your possessions with you when you die, they say, but which will be more soothing to you on your deathbed - the fact that your life was thrifty or that it was enjoyable and meaningful?
Simple budgeting doesn't take these kinds of things into account. The primary purpose of your life, at least in some sense, is to be happy. Money usually facilitates this. But if you're maximizing your money to the point that it makes you less happy, your budget is no longer serving its purpose. Minimalist budgeting is like regular budgeting, only with an eye to what is truly important. While this book will certainly show you nifty ways to save a buck here and there, it will also regularly ask you to examine what that buck means to you at the end of the day.
We'll explore shopping and spending habits, identify problem areas, think about debt and make achievable goals for home, work and more. We'll look at concrete ways to put some of these principles into action, and look at resources that will keep you focused and motivated. But at the same time, this book is also about the philosophy of minimalism, not thriftiness. If you can pair your budget plan with a more nuanced understanding of your relationship with money and how it ties into how you want to live, the changes you make will be more authentic and longer lasting.
Download this book and continue reading by clicking here, or visit http://www.amazon.com/Simeon-Lindstrom/e/B00LHUJSAK/
Love Is A Verb - 30 Days To Improving Your Relationship Communication: Learn How To Nurture A Deeper Love By Mastering The Art of Heart-To-Heart Relationship Communication
Have you ever noticed how often people say they wish they could “find” love? As if love were something beautiful to just stumble upon on the side of the road. Yet when you speak to happily married couples, especially those that have been married for decades, they never ascribe their success and happiness to luck. Instead, they’ll probably tell you that a good relationship takes work - lots of it - and the continued effort and maintenance from both sides.
Love is a verb.
It is not something only some people are fortunate enough to catch and then merely set aside. It’s not a prize you win or a box to tick on your life’s checklist. Instead, love has to be kindled and rebuilt every day; it has to be invited in, nurtured, cultivated. Love is not something passive that you simply have or don’t have - it’s an active process and the continual expression of what’s in your heart, mind and soul.
In this book, love is not a noun. It isn’t some mysterious gift from the gods that falls into our laps, but something that we can work on and build with intention. So, in that spirit, this book will not be a dispassionate list of relationship advice, or theories about the way people work together, or tips to heat up your sex life.
Instead, this book will ask you to become actively involved, to not just read but to constantly apply what has been read to your own life. And since we are on the topic of heart-to-heart communication, you’re naturally going to need to rope in your partner, too. The exercises are experiential, meaning, simply, that you have to actually do them in order to benefit from them.
You’ll be asked to be honest with yourself, get out there into the world and even make yourself vulnerable. Some of these exercises will be fun, others will scare and challenge you - but they are all designed to open your heart to more effective communication with others, so that the relationships you build are strong, heart centered and compassionate.
This book is written for anyone who feels that they are not living (and loving!) to their full potential. Whether you crave deeper connections with others or want to reignite relationships you are already in, this book was written to help you master the art of good communication.
In fact, it would be ideal for you to think of this book itself as one of the first of many new and interesting conversations you’re going to have. Although I don’t know you and cannot be sure of your response to what’s written in these pages, I want for to engage with and respond to everything here as though I was sitting right there in the room with you.
You don’t have to agree with everything, or like the principles outlined here. The important thing, though, is that in opening up the dialogue, you are already taking those first few steps to becoming more conscious, compassionate lovers and partners.
When we risk nothing, we gain nothing. When we don’t open ourselves to love, we don’t love deeply. My wish is that this book leaves you feeling open and receptive to love - your own ability to give it as well as the privilege of receiving it. And I hope that you have high expectations for yourself in reading it, too.
When two people come together, in any capacity, there is the chance for something special to happen. Every great romance began with a meeting of two hearts, with the first word of the first conversation. Let’s begin this book with the first word. I am pleased to meet you, dear reader, and hope that in moving through this book together, we can jointly create a little more love, a little more tenderness and a little more understanding in the world than there was to begin with.
Download this book and continue reading by clicking here, or visit http://www.amazon.com/Simeon-Lindstrom/e/B00LHUJSAK/
Codependency - "Loves Me, Loves Me Not": Learn How To Cultivate Healthy Relationships, Overcome Relationship Jealousy, Stop Controlling Others and Be Codependent No More
If you’ve had difficulty with starting or maintaining relationships, issues with feeling jealous and possessive or find that your connections with others are more a source of distress than anything else, this book is for you.
By finding ways to be more mindful throughout the day, as well as exercises in improving your communication skills, this book will show you how to have relationships that are calmer and more stable and compassionate.
We’ll begin with a look at the phenomenon of codependency, what it has traditionally meant in the psychological realm and how these traits and patterns can be traced back to issues of self-worth, compassion and more deliberate action. We’ll examine how mindfulness can be the magic ingredient to getting a hold of the codependency cycle, and some of the characteristics of happy, mindful relationships. Finally, we’ll explore a model for mindful communication and ways that you can begin to implement immediately in order to make a commitment to stronger, more compassionate relationships with others.
It may feel sometimes that an intense and serious connection with someone is proof of the depth of the feeling you have for one another. But be careful, obsession and dependency is not the same as love. In the codependent relationship, our affection and attention is coming from a place of fear and need. As a result, the partners never really connect with each other. They do endless, complicated dances around each others problems, but what they never do is make an honest human connection.
In codependent relationships, manipulation, guilt and resentment take the place of healthy, balanced affection. Codependent partners are not necessarily together because they want to be, they are because they have to be, because they don’t know how to live otherwise. One partner may bring a history of abuse, a “personality disorder” or mental illness into a relationship; the ways the other partner responds to this may be healthy or not, but if they bring their own issues to the table too, they may find that the bond of their love is more accurately described as a shared and complementary dysfunction.
Remember, the relationships we are in can never be better than the relationships we have with ourselves. Two unhappy people together never make a happy couple together. We cannot treat other people in ways we have never taken the time to consider before, and we cannot communicate properly if we are not even sure what it is we need to communicate in the first place.
An individual with a mature, well-developed sense of themselves has the most to offer someone else. They have their own lives, their own sense of self-worth, their own strength. And when you remove need, fear, obsession and desperation, you open up the way for love and affection just for its own sake.
Love is many things, but it’s cheapened when held hostage by the ego. Connections formed around ego and fear may be strong and lasting, but what keeps them going is mutual need. What could be more romantic than, “I don’t need to be with you. You don’t complete me at all. I am happy and stable and fulfilled without you. But I still want to be with you, because you’re awesome”?
On the ground, in the nitty gritty of life, we can reduce a massive thing like “Relationships” down to smaller, more manageable units. Everything from the deepest and most profound romantic and spiritual union to sharing a joke with the cashier at the supermarket rests on one thing: communication. Whether it’s through words or not, we are constantly communicating, and the accumulation of these little units creates this big thing we call a relationship.
Download this book and continue reading by clicking here, or visit http://www.amazon.com/Simeon-Lindstrom/e/B00LHUJSAK/
Mindful Eating: A Healthy, Balanced and Compassionate Way To Stop Overeating, How To Lose Weight and Get a Real Taste of Life by Eating Mindfully
What are you hungry for?
You may have been drawn to the idea of mindful eating as an antidote to the empty promises of the diet industry, or you may have felt that it’s time to pursue a more purposeful, more compassionate way of eating. Whatever your reasons and whatever your current relationship to food and your body is, this book can help you reconsider your eating habits and whether they are truly serving your highest good.
Through an exploration of the real reasons we overeat, our thoughts and feelings around food, and coming into closer contact with our own true appetites, this book aims to help you craft an open and accepting attitude towards food.
Mindful eating is an attitude towards food (and much more) that encourages awareness, deliberate action and an open acceptance of the present moment as it unfolds around us.
In this book, we’ll look at how the conventional dieting mindset is actually damaging and counterproductive, and how mindful eating can be a refreshing break away from all the expectations that you have about yourself and food that are not serving you. The ultimate goal is to become exquisitely tuned in to your own appetites, desires and passions, and to tune out the noise and clutter from the outside world that muffle your innate intuition about what is good for you and what isn’t.
When we understand our true hunger, when we realize the psychological, emotional, behavioral, physical and even spiritual causes behind our overeating, only then can we can start to take realistic steps to remedy it.
Download this book and continue reading by clicking here, or visit http://www.amazon.com/Simeon-Lindstrom/e/B00LHUJSAK/
Minimalism: How To Declutter, De-Stress And Simplify Your Life With Simple Living
Today, a growing number of people are becoming dissatisfied with their lives and turning to simpler ways of working, living and raising their children.
This book will explore the philosophy of minimalism and how it can streamline your life, declutter your home, reduce stress, mindless consumerism, and reconnect you to what’s truly important.
You’ll find ways to adopt a mindset that promotes simplicity and elegance in your every day life, and rethink your dependence on material possessions. We will explore how practical changes to our surroundings can lead to a previously unknown inner peace and calm. Whether in our wardrobes, kitchens, work lives or our deeper sense of personal and spiritual purpose, we could all do with focusing on things that align with our values and reducing the distraction of those things that pull us away from them. This book shows you how.
For those born and raised in the height of our consumer society, the idea that happiness and personal fulfillment is found in stuff is more or less a given. The capitalist machine we all live within requires only one thing of us: that we should constantly want, and the things we should want are to be found, usually, in malls. Malls that are filled with strategically placed advertising, with the sole purpose to entice and lure you, trying to convince you that you need, not want, their specific product. Our economy relies heavily on a steady stream of consumption: better clothes, cars, bigger houses and things to fill those houses with, the newest appliances, Christmas decorations, pet toys, jewelry, office furniture, pot plants, gaming consoles, specialty tires, luxury soaps… the array of stuff is simply dazzling.
But if you are reading this there’s a chance you find this overabundance just a little… exhausting. Paradoxically, there seems to be a sad sort of emptiness in filling up one’s life with more things. What is simple and truly valuable often seems to be completely hidden under mountains of what is unnecessary. Although advertising tells us the best way to solve problems is to buy solutions, tranquility and a graceful life seem to elude us, no matter what we buy or how much of it.
Minimalism is an aesthetic, a philosophy and a way of life. This book takes a look at how deeply liberating a simpler life can be, and shows you ways you can adopt a calmer, more deliberate way of living and working. Minimalism is about clearing away the clutter that is distracting from what is really important. It’s about rethinking our attitudes to ownership, to our lifestyles and to our innermost values.
Download this book and continue reading by clicking here, or visit http://www.amazon.com/Simeon-Lindstrom/e/B00LHUJSAK/
Self-Esteem For Kids - Every Parent's Greatest Gift: How To Raise Kids To Have Confidence In Themselves And Their Own Abilities
This book will help you learn how self-esteem develops in children. It will also give you step-by-step instructions for building up your child’s self-esteem in a natural way. The ultimate goal of this book is to help you build and maintain your child’s self-esteem, as well as help raise their self-esteem if it has fallen to an all-time low.
Many parents do not recognize the importance of self-esteem. Even if they know that it is important, they are not aware of how self-esteem develops or what they can do to help. However, the fact of the matter is that parents are the primary influence on a child’s self-esteem. High self-esteem and self-confidence are the greatest gifts you can give your child.
With high self-esteem, your child will be able to succeed in school and in life. They will have healthy relationships, become successful in their chosen career, and be able to live productive and happy lives. Self-esteem is a necessary tool for them to have as they grow and become adults. By giving them this gift you will be giving them the most precious gift of all—happiness.
Great self-esteem is one of the most important gifts you will ever give your child. But what is it exactly? How do you define something so seemingly elusive? Self-esteem simply defined is having confidence in one’s self, worth and abilities. It is about self-respect. A child cannot develop self-esteem if they feel that they are worthless in any way. Likewise they cannot build self-esteem if they feel that there is nothing they are good at, or that they have no talents.
Self-esteem, in the end, is all about self-worth. What does your child think they are worth? Do they recognize how much they mean to you, and how important they are to you and the world around them? Do they understand that everyone has set backs, but everyone also has talents and abilities that increase their worth? Does your child know what these abilities and talents are?
Most of these questions would be hard to answer. It is difficult to ask these types of questions to young children. They often do not understand what you want them to say. In older children the questions are just as useless because the child will likely lie or simply refuse to answer. As a parent it is your job to judge your child’s self-esteem based on actions, moods and temperaments.
Please keep in mind while reading this book that while every child is different, all children need these things in their lives. You know your child best, but at least most of the strategies and tips in this book will apply.
Download this book and continue reading by clicking here, or visit http://www.amazon.com/Simeon-Lindstrom/e/B00LHUJSAK/