Inspirational story of Alabama native Betty Perryman. At the age of twenty-three Betty lost her children and a family friend in an automobile accident. This tragedy catapulted Betty to indescribable depths of grief. Over time Betty transitioned from grief and she let go and began to build a life that would honor the life of her children. Her journal was modified and the self-help research she complied to help herself soon became a highly esteemed resource for grief support groups. Betty was given a calling to share her story. For thirty years Betty has served as a spiritual wellness coach and grief facilitator. Betty is the author of Happiness Beyond Grief the true story of her tragic loss and journey beyond her grief. She is the co-founder of the American Coaching School and Healing Arts Center

"One of the classics in the field of crisis intervention" (Dr. Earl Grollman), Life after Loss is the go-to resource for anyone who has suffered a significant life change. Loss can be overwhelming, and recovery often seems daunting, if not impossible. With great compassion and insight, Deits provides practical exercises for navigating the uncertain terrain of loss and grief, helping readers find positive ways to put together a life that is necessarily different, but equally meaningful. With two new chapters and significant changes throughout reflecting Deits's ongoing experience in counseling, Life after Loss is an essential "roadmap for those in grief" (Lawrence J. Lincoln, MD, Staff, Elisabeth KüRoss Center).

When the best option is to let go of the life you planned for yourself and find a new path, a world of possibilities can surprisingly open up. Learn whether it is time to let go, and if so, how to move through your grief and find your way forward in The Next Happy. If you believe, you can do anything. Although well-meaning, these intended words of inspiration can make us feel like failures. The reality is that no matter how positive our outlook or how tenacious our approach, our dreams simply do not always come true--and there is nothing we can do about it. After multiple fertility treatments and years of hardship in her pursuit to have a child, Tracey Cleantis was forced to face this reality head-on. Yet, through this process and her work counseling hundreds of clients through the loss of their goals and aspirations, she discovered one simple truth: Sometimes there comes a time when the smartest, healthiest, and sanest thing to do is to let go of the original plan in order to find a new way forward toward happiness. And with this critical shift, a world of possibilities opens up to us. New, tangible dreams take shape. In The Next Happy, Cleantis offers a roadmap for that journey, teaching you how to: face the possibility of letting go of a dream that isn’t working; accept and face sadness, anger, and shame; understand the true reasons why you wanted what you wanted and the real-life causes for why you didn’t get it; and ask the questions that will let you move on and set realistic goals for finding a new way forward. With down-to-earth wisdom and humor, this enlightening counterpoint to the popular self-help notion to “follow your dream, no matter what it takes” provides the guidance and support to help you make the decision of whether it is time to give up an impossible dream, and if so, move through your grief, and discover the next happy.

A granddaughter explores the stark contrasts in her grandmother's life before and after the Great Depression. The author blends family lore, memoir and research to investigate the mystery of the banished father her grandmother never met. The Mother Lode region of California is featured in one section set in Calaveras County from 1948-1959. Other prominent settings are 19th and early 20th century Galesburg, Illinois, northwestern Nebraska, Drayton North Dakota, Wellington County Ontario and Saskatchewan.

The mysteries of strange visitors is explored, revealed and recounted by two respected experts on the unexplained and paranormal. Are we alone or are there intelligent life-forms out there? Or are they already amongst us? Can we even know the Truth? Exploring the myths, stories, history, and facts of documented encounters, mysterious experiences, and unexplained visitors, Real Visitors, Voices from Beyond, and Parallel Dimensions by Brad Steiger and Sherry Hansen Steiger examines the “other” forms, entities and beings inhabiting our universe. Building on their decades of research into the paranormal, mystical, and supernatural, the Steigers analyze the influences and theories behind these mysterious “visitors,” whether they appear as aliens, ghosts, spirits, angels, demons, monsters, or some other form. The visitors have been called metaterrestrial, extradimensional, interdimensional, ultraterrestrial, and supraphysical intelligences, but regardless of the label, these inscrutable existences have left their mark on the people they've met—and a host of weird, wondrous, and horrifying stories. There are more than 200 thought-provoking stories that make you wonder about the Truth, including ... A U.S. Air Force jet chasing a UFO in the form of a blue fireball A ten year-old's encounter with an angelic, beautiful, glowing girl in the woods A troubling figure from the Spirit World spreads an eerie cold light A medieval monk, with a long, flowing robe and a huge hood covering his face An out-of-body experience and directions to utter a prayer that ultimately saves a life A visit from a recently deceased grandmother As well as stories on time-travel, strange energies, dreams, meditation, unidentified terrestrial life forms, and more. Tracing the perplexing and lasting effects of these otherworldly beings, Real Visitors, Voices from Beyond, and Parallel Dimensions exposes their power and reach throughout centuries of legends, myths, and today's world. Read with care!

Every reader will be able to relate to this beautifully written memoir. Helen was always almost afraid of living, knowing that a dark void of oblivion was waiting for her, her family and beloved pets in the end. Having rejected religion, thinking mediums were fraudulent and with no comforting belief system, she often felt terrified. Everything changed when she watched Beryl the hamster's soul leave its body in a gentle golden mist. After that, paranormal experiences came thick and fast. Was she going crazy, was it all nonsense? She began to accept a new reality but was now afraid of what others would think of her. Gradually, undeniable messages came from animal and human spirits, even an encounter with angels. She had to accept that she'd been wrong her whole life and was able to let go of all her fears. Even when she collapsed with heart failure, she found herself free to face the danger with hope and courage.

In Narratives of Positive Aging, Amia Lieblich presents a qualitative study that explores the life narratives of elderly men and women who engage in practices of "positive aging." They belong to a spontaneous community that assembles daily, early in the morning, on a beach near Tel-Aviv, Israel. At the seaside, the elders practice various outdoor sports, and converse over coffee at the local café. Based on their narratives, procured by individual open-ended interviews, and the author's participant observation, the book explores the impact of routine, physical activity, and social relationships on successful aging. Lieblich additionally presents an analysis of the tension-minimizing discourse adopted at the café and the pleasant bubble-like environment it fosters amongst the community members. Finally, the book debates the adaptive role of narrating one's life story, and its perceived manifestation of wisdom. A combination of complete life stories and extracts of conversations recorded on the beach color every chapter. These texts are complimented and elucidated by a variety of academic claims, theories and findings concerning narratives and aging. This book, based on an Israeli field study, may be viewed both as a local case study as well as a lesson relevant to aging everywhere.

In this groundbreaking work, the author effects the first extended rhetorical-philosophical reading of the historically problematic relationship between Jews and Germans, based on an analysis of texts from the Enlightenment through Modernism by Moses Mendelssohn, Friedrich and Dorothea Schlegel, Karl Marx, Richard Wagner, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud. The theoretical underpinning of the work lies in the author’s rereading, in terms of contemporary rhetorical theory, of the medieval tradition known as “figural representation,” which defines the Jewish-Christian relation as that between the dead, prefigural letter and the living, fulfilled spirit. After arguing that the German Enlightenment ultimately plays out the historical phantasm of a necessary “Judaization” of Protestant rationality, the author shows that German Early Romanticism consists fundamentally in the attempt to solve the aporias raised by this impossible confrontation between Protestant spirit and Jewish letter. In readings of Dorothea Schlegel—Mendelssohn’s daughter—and her husband Friedrich Schlegel, the author provides a new interpretation of the Neo-Catholic turn of later German Romanticism. Further, he situates the proleptic end and reversal of the project of Jewish emancipation in the two extreme versions of late-nineteenth-century anti-Judaism, those of Marx and Wagner, here viewed as binary concretizations of a specifically post-Romantic paganized Protestantism. Finally, the author argues that twentieth-century Modernism as represented by Nietzsche and Freud renews, if in a multiply ironic displacement, the secret “Judaizing” tendencies of the Enlightenment. Fascism and Communism both denigrate this Modernism, which affirms the letter of language as quasi-synonymous with the force of temporality—or anticipatory repetition—that disrupts all claims to the full presence of spirit. The book ends with a note on recent debates about Holocaust memory.