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Transform Your Life! BOOK 2: Inspirational Stories and Expert Insights
Transform Your Life! BOOK 2: Inspirational Stories and Expert Insights
Transform Your Life! BOOK 2: Inspirational Stories and Expert Insights
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Transform Your Life! BOOK 2: Inspirational Stories and Expert Insights

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Transform Your Life! is a co-creative book-a diverse mosaic of contributions from authors around the world-offering 60 unique perspectives on love and hope, strength and perseverance, living and thriving. Each chapter tells the true-life tale of overcoming real-world challenges, from addiction to abuse, illness to loss, and much more. Your heart will open as authors share their personal stories of rebirth and how they allowed their pain to inspire their purpose. Live your BEST life by exploring the powerful, proven methods and techniques compiled by experts who have LIVED IT. Become empowered to embrace transformation, turn tragedy into triumph, and express more of your true, authentic Self.
LanguageEnglish
PublisherBookBaby
Release dateNov 1, 2014
ISBN9781601660459
Transform Your Life! BOOK 2: Inspirational Stories and Expert Insights

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    Transform Your Life! BOOK 2 - Co-Authors

    Schott

    INTRODUCTION

    Nothing stands still in life. Change is constant, inevitable. As you read these words, you are moving, growing, changing. Even knowing this, we often live in resistance to change, and therefore to life itself.

    We cling to old circumstances and identities, like a newly

    hatched butterfly holding onto its old chrysalis as it learns

    to spread its wings.

    When change is thrust upon us, it often triggers total transformations. Today, these phenomena are happening in record numbers. As the world changes around us, many of us feel a deep longing for something more—for connection, love, joy, peace, and meaning. We are all awakening, each in our own way and in our own time. For some of us the shift begins when we’re overcome with grief or after a tsunami of unwanted pain. For others the shift begins when we experience a divine spark of inspiration, perhaps from a synchronistic event or the powerful stories in an inspirational book. (*Wink, wink.*)

    How Mass Change Leads to Personal Transformation

    You’ve probably heard the idiom, Don’t upset the applecart, and its warning not to disturb the way things are done for fear we might mess them up. Our culture encourages us to strive for mediocrity and the status quo. If you’ve ever experienced transformation in your own life, you likely met with resistance from well-meaning loved ones who cautioned you not to change.

    We go about our lives collecting apples and piling them neatly into our carts. When the road gets bumpy our primary goal is to traverse the challenge unscathed—applecart intact. A tremendous amount of our energy goes into sustaining the applecart, discretely tucking rotten ones underneath shiny ones, afraid discarding the bad might cause too great a shift. When we encounter new apples we face them with intense skepticism, unwilling to bite into the unknown.

    But that is starting to change, and many are becoming willing to taste new flavors as we find ourselves at a precipice of human transformation. Global economies are shifting, causing many of us to lose our jobs, our houses, our possessions, as well as the mindmade identities that we have wrapped up in such things. To put it plainly, our applecarts are being upset.

    When tipped on its side, the apples that were meticulously tucked out of site are now obvious and exposed, rotting in the sun. How embarrassing. Or not! When challenges happen, many people breathe a sigh of relief, often to their own surprise.

    With nothing left to cling to, we finally let go.

    Once the applecart has tipped, people begin to honestly examine the decay and toss out what no longer serves them—the relationships, the jobs, the locations, the stuff.

    Before we know it we have completely transformed.

    How Personal Change Leads to Mass Transformation

    If you, too, have found yourself standing in awe of the remnants of your old life, your old identity, and finally in integrity with your True Self, join the club. You are not alone!

    Shift. Transform. Become. Do it for yourself, and do it because you know that:

    Baring the depths of one’s soul and telling the true story of

    personal transformation creates a ripple effect of inspiration

    throughout humanity.*

    As author Marianne Williamson says in A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles:

    Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

    Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

    It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

    We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?

    Actually, who are we not to be?

    You are a child of God.

    Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.

    There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

    We are all meant to shine as children do.

    We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

    It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.

    And when we let our own light shine,

    we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

    As we are liberated from our own fear,

    our presence automatically liberates others.

    About the Book

    Transform Your Life! BOOK 2 is the second in a series of truly inspirational books coauthored by a diverse mosaic of experts and real-life heroes from around the world. From healing through illness and transforming through loss to discovering life’s greater purpose, Transform Your Life! BOOK 2 will open your heart and inspire you to look deeper and dream bigger.

    Each author offers a unique perspective in this powerful book, which is filled with proven tools for transforming your life and personal success stories about overcoming the odds, thriving through challenges, and living life to the fullest. After reading this book, you’ll feel empowered to embrace transformation, turn tragedy into triumph, and express more of your true, authentic Self.

    Allow the authors of Transform Your Life! BOOK 2 to pay it forward by sharing their hearts, souls, stories, and wisdom with you. You may even discover the key that unlocks the power of your own story contained within the pages of this transformational book.

    Thank you for transforming with us!

    Natalie Rivera, Publisher

    *The ripple continues... YOU can pay it forward by sharing the inspiration contained within this book with your family and friends. We want to touch the hearts of as many people as possible and encourage them to embrace their transformation. Below are ideas for ways you can help spread the word:

    • Buy a copy for someone in your life who could use a dose of inspiration

    • Recommend the Transform Your Life! Series to people you know

    • Join us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/transformyourlifebook) and SHARE it with your friends

    • Leave us a review at: Amazon.com, BN.com, GoodReads.com

    • Email us your questions or feedback (publisher@transformation-publishing.com)

    • Share YOUR story with others (or submit it to us for a chance to have it

    published in a future book!)

    • Download the eBook on Kindle, Nook, iTunes, or Android, and leave feedback

    THANK YOU for transforming with us!

    Your support allows us to continue to follow our purpose.

    SECTION 1: OVERCOMING AND THRIVING

    LIVING with Cancer: Healing with the

    Power of Community and a Sense of Humor

    By Kathleen Johnson

    You’ve got Cancer. I don’t recall anyone actually saying those exact words to me. Doctors today dance around the subject and come up with synonym phrases almost as if they are afraid to say those words, too. But the bottom line is that when this diagnosis hits (and it strikes SO many people these days), it’s what we do with the information that determines whether we will end up LIVING or merely existing.

    I chose LIVING!

    I will never forget when the surgeon came into my hospital room to tell me that he had something to say. I knew the moment he walked through the door that he was about to tell me that what was originally diagnosed as stage one rectal cancer was actually much worse according to the surgical biopsy performed after removing my original tumor and creating an ileostomy (an alternative way for the body to remove waste, also known as a bag). He very calmly informed me that the cancer was stage three, involving some of the lymph nodes that were outside of my colon area. My husband immediately fell apart with worry and grief. At that moment, I just very calmly looked at the physician and asked, So what do we do about it?

    That was the beginning of my journey into LIVING

    and gaining appreciation for the support of a growing

    community around me.

    The months that followed involved disgusting things that really can’t be discussed at the dinner table. I knew that folks would want to know what was going on, and that I needed some sort of outlet to vent my feelings, so I started a blog. What a cathartic thing a blog can be...It allowed me to describe all of the horrible things that were happening to my body, while also offering an outlet to temper my emotions through writing. I knew that some of the people reading this blog were not medically savvy, and I also knew that if I really allowed ALL of my emotions to come through they would become ingrained in my being and fester into feelings of anger, frustration, and self-pity. Still, the blog was a perfect outlet. By writing things as they happened and receiving feedback from my many readers, I was able to focus on gratitude for life—everything from the incredible meals that were delivered to the house to phone calls from those who were almost complete strangers wishing me well.

    Gratitude is a powerful healer.

    Of course Bob was a huge part of the whole journey (and continues to be a part of my journey even today). Bob is the name I gave my ileostomy. It was important for me to be able to discuss this new, nasty appendage in my life in a way that the general public could understand. I also needed to give Bob a separate identity because even though he was now a part of me...he wasn’t ME. This allowed me to bring humor into something otherwise unspeakable. After all, everybody poops, right?

    It’s OK for the world to get all excited and wrapped up in children as they learn the many functions of life, but after that it’s a bit taboo to discuss things like excrement and waste removal. Yet Bob forced me into that world as an adult. My husband and I have never had children, and I’ve often wondered if this was God’s little way of getting back at us for not procreating! But I digress...

    Every few days, I would submit an entry into my blog. Most of the time, Bob was the topic of conversation. Bob was quite an angry being. At one point, he vomited for over 21 days solid. Bad Bob! Through my writing and my life, Bob took on a personality of his own and, more importantly for my followers, Bob allowed them to comprehend what I was going through.

    Several months after I began the blog, I realized that there were actually folks out there WAITING to see what I had written. It was amazing to me that I had incredible mental, emotional, and even physical support from people who didn’t even know me—all because they were in on my story. And it became apparent to me that by sharing my story I was helping them, too. It’s so easy to just shut down and opt out of life when something like this happens, but the magic that occurs when we open ourselves up is incredible. The power of community is one of the strongest healers around...and I got the chance to experience that power!

    It all comes down to gratitude. I will never be one to utter those words I am so thankful for my cancer. That's just BALONEY! I don't believe anyone is truly ever grateful that he or she must go through the horrific things that accompany a cancer diagnosis. However, the incredible things that come as a result of a cancer experience can be tremendously fulfilling and can truly change the course of one's life.

    For example, as a result of this journey I am now able to connect with people on a much deeper level. I even started to mentor quite a few people going through the same experience. Colorectal cancer is not a sexy cancer....I know, I know: there's no such thing as a sexy cancer, right? Nobody talks about this disease because it's just messy. By having the opportunity to connect with people going through this same journey, I honestly feel that we are healing one another and creating a community of support and survival. Too many people sit in their homes and become hermits, especially after getting an ileostomy. With all the nasty things that go along with a Bob, it's easy to do just that—but life needs to be LIVED, mess and all!

    Trust me: There is incredible life before, during, and after a serious cancer diagnosis or event. The trick is finding gratitude and a sense of community, and allowing that to inspire you to experience the beauty of LIVING!

    Kathleen Johnson, M.B.A. is a biker babe who traded her Harley in for an ileostomy bag named Bob. A passion for writing has always lingered in her soul, but it took a life-changing journey through cancer to ignite the spark to share her thoughts on life with others by offering inspiration and hope through her humor and brutal honesty. Armed with an M.B.A. specializing in Health Care Management, she works for a major pharmaceutical company, which inspires her passion for connecting to people in the healing arts. She can be reached at kathyj26@gmail.com. She is open to mentoring others living through health crises.

    Healing My Family Tree

    By Colleen Jais

    In my mind’s eye, I see a tree.

    I close my eyes and let the image form, give myself over to the shape and colors and beauty of this tree. Its colors are lush and exotic: red, blue, purple, green, pink. This tree is born of emotion, and there it is growing in my mind as clear as if it lives in the green earth amid dirt and grass and wind. Bearing fruit of many colors, family tree reaches up toward the light, limbs heavy, laden, yet they bend and sway in the wind; their leaves rustling, like a symphony in motion, light, and sound.

    I smile.

    I can feel the living breath of this tree. Under the earth, the root system, healthy, supporting; it sustains and nurtures every part of this tree.

    However, a vital limb was severed, sliced off, removed; a deep gash, oozing sap, exposing raw wood, leaving the tree vulnerable to disease, to the elements.

    I am afraid for this tree. Could it die?

    Saving the Sugar Maple

    I know this to be a possibility because I saw it happen once before to a tree that I treasured. It was a precarious situation—the balance of the tree between life and death—and I was unsure whether it would survive.

    We had a diseased tree in our backyard and decided to have it removed before hurricane season began. The tree company came and laid out a verbal plan for what needed to be done. About a half hour after they began, I happened to glance out my window, and I saw that the workers had almost cut through a tree we hadn’t even discussed, a vital, healthy old sugar maple that reigned at the corner of the yard. We loved that maple. It was integral to our family life; it shaded the children’s swing set from the hot summer sun, and it offered cool relief over our deck so we could enjoy the afternoon breeze. Its leaves were a rich palette of color throughout the year, culminating in red, yellow, and orange brilliance in the fall, lighting up our yard and our spirits, before the long winter gray descended upon us.

    I looked at that tree every day, and now the chainsaw was slicing, roaring through its honeyed wood! I ran out of the house like a lunatic—screaming, STOP! Stop, that’s the wrong tree! I was furious. I know they thought my reaction was irrational—all this drama over a tree? My response was visceral, from the core of my being. The jagged cut made with that power tool was deep and severe. The foreman of the tree company’s crew didn’t know if the tree could be saved at that point, the cut being so deep. I attempted to calm down and then slowly and thoughtfully, I said I wanted to try. I must try. I had them tell me exactly what to do and how to tend the wound to give the tree a fighting chance at survival. The foreman said it was less than a 50 percent chance that the tree would live—he was sorry but in the end it was easier if they just finished cutting it down. We chose to try and save the tree. Our tree. Our family tree.

    The sugar maple, ever towering over our three-story house was like a wounded giant subsisting in our backyard. Its majestic size and presence became even more of a part of our daily lives, and it needed to be tended with affection and deference. We hovered around it at all times of the day; sometimes just standing near it, listening, or running our hands over the rough bark near the cut. Then slowly, very slowly it began to respond. The tree grew a thick scab-like coating around the cut area, like skin growing around a wound. Insects and wildlife continually attacked that vulnerable spot, and we would have to clean it out, repair the damage, tend the cut like an injury. We took a stake in the preserving, protecting, and providing for this tree during its healing time.

    Healing My Family

    I acknowledge the analogy between the sugar maple and the family tree that lives in my mind and my soul. My real family, our physical family, was deeply wounded through a physical death; a part of our family severed and I didn’t know if the rest of it (of us) could survive, as a family. I had to go deep to remember the basics, even if I had no idea if that would work to keep us whole.

    I close my eyes again and see that the family tree stands tall—starting from the roots, from the soil it was born in, drawing in the necessary water and sustenance in what is required to build up its defenses. Looking up at the leaves; I recognize they are healthy, springy, and full; saturating the sky above with color and sound.

    I acknowledge, too, that in nature pruning strengthens the core of a tree, of what is left behind, bringing fresh growth—health, vitality, and balance.

    Family tree, like my physical family, survived the severed limb because the roots had always had a strong base on which to flourish and thrive. Strength courses from below, surging up the trunk, which is the tree's stability, then flows upward to the branches, and on through to the leaves. That energy, that strength, that flow, pushes itself into a tiny bud that ultimately becomes the ripened fruit. The fruit of my physical family was the consummation of trust, hope, and faith. It flourishes in each of us.

    I have tended the wound of my family, and helped it heal by remembering where strength comes from. I looked to the natural world, and ultimately to a tree, for my inspiration in the process of growth. Family tree has been molded from a wounded reality through the healing vibration of imagination and courage. Family tree is representative of both life and death; positive and negative; the spirit and the physical, past and future. Balance.

    Family tree is a reminder of the dichotomy of life.

    Colleen Jais is author of Into the Slipstream: A Guide to Finding Inspiration through Change, Loss, and Grief. For Colleen, life is a study of transition; life itself becoming her resume. She is a writer, an artist, a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, business owner, and entrepreneur, whose passage through these transitions is the fabric of her being. Colleen shows that each change along the way is an extension of her ability to assimilate and then access the wisdom born of life experience. This war chest of experience has guided Colleen through life, preparing her to guide others through the twists and turns of living their own personal journey. Contact cmjais@yahoo.com.

    A Phoenix Rising: Finding New Purpose

    After the Suicide of a Loved One

    By Lisa Beaumont

    My heart pounded. Confused thoughts swirled in my head as early morning fog engulfed me, swallowing me whole. I struggled with the truth that was trying to emerge, dark as the throat of a giant snake, gripping and choking me. There was no escape. No, no, no!!! How could this happen?

    The sun had yet to shine on that fateful morning. I stood breathless, my legs weak while the reality I was trying hard to deny invaded me, stealing sanity and reason. The little boat floating free on the still, moonlit water told the tale.

    Only moments before, I had discovered a concise and

    controlled note left by my husband of 13 years explaining

    why he was making the final and greatest decision of his life.

    If there could be any doubt about what he meant, an undeterred floating vessel bellowed the shocking truth. He was gone, by his own choice and by his own hand.

    The moments, weeks, and months that followed were filled with soul-searching questions and the searing pain that those who survive the loss of a loved one to suicide inevitably suffer. The only light I saw was the occasional flicker of understanding and acceptance I sometimes glimpsed through the healing process.

    Now, as the passage of time brings clarity, I am free from the frustration of obscured vision. The clouds of an egocentric perspective roll away and I see the shining star behind it; illumination that clears the path for a more perfect view of who I really am.

    The avenue to my entry into a

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