Most of us believe that we are unique and coherent individuals, but are we? The idea of a "self" has existed ever since humans began to live in groups and become sociable. Those who embrace the self as an individual in the West, or a member of the group in the East, feel fulfilled and purposeful. This experience seems incredibly real but a wealth of recent scientific evidence reveals that this notion of the independent, coherent self is an illusion - it is not what it seems. Reality as we perceive it is not something that objectively exists, but something that our brains construct from moment to moment, interpreting, summarizing, and substituting information along the way. Like a science fiction movie, we are living in a matrix that is our mind. In The Self Illusion, Dr. Bruce Hood reveals how the self emerges during childhood and how the architecture of the developing brain enables us to become social animals dependent on each other. He explains that self is the product of our relationships and interactions with others, and it exists only in our brains. The author argues, however, that though the self is an illusion, it is one that humans cannot live without. But things are changing as our technology develops and shapes society. The social bonds and relationships that used to take time and effort to form are now undergoing a revolution as we start to put our self online. Social networking activities such as blogging, Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter threaten to change the way we behave. Social networking is fast becoming socialization on steroids. The speed and ease at which we can form alliances and relationships is outstripping the same selection processes that shaped our self prior to the internet era. This book ventures into unchartered territory to explain how the idea of the self will never be the same again in the online social world.

Are you feeling lost, stuck, or confused? You may need a roadmap for the journey from where you are now to becoming the best version of yourself. In this authentic self-help book, Jordan Tarver, introspective author and world traveler, guides you on a journey of self-discovery. A near-death experience in 2013 and a soul-searching solo backpacking trip taught Jordan how to live. Since then, he's dedicated himself to living a life infused with meaning and empowering others to do the same. He uses inspiring stories, workable tactics, understandable action steps, and simple language that help you: ① Get unstuck ② Find your path ③ Become the best version of yourself As you progress through its pages, you'll learn how to create positive change in your life NOW to live the life of your dreams FOREVER. By the end of You Deserve This Sh!t, you'll have a newfound awareness of yourself and the world around you, the courage to always go outside your comfort zone, and the passion for living an intentional life. You will feel empowered to make choices that align with your goals and feel deserving of the exact life you want to live. Let your journey begin. This book is your nudge. ◆◆◆ BONUS: Enjoy free content at the end of the book to continue your journey of becoming the best version of yourself.

Many books teach the mechanics of cooking and even inspire us to cook; not many dwell on the kitchen's ability to be a place of awakening and joy. In Finding Yourself in the Kitchen, Dana Velden asks you to seek deeper meaning in this space and explores what cooking can teach about intimacy, failure, curiosity, and beauty. Finding Yourself in the Kitchen is a book of essays, each focused on a cooking theme that explores how to practice mindfulness in the kitchen--and beyond--to discover a more deeply experienced life. It also offers meditation techniques and practical kitchen tips, including 15 of Velden's own favorite recipes. What happens when we find ourselves in the kitchen? What vitalizes, challenges, and delights us there? An extension of her popular "Weekend Meditation" column on TheKitchn.com, this book offers you the chance to step back and examine your life in a more inspired way. The result is a reading experience that satisfies, nourishes and inspires.

All Groan Up: Searching for Self, Faith, and A Freaking Job! is the story of the GenY/Millennial generation told through the individual story of author Paul Angone. It’s a story of struggle, hope, failure, and doubts in the twilight zone of growing up and being grown, connecting with his twentysomething post-college audience with raw honesty, humor, and hope.

A charming and totally original picture book illustrated in mixed media—combining clay, watercolor, and gouache—that celebrates empathy, compassion, and the power of the imagination. You Might Find Yourself follows a curious child as they navigate the endless possibilities of the world through their imagination. This inspiring tale, illustrated in lovingly handcrafted mixed media, including clay, watercolor, and gouache, invites readers to prioritize feelings of resilience and collaboration while on life’s winding path. From eating green beans with a king and queen to playing a hologram guitar from the future, You Might Find Yourself encourages an exploration of empathy and compassion. In weird and wonderful ways, author and illustrator Tai Snaith unleashes the power of our imagination on a journey full of possibilities. All you need to do is imagine where you might find yourself.

Discover the revolutionary writing practice that can transform your life! In 1976, Linda Trichter Metcalf, then a university English professor, sat down with pen and paper and intuitively started a self-guided writing practice that helped to bring herself into focus and clarify her life as never before. She and a colleague, Tobin Simon, introduced this original method into their classrooms. They experienced such solid response from their students that, for the last twenty-five years, they have devoted themselves to teaching what has now become the respected practice of Proprioceptive Writing®–in workshops, secondary and elementary schools, and college psychology and writing classes around the country, among them the New School University. “Proprioception” comes from the Latin proprius, meaning “one’s own,” and this writing method helps synthesize emotion and imagination, generating authentic insight and catharsis. Proprioceptive Writing® is not formal writing, nor is it automatic or stream-of-consciousness writing. Requiring a regular, disciplined practice in a quiet environment, the method uses several aids to deepen attention and free the writer within: Baroque music, a candle, a pad, and a pen. Presenting Proprioceptive Writing® in book form for the first time, Writing the Mind Alive shows how you, too, can use it to • Focus awareness, dissolve inhibitions, and build self-trust • Unburden your mind and resolve emotional conflicts • Connect more deeply with your spiritual self • Write and speak with strength and clarity • Enhance the benefits of psychotherapy • Awaken your senses and emotions • Liberate your creative energies Featuring actual “writes” by students of all ages, Writing the Mind Alive is a catalyst for mental and emotional aliveness that can truly enrich the rest of your life.

From award-winning blogger Melissa Camara Wilkins, come and find a stunningly simple path to confidence and clarity. All you have to do is give yourself permission to show up as your gloriously imperfect self. Trying to fix yourself is exhausting. But being yourself - that is both possible and life-giving. The key is a simple heart-shift from chasing after perfection to learning to tell a truer story about ourselves, the world, and our place in it. Melissa Camara Wilkins invites you into her journey of discovering the profound simplicity of dropping the pretenses and allowing ourselves to be fully human - flaws and all. This is a story about making life simpler by letting go of who you think you're supposed to be and becoming who you really are. With wit and compassion, Melissa explores how to be present, show up as your real self, and get comfortable in your own skin by aligning the truth inside you with the life you live on the outside. Gain confidence with the freeing practices of dropping the mask, abandoning the experts, and understanding your real assignment. With refreshing honesty and insight, Melissa invites you to move from the either/or dichotomy into a spacious freedom of embracing the both/and - brave and scared, messy and real, gloriously imperfect and absolutely enough. This is your permission slip to be your whole, human self. For everyone who feels the pressure to fit in, measure up, and get it together, Permission Granted is a life-giving invitation to soul-level simplicity.

A Christian Answer to the Identity Angst of Our Culture In the 21st-century West, identity is everything. Never has it been more important, culturally speaking, to know who you are and remain true to yourself. Expressive individualism—the belief that looking inward is the way to find yourself—has become the primary approach to identity formation, and questioning anyone's "self-made self" is often considered a threat or attack. Prompted by his own past crisis of identity, Brian Rosner challenges the status quo by arguing that, while knowing yourself is of some value, it cannot be the sole basis for one's identity. He provides an approach to identity formation that leads to a more stable and satisfying sense of self. This approach looks outward to others—acknowledging that we are social beings—and looks upward to God to find a self who is intimately known and loved by him. How to Find Yourself equips readers from a variety of backgrounds to engage sympathetically with some of the most pressing questions of our day. Challenges the Status Quo: Examines and critiques expressive individualism—the leading strategy for identity formation Gospel-Centered: Identifies an approach to identity formation in Jesus's life story and God's personal knowledge of his children Accessible: Helpful for a wide audience of laypeople, students, and church leaders Foreword by Carl R. Trueman: Opens with a message from the author of The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self

In these two essays, one of America's most honored writers fastens on the interrelation of American democracy and poetry and the concept of selfhood vital to each. "I really don't want to make a noise like a pundit," Mr. Warren declares, "What I do want to do is to return us--and myself most of all--to a scrutiny of our own experience of our own world." Indeed, Democracy and Poetry offers one of the most pertinent and strongly personal meditations on our condition to have appeared in recent letters. Our native "poetry," that is, literature and art, in general, is a social document, is "diagnostic," and has often been a corrosive criticism of our democracy, Mr. Warren argues. Persuasively, and movingly, he shows that all of "art" and all that goes into the making of democracy require a free and responsible self. Yet the American experience has been one of the decay of the notion of self. Our astounding success jeopardized what we promised to create--the free man. For a century and a half the conception of the self has been dwindling, separating itself from traditional values, moral identity, and a secure relation with community. Lonely heroes in a bankrupt civilization, then protest, despair, aimlessness, and violence, have marked our literature. The anguish of Robert Penn Warren's own poetic vision of art and democracy is soothed only by his belief that poetry--the making of art can nourish and at least do something toward the rescue of democracy; he shows how art can be- come a healer, can be "therapeutic." In the face of disintegrative forces set loose in a business and technetronic society, it is poetry that affirms the notion of the self. It is a model of the organized self, an emblem of the struggle for the achieving self, and of the self in a community. More and more as our modern technetronic society races toward the abolition of the self, and diverges from a culture created to enhance the notion of selfhood, poetry becomes indispensable. Compelling, resonant, memorable, Democracy and Poetry is a major testament not only to the vitality of poetry, but also to a faith in democracy.