Books about Mind, Body and Spirit ...

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Welcome to the Inspired Living eNewsletter from Allen & Unwin: September 2009

It doesn't matter how many times you've experienced Spring, whenever it comes around it never fails to delight us with its magic. The same can be true of many of life's experiences, if we allow it. We have some wonderful new books this month to help the process along. -- Maggie Hamilton, Publisher of Inspired Living books

The Perfect Day Plan
Jost Sauer
RRP $22.99

What if you were able to unlock the secret to making every day work for you? What if you knew the best time to eat and sleep, to exercise, to chill out, to do your most demanding work, or the ideal time to let go of the past, or when you're likely to come up with good ideas. Well, with The Perfect Day Plan all this and more will be revealed. Based on ancient Chinese medicine, this ancient health plan is simple to follow. For two hours each day, each organ has its time in the sun. The Perfect Day Plan teaches you how to nourish each organ. And when you do this you discover that it impacts on all our other organs, until everything is in balance. Once you understand the basics you will know the best time to do certain things and avoid others, depending on which organ's time it is.

So, when is the best time to exercise? The best time to do your most demanding work? To be creative?

Read more | Watch a trailer

Q&A with Jost Sauer

Q: What was the inspiration for writing this book?

A: When I was studying acupuncture, I kept coming across references to the 24-hour chi cycle. I was fascinated by the idea that our lives could be so much better on every level simply by doing things at different times of the day. I really wanted to give it a go, but then couldn't find a book about how to do this in the 21st century. Information on the chi cycle was generally written thousands of years ago. So I was inspired to write a book that applied ancient Chinese health secrets to our 21st century lifestyle. The only way to find out how well it worked was to live it myself so I started doing things in accord with the plan. Suddenly I found myself sleeping really well, waking up full of energy and really feeling connected to life. It changed my life dramatically! I recommended changes to my clients and their health issues started disappearing as well. I came to the conclusion that there is an art to living that we need to revive to make life much more fulfilling and The Perfect Day Plan is all about what to do every two hours to achieve this.

Read more | Visit Jost's website

The Power of Forgiveness
Janise Beaumont
RRP $19.99

Rather than us tell you about the book, read this fabulous review from the Australian Bookseller and Publisher. They gave the book 4 (out of 5) stars:

Journalist Janise Beaumont has captured the essence of the physiological, emotional and mental benefits that an act of forgiveness can bestow upon anyone who chooses to forgive. Unlike many other books of this ilk, The Power of Forgiveness is highly readable and does not leave you feeling inadequate if you try, and fail, to forgive. It is written in a quirky, sometimes amusing way, but is nonetheless extremely informative and doesn't necessitate that the reader be a 'highly enlightened or spiritually evolved person' in order to understand and practise this method.

Researching both famous and ordinary people's inspirational stories, Beaumont parallels her own struggles with the act of truly forgiving indiscretions levelled at herself at different times in her life. The book uses highly entertaining sarcastic quips and one-liners with regards to situations that are difficult to forgive. Even if a person is not at a stage in their lives where they are able to forgive someone who has wronged them, reading this book will, at the very least, be thought-provoking in a positive way. The Power of Forgiveness will be of benefit to whoever reads it, whether they are a fan of the MBS genre or not.

Q&A with Janise Beaumont

Q: Where did the idea for the book come from?

A: I'd been thinking increasingly about how staying stuck in non-forgiveness can really stuff us up -- while letting go of resentment and anger is the springboard to new beginnings.

I'm no psychologist -- in fact I'm a very slow learner in matters to do with living in a life-affirming way, but the message about the power of forgiveness was finally sinking in.

I've written a few books over the years, but none has meant more to me than this. It has changed my own life, and I hope it touches in a good way, all who read it.

Read more | Read an extract (PDF)

Happy Healthy Kids: From conception to age 7 with Australian bush flower essences
Ian White
RRP $29.99

Ian White's family has been practising herbal medicine in Australian for five generations. Both his grandmother and great-grandmother were among the first non-Indigenous Australians to seriously study the medicinal properties of our Australian plants. Since the mid 1980s Ian has been continuing this family tradition of working with Australian plants. Under Ian's guidance, Australian Bush Flower Essences have gained a worldwide reputation for their extraordinary healing powers and they are now available in over 40 countries.

Australian Bush Flower Essences are a totally safe, simple and extremely powerful system of healing. Their gift of healing is based on the timeless wisdom that true healing occurs when emotional balance is restored. One of the great things about them is that anyone can use them. You don't have to be medically or naturopathically trained to recognise when your child is suffering from low self-esteem, insecurity or sadness. What's more, the essences are gentle and have no side effects, making them a perfect remedy for children and babies.

Q&A with Ian White

Q: What are Flower Essences?

A: Flower Essences are not therapeutic drugs but work on the mind, body and spirit, and are obtained by extracting the healing vibrational quality from the most evolved part of the plant -- the flowers. They work on an emotional level, harmonising negative feelings and belief patterns, held in the subconscious mind.

Q: How do the Australian Bush Flower Essences work?

A: The Bush Essences help to clear any emotional and spiritual blocks you may have. Physical disease or illness is a sign of being out of balance. This imbalance first occurs on the emotional or spiritual level and if it is not addressed, it will then show up in your physical body.

Read more | Read an extract (PDF)

In Search of Angels
Janise Beaumont

Buddhism for Mothers of School Children
Sarah Napthali

Meeting Fairies
R. Ogilvie Crombie

The Infinite Magic of Horses
Candida Baker

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... by Lindel Barker-Revell
author of Time for Tea

Children are fascinated with the whole ritual of tea leaf reading. I used to be teacher of young children, so I have thought about the best way to approach reading the cup with them.

It is good to encourage creativity at any age, so it is great if children can see pictures in the leaves.

'Oh look there is a dog!', 'There are two people, maybe they are friends. I wonder where they are going?', can open up children's minds to the pictures in the cup.

I NEVER interpret for children. I just look for the pictures. I find they are very good at seeing the images and that seems to satisfy them.

You can begin to make a special event of looking into the cup at certain times, so that they can look forward to it. The young ones in my family say: 'Can we get out the good cups?' They know we need certain cups to be able to swirl the leaves, and that mugs will not do.

As children grow and develop they will want to know more. I would deal with that as it happens, always stressing that we have free will, and our futures are very fluid.

More on the book | More on Lindel

... by Kate Harding
co-author of Screw Inner Beauty

The thing is, learning to love your body is a long, slow process -- and we mean a long, slow process. You can't just call a truce with your body out of nowhere; you need to engage in some hardcore peace talks first...

So, to be brutally honest, we're not even going to try to tell you how to love your body. For now, we're only going to tell you how to achieve detente with your body. We're going to get you as far as a ceasefire. The good news is, in this culture, that's actually pretty freakin' far.

You are not actually required to hate yourself. A lot of people -- and I mean a lot of people -- will strongly encourage it, and that sucks. But no one actually requires it of you. You don't have to play along. You can, in the words of Margaret Cho, just take yourself out of the game.

More on the book | Visit Kate's blog

... by Ellen Whitehurst
author of Make This Your Lucky Day

SOME FENG SHUI TIPS FOR SEPTEMBER 2009

20th September
Today celebrates friendships. More specifically, we fete friendships between women this day. Lord knows that both Bette Midler and I recognise that you gotta have friends and today, offers the perfect opportunity to activate some swell energies that will show cosmic support to all our female friends. These same energies can, as well, pave the way to establishing new, fun and fulfilling friendships too. Download and then print an image of Shou Xing and then place that picture anywhere inside the 'Family/Friends' area of either your main floor or even inside that same space in the bedroom.
He is always good natured and smiling that Shou Xing, unlike, unfortunately, some of our nearest and dearest. He will bring peace and harmony to any friend agenda and he promised a safe and happy long life when placed in this space as well.
It is said that he appears when peace reigns and that he can offer anyone long life, good health and lots and lots of happiness. He holds a bat in his hand, which in Feng Shui folklore represents the five blessings of longevity, wealth, love, virtue and fame. He also holds the famous immortal peaches from the magical peach tree that grows alchemically in the palace of the Queen Mother of the West. This Queen Mother of the West travels on a white crane and uses bluebirds of happiness to transmit messages to her friends and loved ones.
So, you see, putting this symbol in that space will bring balance, vitality and renewed energy and enthusiasm to all of your most important friendships, the same ones the bluebirds of happiness are now smiling down on!

More on the book |
Sign up for Ellen's free monthly newsletter Empowering Days

Want to know unlock the secret to having a perfect day? We have two copies of The Perfect Day Plan up for grabs, exclusively for Inspired Living newsletter subscribers!

Simply send an email to enewsletter@allenandunwin.com with 'The Perfect Day Plan competition' in the subject line and tell us in 25 words or less what a 'perfect day' means for you.

Competition is open to enewsletter subscribers, residents of Australia and New Zealand only. Entries must include a name and postal address and must be received by 12th October 2009.