For me this book is one of the most profound and important books I have ever read about relationships and communication. Although it is written as a book about marital relationships, it has implications for every kind of relationship, and not only intimate or dyadic ones. And, although it is written as a pop psychology book, I think it makes a real contribution to the social-scientific understanding of relationships and communication -- that is, it stands up well as a general model of communication and relationship. I think it is a great book and would be of great value not only to those trying to solve relationship problems but to those wanting to understand the ways in which self and relationship are intertwined in general. It illuminates all of the areas of one's life in which one communicates with others and, as another reader said, can be as valuable for understanding past relationships as for dealing with present ones.

This book has really come to the rescue in my life. I am 24 and my partner 21. We've been together 8 months and started having conflicts after moving in together about 2 months ago. After a big fight one day, she brought this book home and we agreed to read it together every day.

Since then, there's been a massive change for us. A difficult change too, but so worthwhile. Margie and Jordan are really great people, and they make the book funny, informative and loving, but strong enough to shake you up. It's just so great... learning to learn is difficult, but ultimately incredibly rewarding. 1000 stars!

If you are having conflicts in your relationship, I cannot recommend a better book for helping understand your own reactions to your partner's behavior. This book shed enormous light on my relationship. That relationship ultimately fell apart, but this book helped me to understand why.

I bought this book 2 years ago. I wasn't able to absorb everything in this book at the time, because I was in a nervous breakdown. Now I've been in therapy and on medication for 2 years, and I'm stable. I picked it up and started reading just 2 weeks ago again, I'm reading it everyday, highlighting and highlighting all the good insights, and everytime when I open up the book just started reading something I've already read, I still get new insights about the healing process. I highly recommend this book!

It does not take psychology to tell us that we all have within us a child. However, it may take psychological work to show us that we are profuse and insistant at shutting this child out.

We are repulsively repressive creatures. I did not take the suggestions of this book and apply any of them. I just read it. And, sure enough my life is slowly going through the motions discussed in this book.

Do not expect this or any one book to help you through your lifes troubles. What you read is what you need to hear for now. Your life will show you what you need to do, and you cannot rush or speed your way through the many recoveries you might need. If you have a sincere lack of fulfillment, if you keep repeating the same mistakes, if your life seems to keep going nowhere. You may very well have to clean house.

This book may show you what you have been doing to yourself all these years. I am a firm believer that this entire planet is peopled with broken hearts..many of us live the lie that we are fine, when in fact our heart was broken years ago and we have yet to acknowledge it, let alone heal it.

Review

I read "Healing Your Aloneness" because my daughter asked me to. She felt it would help me understand the type of therapy she was involed in and give us a common language that might improve the quality of the communication between us. I am so very glad I followed my daughter's lead.

This book taught me the Inner Bonding process in such a beautiful way, with moving stories from the lives of some of the authors'clients. It helped me see that, in responding to my daughter's

wounded Inner Child, I was in "Intent to Protect" my ego instead of "Intent to Learn" about my daughter's pain.

I thought I was helping to heal the gap between us by the things I said to my daughter. But what I learned from the non-judgemental way the authors helped others understand how a "Loving Adult" relates to a wounded "Inner Child" showed me why she stayed distant.

Now, when my daughter talks about her wounded Inner Child, I have the awareness and the tools to let her know I hear her heart. We are not home yet, but the gap is closing. My daughter now knows that she can trust that I love her, that I will "hang in there" with the healing process and that, if she lets me know what her Inner Child needs, I will try my very best to provide it.

"Healing Your Aloneness" gave me another gift. It helped me get in touch with and listen to my own Inner Child. He is seven. His name is "Billy," He, too, has wounds that have not healed. He, too, is angry at me for not listening to him, for not being there. I am continuing to bond with him from my "Loving Adult." He is so bright,so wise, so needy, so capable of joy. I love that little boy and he too is beginning to trust that I do.

I am grateful that the authors have put the Inner Bonding process in a book that is such a joy to read. Reading it has not only helped me have the loving relationship I so wanted with my daughter, it has helped me to love myself.

I have to say from the outset that I used to think the whole "inner child" thing was a bunch of psychobabble nonsense. Then, I was confronted with some issues in my life that proved me wrong. As is my wont, I immediately began to research "inner child work" and to do some. This book was the most helpful of all that I read. The author talks about the importance of integrating the "child" inside all of us with the "adult" -- bringing the emotional side of our lives into contact with the rational side. I can honestly say that following this author's suggestions has had a huge, positive impact on my life.

Margie Paul's Inner Bonding concepts and theory is a difficult BUT worthwhile journey. You've got to learn to love the one you're with AND that one is YOU! Don't let the Inner Child and Loving Adult throw you off, keep at it, it works!

As both a clinical therapist, and a person searching for continued growth-I found this book easy to read, insighful and applicable to real life situations. I read a lot of books, and this was one of the better ones.

I have been looking for a guide like this for years. This book shows great pictures of all the bigger moths of North America including their caterpillars. Loaded with maps and drawings of the cocoons this book is a must have. Don't let the price scare you away.

Very impressive coverage on the Wilk Silk Moths of Noth America. Most known species are shown in exellent photographs,some in the larval stages also. Good range maps and detailed text make this the laymans best friend when exploring and learning about the habitats and life histories of some of our most magnificent moth species. The best book I've seen on the subject period!

For each moth there is a color picture of last instar caterpillar and one or more pictures of the moth. There is also a range map and detailed descriptions of each stage of the life cycle with notes on rearing.
This is a well-written, well-researched, easy to read book. I would recommend it to anyone interested in these largest and showiest of the U.S. moths.

As a Kindergarten teacher, I love Margaret Hillert books. She writes them so that early readers can read them independently, yet her stories are so well developed that they captivate young readers. Her books are exciting instead of the usual bland fare available to emergent readers.

Ranks right up there with her previous works. Margaret Hillert makes reading fun for your youngsters with the illustrations and crazy antics. My kids love her other books and a movie from a couple of years ago (Annabelle's Wish) and got real excited about this book when they saw it. It captured the attention of my 4 and 7 year olds simultaneously. Keep them coming Margaret!

This is a handy book to have for clinical rotations. Sure the PDA is great too but this gives you a little snapshot of the most likely things you will see in ambulatory care.

Very helpful, quick reference to almost every primary care scenario.

This is just the kind of big, sumptuous, exhaustive book that Richardson has always deserved. Part coffee-table book, part monograph----entertaining, informative, great to look through. I grew up near Boston and Richardson's churches, train depots, and libraries were a part of the background until I took a close look at Trinity Church and realized that the same person who designed THAT designed all these other structures as well. Richardson not only revived Romanesque architecture but pointed the way to modernism. He was a pivotal figure who didn't live long enough. This well-produced book does him justice.

Anyone interested in Romanesque architecture and American architecture would be interested in this book. The quality of the images are outstanding as is the text. The book describes Richardson's complete artistic career and his numerous buildings in New England, Chicago, and throughout the U.S.

Saint Margaret Mary... an apostle for Christ, a loving and obedient nun, one who would do anything for Christ and Our Blessed Mother, one who recognized the power of love and suffering for Christ... yes, this is who St. Margaret Mary is.

And Mary Fabyan Windeatt wrote the book, Saint Margaret Mary and the Promises of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in such a way that it is very hard to describe. The story started out with Margaret, ill in bed, at the age of 13. Mary Wineatt tells how Margaret and her mother promised to Mary, Our Blessed Mother, that if Margaret is cured of her illness she will become a religious. Their prayers were answerd... the Blessed Mother cured Margaret!

It took a long time until finally Margaret could visit the Visitation nuns to become a religious. When she becomes a Visitation nun at the convent she begins to have visions of Christ's suffering. Most of the nuns don't believe her at first. Our Lord revealed twelve promises to Margaret and she saw the Sacred Heart of Jesus two times.

Our Lord tells Margaret of a person who is going to come and help her spread the word. This person was Father de la Colombiere. He was a very well known and educated priest. He helps Margaret in a lot of ways until he dies at the age of 41.

Before Margaret dies she was perfectly healthy but in a few hours she dies at the age of 43.

I like this book so much because the way the author writes it. It sounds like a story instead of facts just put together. This book is beautifully written. And I especially liked how Margaret seems so loving and kind to everyone.

The story for children 10 and up of the revelations of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to a holy French nun, including the Great First Friday Promise, her painful childhood, troubles in the convent, St. Claude, the Apparitions and her many penances.

An incredibly well-written primer on leadership. This book is a quick read, easy to grasp and full of poignant vingettes about those who have demonstrated, or have failed to demonstrate leadership at critical junctions in various situations. Being familiar with Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition prior to reading this book is helpful, but not necessary. However, the many examples from the expedition cited by the author are bound to make any serious student of leadership want to know the whole story, so I recommend purchasing Alfred Lansing's "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage" originally published in 1959 and now in its third printing (Carroll & Graf, 1998), as well as the recent movie, "Shackleton" starring Kenneth Branagh produced by A&E. Having images from the book and movie in your mind clearly adds vividness to the leadership examples cited by Dennis Perkins. Additionally, since the author himself is clearly intimately familiar with the events, readers can only benefit from coming at the book from the same point of reference.

There are bound to be comparisons between the author's 10 Leadership Strategies and Covey's 7 Habits. While there may be differences in focus (the 7 Habits are focused on development of personal succes while Perkins' 10 Strategies are focused on leading a successful organization), Perkins steps into the cold, hard world of real life drama played out in boardrooms, production facilities and corporate culture by demonstrating the key 10 leadership strategies he has gleaned from Shackleton's overwhelming drive to get his crew home safely against odds that could easily have crushed the bravest of souls. With the addition of other real-life survival anecdotes, Perkins adds more captivating illustrations for his leadership strategies.

A specifc point made which bears noting is the curious fact that leadership is often easier to exercise in a clear crisis than when no specific danger is on the horizon. When no dire need for change is evident, most people are satisfied with the status quo, even if the organization is getting sloppy and inefficiencies are beginning to limit organizational flexibility. I have been fond of saying, "We are so into crisis management, that unless the situation is a crisis, we can't manage it." Perkins covers this point wonderfully with a case study on how a top forest products corporation remade itself when the need for change was still only evident to a few people, and long beofore a major crisis was looming overhead.

This is a "meaty" book with no fluff and a quick read, organized in a way that makes it simple to reference specific points in the future. All the books in the world on corporate and marketing strategies are useless if the corporate leadership culture is sick. This book hits organizations in the center of gravity - the mindset of the leadership, and that is where all effective change has to start. I cannot recommend the book more highly.

This outstanding book is a collection and analysis of leadership lessons from Ernest Shackleton's heroic 1914-1916 Antarctic expedition at the edge of survival. Shackleton's amazing adventure saga alone is a great read, but it is the leadership insights that make this book a "must-read."

Perkins carefully organized the book into four inter-related parts. After briefly summarizing the Shackleton expedition, in Part One Perkins presents his 10 strategies for leading at the edge:

1-Vision and Quick Victories: Never lose sight of the ultimate goal, and focus energy on short-term objectives.

2-Symbolism and Personal Example: Set a personal example with visible, memorable symbols and behaviors.

3-Optimism and Reality: Instill optimism and self-confidence, but stay grounded in reality.

4-Stamina: Take care of yourself: Maintain your stamina and let go of guilt.

5-The Team Message: Reinforce the team message constantly: "We are one - we live or die together."

6-Core Team Values: Minimize status differences and insist on courtesy and mutual respect.

7-Conflict: Master conflict - deal with anger in small doses, engage dissidents, and avoid needless power struggles.

8-Lighten Up!: Find something to celebrate and something to laugh about.

9-Risk: Be willing to take the Big Risk.

10-Tenacious Creativity: Never give up - there's always another move.

Interwoven with these strategies are detailed accounts from Shackleton's expedition and real world business examples to fully illustrate the strategies' applicability to today's leadership environments.

Part Two is case studies of four organizations that successfully applied the strategies and achieved remarkable success. In Part Three, Perkins "outlines a number of qualities and actions that...contribute to living, learning, and thriving at "The Edge."" Part Four provides the reader with some tools to further develop individual leadership skills.

Written by a former combat Lieutenant of Marines in Vietnam and current "President of The Syncretics Group, a consultancy that focuses on effective leadership in demanding environments," this book was a very enjoyable and informative study of leadership. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning about, and seeing if they have what it takes for, leading at the edge.

This is simply one of the finest, most fascinating, and most instructive leadership books I have ever read. Dr. Perkins and his co-authors have succeeded in clarifying the universal leadership principles and practices as they exist in the real world. Using the incredible true story of Shackleton's Antarctic Expedition as backdrop, and interweaving modern business examples to further illustrate the critical leadership lessons, Dr. Perkins has captured the heart, soul, and guts of leadership for the modern leader. Rather than stopping there, he also gives us the benefit of leadership lessons learned through his own intense experiences "leading at the edge" as a Marine Corps Infantry Officer in Vietnam, and as an organizational leadership consultant. It doesn't get any better than this extremely well-written work. If you, like me, are tired of the "leadership cookbooks" which crowd the bookstore shelves, search this one out. Read it. Discuss it with your family and your colleagues, and truly grow from the experience. The lessons are powerful, the stories are inspiring and instructive, and they work at the level of both metaphor and real-world example of what is possible in any organization when authentic leadership is present. Sean M. Georges, JD, LLM, is a former Marine Corps Officer and now serves as Vice President, Human Resources for a publicly-traded corporation.

Dr. Margaret Paul's latest book provides a blueprint for integrating spirituality into daily life. Unlike many other self-help books, Do I Have to Give up Me to Be Loved by God? takes on the deeper and more challenging questions that speak to the attachment to old patterns and resistance to change that so often prevents genuine transformation. Dr. Paul provides the reader with practical tools, offered in a step-by-step process that is designed to neutralize the negative conditioning that blocks the ability to access spiritual connection. She offers a model that if conscientiously followed will lead not only to the kind of self-acceptance that is the goal of psychotherapy, but to the deep and profound spiritual connection that is the goal of all religions.

Dr. Paul's illuminating new book, DO I HAVE TO GIVE UP ME TO BE LOVED BY GOD? looks at the disconnection we feel within and with others as a result of (in the broadest sense) "spiritual abuse" that we have suffered. As Dr. Paul says, "Giving children anything other than love and compassion is spiritual abuse because all unloving behavior toward children creates an ongoing problem in their relationship with God. Any behavior that teaches children that they must be different (smarter, more polite, more obedient) IN ORDER TO BE LOVED [emphasis mine] by God -- or by their parents -- is spiritual abuse. Any behavior by an adult which disconnects a child from God is spiritual abuse. And any behavior that undermines a child's belief in God as an infinite source of love and compassion and wisdom that is always available to that child is spiritual abuse" (p.18). I particularly liked learning more about the false beliefs we have about God and our relationship with whatever term we each use to name our Higher Power. The Inner Bonding definition of loving intrigues me: Loving behavior is that which contributes to our own and others' spiritual and emotional growth. Often, what looks loving is just codependent, and in our addictive society, much confusion results when we act out the belief that if others really loved us, they would do what we want. If you read this book, you will learn about a new way of looking at behavior -- not in terms of judgment (a major controlling device of many religions) -- but in terms of the good reasons that parts of us have for our behavior. Life, according to Dr. Paul, is a journey about learning and loving for everyone, not about hellfire and damnation and the chosen. I know that just about every person on a journey thinks that s/he has just the right tools and resources for healing and personal empowerment, but in my experience there are few, if any, approaches and processes that are as encompassing, simple yet profound, practical, and portable as the Inner Bonding process. DO I HAVE TO GIVE UP ME TO BE LOVED BY GOD? builds on Dr. Paul's other 6 books that have so much to teach about one's relationship with self, others, and Spirit. Yes, there are many books and people and therapies and techniques out there promising us love, success, happiness, etc., but my whole world -- self, family, friends, career, spirituality -- is different because one of Dr. Paul's books literally dropped in my path 8 years ago. We live in times that are often filled with much conflict and pain, but also have so much potential for soul growth with new ways of learning to bring the best of ourselves to ourselves, to others, to the planet. Margaret Paul's work is a powerful tool for transformation. You owe it to yourself to read this book!

I have been using Margaret Paul's tools consistently for over 9 years. If you have parts of your life that you want to change, you can choose to use this simple set of tools every day and change your life profoundly, often faster than you could have imagined.The tools are simple enough that you can teach children how to do them. Yet powerful enough that unwanted patterns that have persisted for a lifetime can lose their power and go away.

The other thing that comes with using these tools is, that by implementing the connection process, one seems to be able to draw on deep, limitless power. I know of no other process that brings the same sense of innate strength that helps you persist and carry out the tasks that need to be done to transform your life. Thus batteries are included.

What will make the difference here, is whether you can make a time every day to work the six simple steps Margaret presents. It doesn't take a lot of time. It takes consistency and growing an awareness to know when it's time to use the simple tools. Once you get the basics down, it's something you can do driving in your car, waiting in line at the grocery store, or lying in bed at night before you go to sleep. For me it's become as natural as eating and breathing. Her latest book ties together all her earlier works and focuses on the spiritual dimensions of this connection process. One does not have to believe in God to do this work, or FOR IT TO WORK. I can guarantee that. I've seen many people use the tools without focusing on the spiritual aspects. I can also tell you that if you value or seek a realtionship with God/a Higher Power, this connection process will greatly enhance that relationship. Personally, as I have been able to work with and deepen the connection process, I have directly experienced God to a greater and greater extent in my everyday life.

Do I Have to Give Up Me to Be Loved by God is a beautiful work for those that want to heal the parts of their lives that hurt. For those that want to take that a step further and reap the spiritual rewards of this connection process, this book is a wonderful guide.

For those familiar with Dr. Paul's work, this book takes it deeper. I had wonderful Aha's, as the lightbulbs turned on deep in my being. This book describes the tools, that if practiced with consistency, can be the best gift you ever give yourself!