Finding Your Own North Star


Book Description

New York Times bestselling author and Life Designs, Inc. creator Martha Beck shares her step-by-step program that will guide you to fulfill your own potential and create a joyful life. In this book, you'll start by learning how to read the internal compasses already built into your brain and body--and why you may have spent your life ignoring their signals. As you become reacquainted with your own deepest desires, you'll identify and repair any unconscious beliefs or unhealed emotional wounds that may be blocking your progress. This will change your life, but don't worry--although every life is unique, major transformations have common elements, and Beck provides a map that will guide you through your own life changes. You'll learn how to navigate every stage, from the first flickering appearance of a new dream to the planning and implementation of your own ideal life. Based on Dr. Beck's work as a Harvard-trained sociologist, research associate at Harvard Business School, instructor at Thunderbird Business School, and especially on her experiences with her clients over the last six years, Finding Your Own North Star offers thoroughly tested case studies, questionnaires, and exercises to help you articulate your core desires and act on them to build a more satisfying life. “Explorers depend on the North Star when there are no other landmarks in sight. The same relationship exists between you and your right life, the ultimate realization of your potential for happiness. I believe that a knowledge of that perfect life sits inside you just as the North Star sits in its unaltering spot.” -- Martha Beck




Finding Martha


Book Description

Finding Martha is a true story about one man's search for his birthmother, their miraculous reunion and the visits that would transform their lives. In it, Peter Morton Coan writes about his experience growing up an only child who was adopted as an infant by an affluent New York Jewish family. When his retired adopting father, cleaning out his basement, shows him his original adoption papers and true identity, Peter begins the search to find his birthmother, Martha, a devout Christian woman raised in the Bible-belt backwoods of West Virginia and Tennessee. He eventually finds her nearly two years later in suburban Cincinnati. He's 42 years old and she's 64 when they meet for the first time one Mother's Day weekend. In finding her, he discovers his deep southern Christian roots, as Martha becomes his religious role model and teacher during his frequent visits. But he soon uncovers her many secrets and lies well hidden beneath her "bless your heart" covering. When Martha is caught in a lie by his two young daughters, her character is called into question, as is the truth about his birthfather's real identity. Will the disappointment of her deception cause him to turn against her and his newfound religion? In the end, it his faith in God--the very thing that allowed him to find Martha in the first place--that permits him and his daughters to heal together as a family, as they journey through the dark world of adoption, which ultimately becomes a story of hope and redemption. In his previous books, Peter Morton Coan explored the family history and genealogy of others. With this new book, he explores his own.




Finding Your Way in a Wild New World


Book Description

Author of Oprah’s Book Club Pick—The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self “The best known life coach in America” (Psychology Today) and bestselling author of Finding Your Own North Star provides a new transformational program for creating an unconventional life path to a sustainable way of life. Martha Beck’s program has been practiced by Oprah and featured on Super Soul Sunday! Finding Your Way in a Wild New World reveals a remarkable path to the most important discovery you can make: the knowledge of what you should be doing with your one wild and precious life. It’s the thing that so fulfills you that, if you knew what it was, you’d run straight toward it through brambles and fire. Life coach and bestselling author of Finding Your Own North Star Martha Beck guides you to find out how you got to where you are now and what you should do next, with clear instructions on tapping into the deep, wordless knowledge you carry in your body and soul. You probably have sensed that you have a higher calling and a quiet power that could change the world—you lack only the tools. With her sparkling prose, Beck draws from ancient wisdom and modern science to help you consciously tap into that power and develop those tools for transformation. You’ll also find your inner identity and your external “tribe” of like-minded people, experience the spark of inspiration, and take action to make a lasting impact on the world. Compassionate and inspirational, Finding Your Way in a Wild New World is a revolutionary journey of self-discovery that leads to miraculous change.




Finding My Way


Book Description

Lois Simmie was born in Edam, Saskatchewan in 1932. Filled with awe and wonder at the bountiful and remarkable world unfolding around her Simmie takes us on the journey of her life and the events that shaped her into a writer. She describes her whimsical youth in Saskatchewan in a bygone era of Frank Sinatra on the radio, Amos ‘n’ Andy, the jitterbug, jazz, square dances, and Hollywood movies every Friday night in the town hall. Simmie’s magical delight in all things transports us through the Depression and war years to childhood summer visits to Hopkinsville, Kentucky in her relatives’ Gone With the Wind-style southern mansion, an adventure in the lush beauty of Brazil, and to Scotland while writing her first non-fiction book, The Secret Lives of Sgt. John Wilson, about the murder of a young Scottish woman by her RCMP husband. Simmie fell in love with words at a young age but it isn’t until later in life that she takes up her calling as a writer while living in Saskatoon. She describes the burgeoning Saskatchewan writing scene as “electric” as she enters an exciting community of like-minded writers and poets, a hotbed of creativity and inspiration that is the impetus of her finest writing and the culmination of an astonishing life story.




Finding Martha's Place


Book Description

Welcome to Martha's Place . . . Martha Hawkins was the tenth of twelve children born in Montgomery, Alabama. There was no money, but her childhood was full of love. Martha's mother could transform a few vegetables from the backyard into a feast and never turned away a hungry mouth. Memories of the warmth of her family's supper table would remain with Martha. Even as a poor single mother without a high school diploma, Martha dreamed of one day opening a restaurant that would make people feel at home. She'd serve food that would nourish body and soul. But time went by and that dream slipped further and further away as Martha battled the onset of what would later become a severe mental illness. But the thing about hitting bottom is that there's nowhere to go but up. Martha decided to step into God's promise for her life. Her boundless faith and joy led her to people who would change her world and lend a helping hand when she most needed and least expected one. Martha's Place is now a nationally known destination for anyone visiting the Deep South and a culinary fixture of life in Montgomery. Martha only hires folks who are down on their luck, just as she once was. High-profile politicians, professional athletes, artists, musicians, and actors visit regularly. Martha has proven many times that keeping the faith makes the difference between failure and success. This is the story of how Martha finally found her place. . . .




Wisdom from Finding Your Own North Star


Book Description

Bestselling author Martha Beck shares her step-by-step program that teaches you to read your internal compass and cultivate your dreams. The wisdom and humor of the excerpts provide insight you can use to chart a course to your own North Star.




The Way of Integrity


Book Description

OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'A roadmap on the journey to truth and authenticity... [The Way of Integrity] is filled with aha moments and practical exercises that can guide us as we seek enlightenment' Oprah Winfrey 'This radiant book will not only change your life, but perhaps even save it' Elizabeth Gilbert 'Martha Beck's genius is that her writing is equal parts comforting and challenging. A teacher, a mother, a sage, she holds our hand as she leads us back home to ourselves' Glennon Doyle _____________________ Bestselling author, life coach and sociologist Martha Beck explains why 'integrity' - being in harmony with ourselves - is the key to a meaningful and joyful life In The Way of Integrity, Beck presents a four-stage process that anyone can use to find integrity, and with it, a sense of purpose, emotional healing, and a life free of mental suffering. Much of what plagues us-people pleasing, staying in stale relationships, negative habits-all point to what happens when we are out of touch with what truly makes us feel whole. Inspired by The Divine Comedy, Beck uses Dante's classic hero's journey as a framework to break down the process of attaining personal integrity into small, manageable steps. She shows how to read our internal signals that lead us towards our true path, and to recognize what we actually yearn for versus what our culture sells us. With techniques tested on hundreds of her clients, Beck brings her expertise as a social scientist, life coach and human being to help readers to uncover what integrity looks like in their own lives. She takes us on a spiritual adventure that not only will change the direction of our lives, but bring us to a place of genuine happiness.




The Finding of Martha Lost


Book Description

Liverpool, 1976: Martha is lost. She’s been lost since she was a baby, abandoned in a suitcase on the train from Paris. Ever since, she’s waited in lost property for someone to claim her. It’s been sixteen years, but she’s still hopeful. Meanwhile, there are lost property mysteries to solve: a suitcase that may have belonged to the Beatles, a stuffed monkey that keeps appearing. But there is one mystery Martha has never been able to solve – and now time is running out. If Martha can’t discover who she really is, she will lose everything...




Finding Becky


Book Description

Becky Haynes returns to Barton Creek after college with a new independent spirit that baffles her longtime friend Rob Frankston. Her new attitude toward her faith, family, and friends confuses her family. Will Rob convince Becky to return to the faith of her childhood before the town of Barton Creek is destroyed?




Finding Martha's Vineyard


Book Description

A portrait of the thriving African-American community on the island of Martha's Vineyard describes the various groups who settled in Oak Bluffs, including vacationing families, local domestics, and multi-generational professionals.