Collection: Self-Development

A prisoner gardens his way to freedom in this inspiring picture-book biography.

When Elliott Michener was locked away in Alcatraz for counterfeiting, he was determined to defy the odds and bust out. But when he got a job tending the prison garden, a funny thing happened. He found new interests and skills--and a sense of dignity and fulfillment. Elliott transformed Alcatraz Island, and the island transformed him.

Told with empathy and a storyteller's flair, Elliott's story is funny, touching, and unexpectedly relevant. Back matter about the history of Alcatraz and the US prison system today invites meaningful discussion.

A take-anywhere toolkit to short-circuit anxiety and rewire your brain for lasting calm.

Do you struggle with anxiety? Has it taken over your life or affected your relationships? Do you feel like chronic worry and rumination are holding you back from being your best, achieving your goals, or just enjoying your day-to-day life? Get a crash course in neuroscience with this slimmed down guide--full of the actionable tools you need to face anxiety head on.

In this practical yet powerful guide, psychologist and neuroscience expert Catherine Pittman--author of Rewire Your Anxious Brain--introduces 50 new ways to work with your brain's neural connections to find lasting, effective relief from your worst anxiety symptoms. The chapters of this book can be used in any order, as needed, to give you the information you need to act now, whether you're at home or on the go. Also included are quick skills to help you soothe an anxious or stressed-out brain through physical movement, identify what you care about, and banish toxic thinking before it leads to rumination.

The brain is a powerful tool, and the more you work to change the way you respond to fear, the more resilient you will become. Using the practical and proven-effective techniques in this book, you will literally "rewire" the brain processes at the root of your fears!

Push through when procrastination calls.

Some days you're on fire at work; other days you're burned out and easily distracted. How can you maintain your drive, make consistent progress, and expend your energy wisely?

This book will help you identify what's behind your flagging engagement and productivity--and provide the expert research and advice on what to do about it.

This volume includes the work of:

• Annie McKee
• Heidi Grant
• Shawn Achor
• Elizabeth Grace Saunders

How to be human at work. The HBR Emotional Intelligence Series features smart, essential reading on the human side of professional life from the pages of Harvard Business Review. Each book in the series offers proven research showing how our emotions impact our work lives, practical advice for managing difficult people and situations, and inspiring essays on what it means to tend to our emotional well-being at work. Uplifting and practical, these books describe the social skills that are critical for ambitious professionals to master.

Learn the art of visible mending--a joyful, meditative, and restorative practice--to repair the clothes and belongings you love!

Mending Life, a beautiful modern sewing and mending guide with vibrant, full-color illustrations woven throughout, encourages us to break free from the fast fashion industry by repairing our clothes rather than discarding them. Along with DIY and how-to illustrations and tutorials, you'll find heartfelt stories by authors Nina and Sonya Montenegro (creators of the popular @TheFarWoods) that encourage you to change your consumption habits, celebrate a sustainable, intentional lifestyle, demonstrate mending as a powerful act that not only strengthens the object we are repairing, but ourselves as well.

Beginners and Seasoned Sewers will find:

Basic Mending Skills - how to thread a needle, how to tie knots, and basic stitches
Sashiko - a striking Japanese hand-sewing technique for reinforcement and decoration
Darning - plain weave, swiss weave, crocheted patch, knitted patch, and needle-felted patch
Patching - the best three ways to patch holes how-to guide
Mending Tutorials by Item - down jackets, shirt cuffs, and linen
Other Common Repairs - snags, buttons, belt loops, leggings, pant pockets, and more
Sewing Beyond Mending - hemming pants, taking garments in, and adding pockets

Extend the life of your favorite clothes and beloved household items with mending with this timeless and practical guide to cherishing and caring for our belongings.

"It's time to start helping the helpers, Tell Me My Story shows us the way." - Jonathan Fields, Founder of Good Life Project(R) & bestselling author of SPARKED

The work of serving others never ends, and it demands a great deal from those who take it on-more than they have to give, if they're not careful. But helping others shouldn't come at the cost of one's own health and well-being.

And yet, years of putting mission needs before their own, coupled with the impact of a global pandemic, has left many humanitarians across mission-driven fields struggling to acknowledge their pain and serve others at the same time. It's left them languishing, exhausted, stressed out, burned out, traumatized, morally injured, depressed, anxious, and facing a seemingly impossible choice: Them or me?

Using moments from her own life and twenty-year humanitarian career, Dimple D. Dhabalia invites humanitarians to consider how choosing a path of service may provide powerful opportunities to reveal and heal wounds at the individual and organizational levels, while embracing their humanity through the stories of the people they serve.

Part memoir and part manifesto, Tell Me My Story is one leader's message of hope and offers a map to healing for those doing humanitarian work. It's also a reminder: This service and the people who do it are crucial to our world, and we must equip, empower, and encourage them to work as the best version of themselves-for themselves, for their loved ones, and for the people they serve.

"A must-read-not only for those who dedicate their lives to helping others, but for all who have a story in need of healing." - Angela Bailey, Founder & CEO, Angela Bailey and Associates and Former Chief Human Capital Officer for the Department of Homeland Security

AS SEEN ON ARMCHAIR EXPERT WITH DAX SHEPARD AND THE EZRA KLEIN SHOW, WALL STREET JOURNAL, NEW YORK TIMES AND MORE

**A COSMOPOLITAN BEST NEW NON-FICTION BOOK TO ADD TO YOUR TBR IN 2023**
**A "NEXT BIG IDEA CLUB" MUST-READ BOOK FOR JANUARY**

Rediscover your ability to pay attention with this groundbreaking new approach from "the definitive expert on distraction and multitasking" (Cal Newport).

We spend an average of just 47 seconds on any screen before shifting our attention. It takes 25 minutes to bring our attention back to a task after an interruption. And we interrupt ourselves more than we're interrupted by others.

In Attention Span, psychologist Gloria Mark reveals these and more surprising results from her decades of research into how technology affects our attention. She shows how much of what we think we know is wrong, including insights such as:

• Why multitasking hurts rather than helps productivity
• How social media and modern entertainment amplify our short attention spans
• What drains our mental resources and how to refuel them
• The four types of attention that we experience every day and how to recognize them

While the concept of "flow" has previously been considered the ideal state of focus, Dr. Mark offers a new framework to help explain how our brains function in the digital world: kinetic attention. This book reveals how we can take control, not only to find more success in our careers, but also to find health and wellness in our everyday lives.

An award-winning photographer asked several children What is the best part of you?, and presents their answers in this sometimes funny, sometimes moving, deeply personal book that includes striking black-and-white photographs taken by the author. Ideal for parents and teacher to use to discuss body image, self-esteem, and diversity with children.

Walk the Dog, Rock the Baby, and perform the Robin Hood, Sky Rocket, and Eiffel Tower! This entertaining book features 50 of the most popular Yo-Yo tricks, along with an illustrated history of the toy and its variations. Helpful diagrams accompany the easy instructions, and you'll also find tips for keeping your Yo-Yo in top condition.
Author Harry Baier is the creator of the internationally acclaimed Moonstar and Mondial, the Rolls-Royces of Yo-Yos. His complete guide to Yo-Yo tricks can be enjoyed by readers of all ages.

A beautiful and inspirational full-color journal from Tabitha Brown, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Feeding the Soul (Because It's My Business)

In her beloved book Feeding the Soul, Tabitha Brown made readers feel seen, loved, and heard, sharing the knowledge she's gained from her own journey in life. Now, in this gorgeous keepsake journal, Tab invites readers to think more deeply about their own life paths, and how to live in more love and happiness. Readers will be drawn in to write on each creatively illustrated, uplifting page, with:

Dozens of thought-provoking writing prompts in Tabitha's encouraging voiceCharming and colorful illustrationsMotivational and inspirational "Tabisms"Space for readers to write in their own stories, hopes, and dreams--and make the journal their own!

This soul-healing journal encourages readers to take some time to reflect on their own sources of joy and hope, spirituality, self-image, and peace, and to look back on when they want to appreciate how far they've come and what insights they've gained in their own journeys.

Live more positively with simple exercises based in cognitive behavioral therapy

Not every mental health struggle involves a life-altering event or an official diagnosis, but that doesn't mean it can't take a toll on your life and happiness. The CBT Workbook for Mental Health shows you how to cultivate your sense of calm and confidence through the power of cognitive behavioral therapy. With expert advice, you'll learn how to use CBT to bounce back from tough times-no matter how big or small.

This CBT workbook features:

• Specific solutions-Build a range of coping skills with chapters devoted to common issues: relationships and communication, anxiety, anger, stress, guilt, shame, cravings, and self-esteem.
• Simple exercises-The prompts and exercises in this CBT workbook only take between 10 and 30 minutes, so you can find time to practice them even on your busiest days.
• CBT for everyone-Discover how CBT works and what makes it so popular, with a range of exercises that help improve general emotional wellness.

Learn the skills to maintain your inner peace and emotional well-being every day with The CBT Workbook for Mental Health.

New York Times best-selling author Dan Buettner reveals the surprising secrets of what makes the world's happiest places--and shows you how to apply these lessons to your own life.
In this inspiring guide, you'll find game-changing tools drawn from global research and expert insights for achieving maximum fulfillment. Along the way, you'll:
- Discover the three strands of happiness--pleasure, purpose, and pride--that feature prominently in the world's happiest places.
- Take the specially designed Blue Zones Happiness Test to pinpoint areas in your life where you could cultivate greater joy, deeper meaning, and increased satisfaction.
- Meet the world's Happiness All-Stars: inspiring individuals from Denmark to the United States who reveal dynamic, practical ways to improve day-to-day living.
- Discover specific, science-based strategies for setting up a "life radius" of community, work, home, and self to create healthier, happiness-boosting habits for the long-term.

While nothing can mute the pain after the death of a child, this compilation of poetry, fiction, and essays about the pain, stages, grief, and coping offer inspiration and comfort in the wake of tragedy.

While nothing can mute the pain after the death of a child, this compilation of poetry, fiction, and essays about the pain, stages, grief, and coping offer inspiration and comfort in the wake of tragedy.

How Two Grieving Mothers Found Inspiration and Comfort. There are few, if any, events in life as traumatic, heart-wrenching, and crushing as the death of a child. While nothing can mute the pain of such a life-shattering loss, others who know this experience can help those suffering articulate the chaos of their feelings and see that they can, eventually, feel whole again. Organized by a journalist and a psychotherapist, each of whom has lost a child, A Broken Heart Still Beats is a remarkable compilation of poetry, fiction, and essays about the pain, stages of grief, and the coping and healing process that follows the death of one's child. The chapters are organized thematically and chronologically, from "Thunderstruck," the point at which parents first learn they have lost a child, to "The Legacy of Loss," wherein the authors and the anthology selections speak to the "steely hard and cold" life lessons this type of bereavement brings. This compilation of poems and excerpts draws from short stories, novels, biographies, and autobiographies that focus on the death of a child as relayed through classic and contemporary world literature. It is made up of works by some of the best writers and thinkers present and past, many of them bereaved parents as well, ranging from Mark Twain, Isabel Allende, William Shakespeare, John Edgar Wideman, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Anne Tyler, and Sophocles to Eric Clapton and Winston Churchill. Biographical introductions personalize the excerpts, often offering new insights into well-known writers like William Faulkner and Rudyard Kipling. This book's anthologized selections make it truly exceptional. A Broken Heart Still Beats-- expresses the universal themes of grief--and the common points of these experiences and feelings--in language and imagery that goes straight to the heart. The fact that each of the authors has lost a child brings a powerful authenticity to the book. Bereaved parents and family members as well as mental health professionals, bereavement counselors, and those interested in grief literature will all find this book extremely valuable. "As one who has experienced the tragic, untimely death of a child, I have found this anthology of similar experiences an excellent source of comfort and healing." --George McGovern, former U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate. "By putting words to what is surely the most unspeakable of life's losses, this eloquent and painfully honest book may help make the darkness a little less dark, the loneliness a little less lonely." --Judith Viorst, author of Necessary Losses Born and raised in new York, Mary Semel graduated from Goucher College in Baltimore. She is a psychotherapist who, after working for many years at Sheppard Pratt Hospital, now has a private practice. Her sixteen-year-old son, Alexander, was killed in a car accident in 1991. Anne McCracken is a former newspaper reporter and feature writer. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland, with her husband, Tom, and her daughter, Hollis. She lost her five-year-old son, Jake, in 1989. The authors have appeared on "The Today Show" and National Public Radio's "Morning Edition."

Children of all ages will delight in this collection of 16 space-age gliders direct from the twenty first century. They're easy to put together with scissors, tape, and a paper clip, and best of all -- they really fly.With this book you can build and launch a whole fleet of colorful spacecraft: Orbital Zoom Glider; Intruder; Routefinder; Supercontinental; Space Searcher; Space Sentinel; Star Shuttle; Star Giant; Signal Link; Star Transporter; Space Ram; Star Probe; Skycat; Star Cruiser; Lunar Freighter; and Star Link.To assemble the space ships, just follow the simple step-by-step instruction and explanatory diagrams. Each ship has its own folding sequence, and folds are numbered to insure correct folding.
Cut and fold spaceships are fun to make and fly (helpful hints on flying are included) or they can be suspended on threads for room decorations. Either way, these spaceworthy fliers are sure to delight the countless young fans of Star Wars and Star Trek.

We all have that favorite pair of jeans - no matter how baggy or worn they might become. In the movement against throw-away culture and fast fashion, learn how to pick up a needle and rediscover the forgotten techniques and the joy of mending.
In Visible Mending, Arounna explores why we should mend, and how to mend a variety of different fabrics. Work through the illustrated step-by-step instructions that will demystify mending techniques and discover how these can be easily applied to old
items to give them a fresh, modern look. Packed with skill-based projects, this book reveals how to patch jeans, embroider over tears, dye stains and use the Japanese art of Sashiko. Visible Mending is a book
for those who want to learn how to make the most of their wardrobes, be less wasteful, more sustainable and add a personal touch to their garments.

Reclaim your power from narcissists, manipulators, and other toxic people.

If you're a highly sensitive person, or identify as an "empath," you may feel easily overwhelmed by the world around you, suffer from "people-pleasing," experience extreme anxiety or stress in times of conflict, or even take on the emotions of others. Due to your naturally giving nature, you may also be a target for narcissists and self-centered individuals who seek to exploit others for their own gain. So, how can you protect yourself?

In The Highly Sensitive Person's Survival Guide to Dealing with Toxic People, you'll learn evidence-based skills grounded in cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) to help you recognize and shut down the common manipulation tactics used by toxic people, such as gaslighting, stonewalling, projection, covert put-downs, and love bombing. You'll also discover targeted tips to protect yourself from the five main types of toxic people:

• Garden-variety boundary-steppers
• Crazymakers and attention-seekers
• Emotional vampires
• Narcissists
• Sociopaths and psychopaths

Finally, you'll learn how to heal from toxic or narcissistic abuse, and find strategies for establishing healthy boundaries and a strong sense of self. If you're an HSP who is ready to take a stand against the toxic people in your life, this book has everything you need to survive and thrive.

This is the world's first-ever 12 generation family tree notebook! This antique-style book has room for you to record the first 4,095 people in your family line. (That's not a typo. There's actually room to list thousands of relatives!) This journal contains everything you need to create an index of the first twelve generations of your ancestors. Document your genealogy research by hand in this lovely keepsake... You'll be creating a treasured historical document for future generations to enjoy while discovering your own heritage.

HOW IT WORKS

A numbered chart system makes it easy to see how the pages connect, and there are areas where you can write notes about any historical events that your family members may have experienced, witnessed, or survived.

Generations 1-10 of your lineage have lines where you can enter information next to the following prompts: Name, Born, Died, Married [with 2 lines to record multiple marriages or charming details], and Notes.

The 11th and 12th generations have room for only names and dates.

EQUALITY & REPRESENTATION

The first two generations of this paperback genealogy journal are gender-neutral/LGBTQAI+ friendly. The individuals in the first couple are labeled "Parent" instead of Mother and Father. The first generation can be used to record an individual or a sibling group. There is an unstructured notes section, where you can write in partners/spouses, siblings, or any other personal information you wish to include.

BONUS: GET A ONE-OF-A-KIND FAMILY TREE CHART THAT MATCHES THE STYLE OF THIS BOOK!

1. Leave an honest review of this book.

2. Share and tag a picture of "Our Family Tree" @HouseElvesAnonymous, #houseelvesanonymous.

3. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook, then send us your preferred email address in a private message, so we know where to send your printable file. You'll receive a high-resolution digital JPG image (by email) of a family tree chart that matches the style of this book. This beautiful, 8 generation family tree chart can be printed, filled in by hand, and turned into a timeless family heirloom.

This matching pedigree chart is also available at HouseElvesAnonymous.com.

This journal is part of a series of family history workbooks, notebooks, and journals. The items in this collection can be used in any combination, and all feature beautiful, historic imagery to help you document and preserve your genealogical research. Family trees to match the style of these books are available at HouseElvesAnonymous.com.