Showing results by publisher "HarperAudio" in Relationships, Parenting & Personal Development

An exquisite and inspiring memoir about one mother's unimaginable choice in the face of oppression and abuse in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Devastating in its power, Dancing in the Mosque is a mother's searing letter to a son she was forced to leave behind. In telling her story—and that of Afghan women—Homeira challenges you to reconsider the meaning of motherhood, sacrifice, and survival. Her story asks you to consider the lengths you would go to protect yourself, your family, and your dignity.

Why do we so often seek out physical pain and emotional turmoil? We go to movies that make us cry, or scream, or gag. We poke at sores, eat spicy foods, immerse ourselves in hot baths, run marathons. Some of us even seek out pain and humiliation in sexual role-play. Where do these seemingly perverse appetites come from? Drawing on groundbreaking findings from psychology and brain science, The Sweet Spot shows how the right kind of suffering sets the stage for enhanced pleasure.

Joe De Sena has spent his life running toward challenge and discomfort. Why? Because how we react to challenging situations defines us and our families. The only tools we have as humans to survive the many peaks and valleys of a full life are preparedness, health, leadership, and most importantly, resilience. Why do so many parents struggle to finish things we start, delay gratification, and protect our health - and why do our kids continue to struggle in every facet of life? Because we haven’t showed them a path to resilience, and we haven’t fought for it ourselves.

In her phenomenally popular essays and long-running Tumblr blog, Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and body, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as "wildly undisciplined", Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care.

Whether it's absent-minded mistakes at work, a weakness for junk food, a smartphone addiction, or a lack of exercise, everyone has some bad habit or behavior that they'd like to change. But wanting to change and actually doing it - and sticking with it - are two very different things. Dr. Sean Young, an authoritative new voice in the field of behavioral science, knows a great deal about our habits - how we make them and how we can break them.

As a boy band superstar, Omarion lived the classic life of fame and success in the spotlight. Yet today he is a grounded, spiritually engaged father and artist whose popularity continues to grow. In his stunning debut, he offers an intimate lens into his spiritual journey that has inspired so many to also nurture themselves.

With her holistic approach to filling your life with comfort, balance, and peace, Debrena Jackson Gandy debunks society's myth that doing something for yourself is decadent and selfish. In fact, she says, the joy we gain from treating ourselves--whether to a luxuriant bath or to a meditative hour alone--is transferred to the people in our lives. When we emerge rejuvenated, others benefit from a patient mother, a fulfilled wife, an effective coworker, a solidly grounded friend.

Old School Love is a book to help you find the kind of soul-filling love you desire, written by a couple who has built a strong and joyful relationship amid the pressures, pitfalls, and temptations of the entertainment industry. Rev Run and his wife, Justine, have been blessed with a devoted partnership that has inspired other famous long-term marriages, including Beyoncé and Jay-Z, and Jada Pinkett-Smith and Will Smith. In this homage to classic courtship, Rev and Justine reveal the secrets to their marriage’s longevity and happiness.

Today, most of us communicate from behind electronic screens, and studies show that Americans feel less connected and more divided than ever before. The blame for some of this disconnect can be attributed to our political landscape, but the erosion of our conversational skills as a society lies with us as individuals. And the only way forward, says Headlee, is to start talking to each other. In We Need to Talk, she outlines the strategies that have made her a better conversationalist - and offers simple tools that can improve anyone's communication.

Pink and pretty or predatory and hardened, sexualized girlhood influences our daughters from infancy onward, telling them that how a girl looks matters more than who she is. Somewhere between the exhilarating rise of Girl Power in the 1990s and today, the pursuit of physical perfection has been recast as a source - the source - of female empowerment. And commercialization has spread the message faster and farther, reaching girls at ever-younger ages.

"I'll never forget that night. It was like a romance novel, an old Broadway musical, and a John Wayne western rolled into one. Out for a quick drink with friends, I wasn't looking to meet anyone, let alone a tall, rugged cowboy who lived on a cattle ranch miles away from my cultured, corporate hometown. But before I knew it, I'd been struck with a lightning bolt... and I was completely powerless to stop it."

A tale of paranoid fantasies and crippling doubts, of shady lawyers and dangerous cult leaders, of billionaire gun nuts and survivalist superheroes, of weirdos, heroes, and ordinary citizens going off the grid. It's one man's story of a dangerous world - and how to stay alive in it. Before the next disaster strikes, you're going to want to read this book. And you'll want to do everything it suggests. Because tomorrow doesn't come with a guarantee....

America is in crisis. Happiness is falling, loneliness and despair are rising, too many schools are riddled by fights and failure, crime is unacceptably high, and the American Dream is out of reach for millions. The problems are visible to us all, but virtually no one is talking about the solution that matters most: Marriage. New research by University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox shows that Americans who get married and have children today are leading happier and more prosperous lives, on average, than men and women who are single and childless.

Marianne Williamson is a best-selling author, a world-renowned teacher, and one of the most important spiritual voices of our time. In Tears to Triumph, she argues that we - as a culture and as individuals - have learned to avoid facing pain. By doing so we are neglecting the spiritual work of healing. Instead of allowing ourselves to embrace our hurt, we numb it, medicate it, dismiss it, or otherwise divert our attention so that we never have to face it.

Blood Sex Magic is an invitation and an awakening—a guide toward a life of connection to self and spirit, to the seen and unseen realms, and to magical traditions past and future. Bri Luna honors traditions from her African American and Mexican roots and celebrates magic that is “from dirt and blood, jewels and bones, moon and sun.”

Kari Byron's story hasn't been a straight line. She started out as a broke artist living in San Francisco, writing poems on a crowded bus on the way to one of her three jobs. Many curveballs, unexpected twists, and yes, literal and figurative explosions later, and she's one of the world's most respected women in science entertainment, blowing stuff up on national television and getting paid for it! In Crash Test Girl, Kari reveals her fascinating life story on the set of MythBusters and beyond.

In recent years the field of aging research has exploded with new clinical findings. Many widely accepted ideas about aging—including those about the inevitability of our declining metabolism, our dying brain cells, and our deteriorating muscles and bones—have been debunked. Today we know that the physical signs of aging are far more a product of lifestyle choices than of calendar years. Aging Backwards offers an exciting and comprehensive plan for actively slowing down and even reversing the aging process through gentle exercise that develops strong, flexible muscles.

In 2006, John Warren and John Thompson led Marines into combat in the world’s most dangerous city: Ramadi, Iraq. But when they got home, employers didn’t understand what they had to offer. Undeterred, they founded their own specialty mortgage company, growing it from scratch into a national powerhouse over the course of a decade.

Raised in a turbulent home, Brittany Williams learned to use food as a coping mechanism to manage her feelings at a young age. When she was 14, a family member’s comment “no man will want you with a pudgy figure like that” forever changed the way she viewed her body and opened a door, new and alluring, into the world of self-loathing, self-punishment, and dieting. Told with Brittany’s unflagging honesty and trademark vulnerability, Dear Body describes the tensions of growing up in a body that often felt more like a traitor than a friend.

In 2009, an 18-year-old son of Haitian immigrants burst onto Billboard music charts with the instant #1 song, “Whatcha Say,” which sampled a surprising hook and opened with what would prove to be one of the catchiest lines in pop music history. Defying every possible odd, Jason Derulo cemented himself again and again, hit after hit, as one of the hardest working singers, dancers, and performers in the world and a risk-taking force of nature. This is the remarkable story of Derulo's come up, told through the valuable principles that guided and propelled him toward artistic excellence.