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Emotional Agility & Leadership Coaching with Leah Halvorsen

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Leah Recommends

The New Codependency

Codependency used to be a word that described a cluster of behaviors found in people who were in relationship with alcoholics. However, the new definition is not isolated to an “addict scenario”, and refers to tools for letting go, detachment, setting boundaries, and making friends with the idea and practice of self-care. This book is for the people pleasers, the controllers, the “focus-on-everyone-but-me’ers”, and those who want healthy relationships but aren’t sure how to create one, or be in one. I cannot recommend this book enough.

Relationships/Teams

The Road Less Travelled

What I love about this book is the down-to-earth, direct conversations about the necessity of suffering, and how understanding that life is not fair is the key to finding our peace. M. Scott Peck speaks directly about our responsibility to grow emotionally/mentally, and how self worth is created. He introduces the tools to deep discipline including delaying gratification and others that encourage a grounded look at driving your personal growth journey with maturity, awareness and discipline (in the Buddha sense). He explores the places we have human troubles (in work, love, power and others), and provides pointing which demands emotional responsibility and growth. There is also an updated version of this book that makes some of his concepts more “contemporary”.

Focusing On You

What Happened to You

Maybe you think that your childhood has nothing to do with who you are now, or the choices you make, but that is not true. Our early experiences form us, and continue to influence us, until we decide to look at them and take charge. We can claim things we need to keep, and release things that no longer serve us if we dare to do the work. This insightful book also has an audiobook (it is kinda nice to be read to sometimes), and also a separate workbook. If this book makes your stomach clench, it probably a good one to start with.

Focusing On You

Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood

Teenage girls are complicated.  There’s a lot going on inside them, and outside them.  Knowing what to do as a parent can be complcated, and this book intends to make it a little easier.

Youth/Teens

Untamed

Where do women hold back to be accepted, not rock the boat, or be nice? Where/why do women ignore their intuition and true selves. This book is about reclaiming power and resiliency.

Focusing On You

Permission To Feel

Becoming aware of your feelings and how they influence your actions is an important human superpower. When we suppress our feelings, they change our behavior and thoughts anyway, so gaining Emotional Intelligence is the key to unlocking your emotions, and having them be part of your success formula in your life, relationships and work.

Focusing On You

Atomic Habits

Pitter patter, let’s get at ‘er!
If you would like to build powerful habits and release habits that don’t serve you, here’s the book for you. Reading this book is the first step and then getting into DOING and discipline is the second part. First we KNOW better, then we DO better. Let’s do it (and no, it does not have to be a laborious chore)!

Focusing On You

The Teenage Brain

Have you ever found yourself saying to your teen, “what is going on in that head of yours?!” If so, this book may be for you. The teenage brain is an interesting landscape, and during the teenage years the brain undergoes significant shifts, that impact thoughts and behavior. This book will give some insight into your teen’s brain, which may help you communicate more effectively, not take their behavior personally, and interact differently during disagreements.

Youth/Teens

In Sheep’s Clothing

This book provides information and strategies about how to understand and deal with manipulative people. It answers the question of “why do they always seem to find ME”, and helps you install the necessary esteem, insight and boundaries to help you find your way.

Relationships/Teams

Non-Violent Communication

Have you ever found yourself saying to your teen, “what is going on in that head of yours?!” If so, this book may be for you. The teenage brain is an interesting landscape, and during the teenage years the brain undergoes significant shifts, that impact thoughts and behavior. This book will give some insight into your teen’s brain, which may help you communicate more effectively, not take their behavior personally, and interact differently during disagreements.

Relationships/Teams

Love Warrior

This book is a deeply personal account of hitting relationship rock bottom, and finding a way back up. Glennon found her way back up not through her husband, but through her relationship with herself. Truth, vulnerability and emotional agility were all needed here. Maybe you will find yourself in these pages.

Relationships/Teams

Daring Greatly

The supplementary title for this book by Brene Brown reads: “how the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent, and lead”. Those of you who know me, coach with me, or have coached with me may recognize this theme. Our ability to realign our relationship with, and definition of “vulnerability” (it is not synonymous with weakness), is essential, transformative and freeing. Yep, it is also really uncomfortable and unfamiliar.

Since I am at the risk of just quoting the whole book in this short description, I will hold back and say this: If being a human came with an instruction/insight manual, I believe it should be this book. There are important and digestible revelations that are applicable to both men and women. I really can’t articulate the impact and importance of the concepts and human experiences contained in Brene’s latest work. And to steal a page out of Brene’s book–“if you think these concepts do not apply to you, read on”, get the book and read on–

Pssst…no really, please do it.

Relationships/Teams

Brainstorm-The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain

If your kid is between the ages of 12-24, this book may be for you! Young people are not “immature”, they are growing and learning. This book helps parents find tools to perceive and communicate in ways that create positive connection during these years. You don’t just have to hold your breath and wait it out.

Youth/Teens

The Yamas and Niyamas

Ok, this one was a total shocker! A friend of mine showed me this book and told me she was enraptured with it, and was chewing on the practices and framework in it. I picked up this book, opened it to a random page—and it hooked me!! This is a book that explores yoga’s ethical practices. It isn’t teaching you how to pose your body, but rather how to work with the mind (spiritual) practices of restraints and observances. “What matters is how well you have participated in your own life, both the ordinary routines and the extraordinary surprises” How do we gain mastery over our own choices while being battered around by the human experience? Start the journey toward mastery of self: pick up the book and see.

Focusing On You

Radical Forgiveness

Do the same harsh interactions repeat themselves inside your head and with others? Do you hold onto things and not let them go? Do they fester inside you quietly, while still, there is a trigger, and anger or apathy are familiar “friends”? Forgiveness of self and other, is some of the most powerful work you could ever do–and it frees you. If you let it.

Relationships/Teams

The Self-Centered Marriage: Rebuilding Your “We” by Reclaiming Your “I”

In partnership, it is easy to lose ourselves, and in some cases we get into partnership without really knowing ourselves. So when we wake up one day wondering “why am I here with you?” it is almost inevitable. For those of you who know me, I use a term “centered-on-self”. This means being connected to you–your thoughts, needs drives and emotions. When everything you do is rooted inside you, your expression in this world is honest and real. You make sense to you, and you make sense to others. You can meet your partner for who they are, while you are being who you really are. Realign your marriage by finding out who you are as individuals, and connecting there first. Find you-Find each other. No kidding. Marriage realignment is a normal part of long term relationship. Dig in.

Relationships/Teams

Intimate Communion

David Deida speaks about the wonder of masculine and feminine energy polarities and what can happen when we become “shelled” and unable to access our essence in relationship. Deida writes in an intentionally provocative way to bring strong attention to the currents that flow through you (man or woman). As he states in the book “If you are not delighted by (and I insert or intrugued by) a style of intimacy involving deep passion, deep devotion and deep understanding-all three-this book is not for you” So, is it for you? Reach beyond the neutered relationships of 50/50 fairness, and taste a new balance and deeper intimacy (which he calls open-hearted surrender).

Relationships/Teams

I’ll tell you one damn thing, and that’s all I know!

Alright, I happen to think that Jann Arden is hilarious! She is a Canadian singer, songwriter, author and performer. This book contains journal entries from May 15, 2002-February 22, 2004. They are sweet, sad, funny, thought provoking, and at times deeply personal. When I write (or draw) in my journal, I assume no one else will see it. I think she did too. Sometimes the work we do for ourselves, serves others too.

Casual Reads

The Gifts of Imperfection

As the author says in her preface “Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process, is the bravest thing we will ever do.” What gets in the way of YOUR wholehearted living? “Gifts” guides you to cultivate authenticity, self-compassion, resiliency, gratitude, trust, creativity, play, calm, meaningful work, and laughter (and more). This book is a kind, impactful, and useful read. It is a skinny volume (126 pages), that is jam packed. Let go of who you think you are supposed to be, and embrace who you are.

Focusing On You

This Time I Dance

There is so much to love about this book! Tama is an engaging writer with a wonderful message, and if you take out the word “work” and replace it with “life”, her journey is inspiring no matter what change process you are up to. She speaks from her heart, and with spirit, addresses the feelings behind the process of change, growth and aspiration. Personally, I have read this book many times, and get different things out of it each time.

Focusing On You

The Invitation

Another soulful read. Oriah speaks in a deep meaningful way about yearning, and the “being” behind making life shifts. The poem “The Invitation” encapsulates the wanting behind deepening your knowing of yourself and others. This book invites you on a journey of the highs and lows of true intimacy with yourself, others and the world, for the sake of having a fully expressed life. This is the heart map to living beyond, and allowing yourself to taste it all without minimizing it.

Focusing On You

The Untethered Soul

Dive into this one, the water is beautiful! This book contains a deep message with many layers. It seems to be made for reading and rereading. Freeing yourself from what holds you back, are simple words and a complex process. This book contains a soul/spirit context and salve for the heart that is questing.

Casual Reads

Unf**k Yourself

This is a straight talking, no nonsense guide getting getting out of your own way. This book helps you get back in the drivers seat of your own life. If life is getting you down, Unf**k yourself.

Focusing On You

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.

~ Mark Twain

Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.

~ Henry Ford

No punishment anyone might inflict on us could possibly be worse than the punishment we inflict on ourselves by conspiring in our own diminishment.

~ Parker Palmer

You were born with wings. Why prefer to crawl through life?

~ Rumi

You could say it is the feeling of healing, coming home to myself after a long seperation.

~ Tama J. Kieves

It seems that guidance is a lot like candlelight. It lights up a room or a moment at a time. I can see where I am right now. I can’t see where I am going. But I bring this flicker with me as I step forward.

~ Tama J. Kieves

Choosing our actions instead of reacting can change the course of history, or at least the course of our lives.

~ Melody Beattie

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

~ Winston Churchill

Doing work you love is the dizzying path of saying yes to yourself and yes to a brilliant, hidden self you do not yet know.

~ Tama J. Kieves

Well-meaning people will say well-meaning things that will make us feel foreign and tilted for wanting to walk this world another way.

~ Tama J. Kieves

Whatever you feed with attention will grow detailed, bold, and brilliant with life for you. Feed the wolves that howl on the outskirts of imagination or feed your dreams instead.

~ Tama J. Kieves

It all comes down to this: We can deny our hearts or we can deny our limits.

~ Tama J. Kieves

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Self care is never a selfish act – it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I was put on Earth to offer to others.

~ Parker Palmer

I wonder, he said, whether the stars are set a light in heaven so that one day each one of us may find his own again.

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Some things matter because we choose to make them matter.

~ James G. March

Life is something that everyone should try at least once.

~ Henry J. Tillman

To make a friend of the part of us that wants nothing to do with the difficulties of work, of relationship, of doing what is necessary, is to learn humility; to cultivate self-compassion and to sharpen a necessary sense of humour and a merciful approach to both self and other.

~ David Whyte

If you have nothing to say, say nothing.

~ Mark Twain

The roar of your heart will quiet all terror. And, sometimes, it takes just a little terror to rouse your heart to roar.

~ Tama J. Kieves

It is life near the bone where it is sweetest.

~ Henry David Thoreau

To be ourselves causes us to be exiled by many others, and yet to comply with what others want causes us to be exiled from ourselves.

~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

We make our lives bigger or smaller, more expansive or more limited, according to the interpretation of life that is our story.

~ Christina Baldwin

I saw a car with a bumper sticker that read “The one who dies with the most toys wins”. I think it should have said “joys”

~ Tama J. Kieves

You are succulent. Even if you don’t know it yet.

~ Sark

May you parent your passion exquisitely.

~ Dawna Markova

Purpose is the place where your deep gladness meets the worlds needs.

~ Frederick Buechner

I found more strength swinging from vine-to-vine than I ever would have huddled away in a life-proof life.

~ Tama J. Kieves

Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.

~ Rumi

We are all meant to shine, as children do. As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated by our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

~ Marianne Williamson

Stop ignoring that temptation that makes you giggle and flush in hopes that you can find a smugly sensible resolution instead.

~ Tama J. Kieves

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

You must be very polite with yourself when you are learning something new.

~ Elizabeth Gilbert

I am coming to see that time free is not an indulgence, but a kind of vigilance. Knowing myself and knowing my dreams comes from having time. Without self-connection, I won’t have true direction.

~ Tama J. Kieves

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; But often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.

~ Helen Keller

Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.

~ Hans Christian Andersen

Let life get wind of you.

~ Tama J. Kieves

Speak a new language so that the world will be a new world.

~ Rumi

Life is just a mirror, and what you see out there, you must first see inside of you.

~ Wally Amos

Life is like music; it must be composed by ear, feeling, and instinct, not by rule.

~ Samuel Butler

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

~ Rumi

Know yourself

~ Ancient Wisdom

The purpose of life is a life of purpose.

~ Robert Byrne

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

~ Gandhi

I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacations with better care than they do their lives.

~ Jim Rohn

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Listen to your life. All moments are key moments.

~ Frederick Buechner

A task without a vision is just a job. A vision without a task is just a dream. A vision with a task can change the world.

~ Unknown

Deep experience is never peaceful.

~ Henry James

My path has not been determined. I shall have more experiences and pass many more milestones.

~ Agnetha Faltskog

Belief creates the actual fact.

~ William James

Change your thoughts and you change your world.

~ Norman Vincent Peale

Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add colour to my sunset sky.

~ Rabindranath Tagore

Nothing is impossible, the word itself says “I’m possible!”

~ Audrey Hepburn

To cultivate joy, pay attention to what you like

~ Billy Fingers

Life unfolds naturally and organically, presenting us with situations which allow us to learn.

~ Melody Beattie

We grow by thrusting our roots into the darkness as well as our branches into the light.

~ Dawna Markova

When we learn how to be truly present with our joy and our sorrow, with our longing and our desires, layer upon layer of ourselves and the world are revealed.

~ Oriah Mountain Dreamer

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

~ Oscar Wilde

The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall. He frees himself and shows the way to others. Freedom and slavery are mental states.

~ Mahatma Gandhi

The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another\’s, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises.

~ Leo Buscaglia

For every species alive on the planet today, there are many more that didn’t adapt quickly enough to the challenges they faced… The only way to survive is to change.

~ Oprah Winfrey

Candour is a compliment; it implies equality. It’s how true friends talk.

~ Peggy Noonan

The consequences of deep intimacy with yourself, another or the world are completely unpredictable.

~ Oriah Mountain Dreamer

No-one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Turn to nature to pardon some of the difficulty you have to bear.

~ Billy Fingers

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

~ Winston Churchill

It’s not what we don’t know that hurts us, it’s what we believe is true that isn’t, that does the damage.

~ Melody Beattie

What is needed, rather than running away, controlling, suppressing or any other resistance, is UNDERSTANDING fear. Than means watch it, learn about it, come in contact with it. We are to learn about fear, not how to escape it.

~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.

~ Mahatma Gandhi

Once you recognize within yourself a hunger for something beyond just continuing, once you taste even the possibility of touching the meaning enfolded in your life, you can never be completely content with just going through the motions.

~ Oriah Mountain Dreamer

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.

~ M. Scott

There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. If you cannot hear it, you will spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.

~ Howard Thurman

When you are happy, you don’t have a heartbeat. You have a hum in your chest that makes you want to laugh all the time.

~ Jann Arden

Through fear of knowing who we really are, we sidestep our own destiny, which leaves us hungry in a famine of our own making.

~ Dawna Markova

You don’t have to hold your head, higher than your heart.

~ Jack Johnson

The healthiest response to life is joy.

~ Deepak Chopra

You see things; and you say, “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say, “Why not?”

~ George Bernard Shaw

You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.

~ Christopher Columbus

An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.

~ Mahatma Gandhi

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

~ Oscar Wilde

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

~ Mark Twain

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the dessert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

~ Mary Oliver

Tell me something you have not told yourself for a very long time. Let it come up from your belly, so we can be surprised together.

~ Oriah Mountain Dreamer

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.

~ Winston Churchill

We begin to find and become ourselves when we notice how we are already found, already truly, entirely, wildly, messily, marvellously who we were born to be.

~ Anne Lamott

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

~ Charles Darwin

Until you are fully using what/who you are currently, the universe will not give you access to more of you.

~ Jody Larkin

We all have islands of fear inside us, but we also have continents of wisdom and truth.

~ Dawna Markova

The worst thing one can do is not to try, to be aware of what one wants and not give in to it, to spend years in silent hurt wondering if something could have materialized – never knowing.

~ Jim Rohn

I think the key to a life well lived, is to be gentle on your soul.

~ Jann Arden

“Everything will be alright” is not the same as “everything will stay the same”

~ Seth Godin

Vulnerability is not knowing victory or defeat, it’s understanding the necessity of both.

~ Brene Brown

Life unfolds naturally and organically, presenting us with situations which allow us to learn.

~ Melody Beattie

Humans make stuff up, then they believe it.

~ Billy Fingers

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