#self-help

#self-help

My earliest reading memory I was six, and in the lounge in my first home in Manchester. I was sitting cross-legged on the grey carpet, in 1977, when I finished reading whichever of Enid Blyton's brilliant Secret Seven mysteries contains the mind-blowing (genuinely, for a six-year-old) twist that Emma Lane turns out to be a road and not a person.

Every now and then, if you're lucky, you'll encounter a book that changes your life. History's great novels have earned a reputation in this regard. While the stories of Homer, Virginia Woolf, Fyodor Dostoevsky, or Jane Austen may not be for everyone all the time, an education in the classics can change people in profound ways and give our minds a meeting place in the world of ideas.

I have been a full-time, professional art critic for most of my adult life. I spend my days in galleries, surrounded by art, reading about it, absorbing it. I like art a lot, but I am also cynical about its supposed benefits beyond the merely aesthetic. But just as a new study by the Art Fund finds that art isn't just good for our mental wellbeing but our physical health,

"Yearning is a little bit different from love in that it's more intense. It feels like you're constantly reaching for more. Like, you deeply care about a person and want them to know how much you care about them."

In one chapter, Ricker found a way to turn five-minute bedtime stories into five-second stories! One line stuck with me: 'For 30 years you felt like Batman, and you woke up one day and you were Alfred.'

"Reality Transurfing is the idea that infinite versions of reality already exist, and you can 'surf' into the one where your dreams are already real by shifting your thoughts, energy, and behavior."

The self-help series has compiled reader-submitted stories about kindness, courage, and perseverance into easily digestible books aimed at almost every conceivable demographic.

Acceptance is recognizing others' actions and emotions without the need to control or change them. It allows for personal peace while setting boundaries.