"Jamie Wright hates her West Texas hometown of Silver Falls, its small-minded people, the reminder of her childhood there and her failed first marriage-the source of her daddy's eternal disappointment. The size of his ranch and the influence of his pocketbook continue to make her a target for resentment. Now Big Jim is on his deathbed. Jamie's in town to plan his funeral, sell the ranch, and never look back. The funeral goes as planned, although her daddy might be galled that one of the pallbearers is Mexican. However, the reading of the will does not go as planned. The night after the funeral, Jamie and two former classmates-Wanda and Gina-go for a nostalgic ride out to the town's lovers' lane to watch the dancing lights and reminisce about high school. When a tornado system blows in, they drive to a nearby storm shelter. There, fueled by vodka, the secrets erupt. The tornado razes part of Silver Falls as well as the ranch. Jamie realizes that she is not immune to the pull of the land, the way its vast barrenness manages to sustain flora and fauna. Jamie's discovery of her father's manipulation and deceit allows her to throw off her lifelong guilt at disappointing him. She sees herself as an adult, and sees the land and the ranch as a vital part of who she is. In the process of helping clean up the tornado damage to Silver Falls, Jamie finally becomes part of the community"--

What is this place called the comfort zone? Where does the comfort zone exist? Why is stepping outside of the comfort zone so frightening? "The Comfort Zone Illusion" answers those questions by taking you on a journey of discovery to uncover the mystery of the very personal space we call our comfort zone. It is an exploration through the stages of change, beginning with the very first step outside of the comfort zone to exposing the five walls of fear that create barriers to change. This book looks beyond the illusion of comfort to the stark reality of the discomfort of change, and offers strategies to transform fear to energy, break down the brick walls of fear, develop movement habits, and create success enablers. Every breakthrough exercise provides a reflective understanding of your comfort zone, and although the exercises have a specific purpose, each offers a chance to reveal an "a-ha" moment. One of those moments is the turning point, the awakening to move you out of being stuck in the comfort of where you are to where you are meant to be.

Leaving your comfort zone is frightening, and fear can stifle action, inhibit the ability to attempt a new approach, and can create unnecessary stress, making you less likely to welcome change as an opportunity for discovery, growth, and personal development. The author, Susan Neustrom, shares numerous stories about confusion, uncertainty, anxiety, and success derived from her life-changing experience of facing her fear of educational failure from being a high-school dropout at sixteen by returning to school at forty-eight to earn a GED and then a doctorate. Susan conveys her thoughts, feelings, and unbelievable discomfort with leaving her comfort zone, as well as many "a-ha" moments, in her personal transformation of abandoning a twenty-two-year career to follow her vision to do work with greater purpose and meaning. Not only does she offer her personal account, she also shares the stories of people in a variety of situations, and from experts who clearly understand change.

If you are stuck in your comfort zone, ready for change, but walls of "I can't" stand in your way, this book shows you how leaving your comfort zone is not so hard after all. "The Comfort Zone Illusion" truly demonstrates that possibilities are endless once you learn how to get out of the discomfort of being in your comfort zone, eliminate fear, and unleash purpose, passion, and potential.

Imagine for a moment what it would be like; ten years worth of hard work and a life-long dream, gone. Your self respect and dignity, in shambles. As you question what you're made of, and as you wonder how you'll ever claw your way back to the top, an incredible opportunity presents itself. There is only one catch: It will cost you everything you know about the world around you. Leaving the Illusion will lead you into the darkness of an unseen world; a world where the "dominant few" do as they please to the "inferior many" that live beneath them. For the insiders, there is unimaginable wealth, power and privilege. For all others, there is only deception, theft and violence. Given a choice, to join the predators or continue living as prey, which would you choose? This is the story of Alex Watson and the agonizing decision he was forced to make.

New York Times best-selling author and comedian-turned-motivational speaker, Kyle Cease, shows how your obsession with money is actually preventing you from living the life of your dreams. "I can't afford that." "Now's not the right time . . . I need to save up." "Quit my job? Are you nuts?!" Sound familiar? Money is one of the biggest excuses we make to not go after what we really want. Our fixation with money--the desire for more of it, and the fear of not having enough of it--is often really just a longing to feel safe. But this obsession with money is coming at a much bigger cost: our sanity, our creativity, our freedom, and our ability to step into our true power. This book is about eliminating the need to seek safety through the illusion of money, and learning to see ourselves for the perfection that we are--so that we can bring our gifts to the world in an authentic way, and allow ourselves to receive massive, true abundance as a result. Kyle Cease has heard excuses like the ones above countless times at his live events, and he has shown people how to completely break through them. In The Illusion of Money, he shares his own experiences as well as practical tools to help readers understand their ingrained beliefs and attachments to money, and how they can tap into our infinite assets and talents. "After 25 years as a successful comedian, actor, transformational speaker, author and junior-league amateur bowler, I've experienced many times how chasing money is not an effective way to create an abundant and fulfilling life. The most alive I've ever felt was after I left my comedy career at its peak to become a transformational speaker. I left tons of guaranteed money and so-called security for a complete unknown. It was terrifying--but what was on the other side of that terror was a completely different life that is not only more abundant financially, but has more freedom, more ease, more passion, more impact and more joy." -- Kyle Cease

“The uncanny beauty of Van Booy’s prose, and his ability to knife straight to the depths of a character’s heart, fill a reader with wonder.” — San Francisco Chronicle Award-winning author Simon Van Booy tells a harrowing and enchanting story of how one man’s act of mercy during World War II changed the lives of strangers, and how they each discover the astonishing truth of their connection. The characters in Van Booy's The Illusion of Separateness discover at their darkest moments of fear and isolation that they are not alone, that they were never alone, that every human being is a link in a chain we cannot see. This gripping novel—inspired by true events—tells the interwoven stories of a deformed German infantryman; a lonely British film director; a young, blind museum curator; two Jewish American newlyweds separated by war; and a caretaker at a retirement home for actors in Santa Monica. They move through the same world but fail to perceive their connections until, through seemingly random acts of selflessness, a veil is lifted to reveal the vital parts they have played in one another's lives, and the illusion of their separateness.

A novel contribution to the age-old debate about free will versus determinism. Do we consciously cause our actions, or do they happen to us? Philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, theologians, and lawyers have long debated the existence of free will versus determinism. In this book Daniel Wegner offers a novel understanding of the issue. Like actions, he argues, the feeling of conscious will is created by the mind and brain. Yet if psychological and neural mechanisms are responsible for all human behavior, how could we have conscious will? The feeling of conscious will, Wegner shows, helps us to appreciate and remember our authorship of the things our minds and bodies do. Yes, we feel that we consciously will our actions, Wegner says, but at the same time, our actions happen to us. Although conscious will is an illusion, it serves as a guide to understanding ourselves and to developing a sense of responsibility and morality. Approaching conscious will as a topic of psychological study, Wegner examines the issue from a variety of angles. He looks at illusions of the will—those cases where people feel that they are willing an act that they are not doing or, conversely, are not willing an act that they in fact are doing. He explores conscious will in hypnosis, Ouija board spelling, automatic writing, and facilitated communication, as well as in such phenomena as spirit possession, dissociative identity disorder, and trance channeling. The result is a book that sidesteps endless debates to focus, more fruitfully, on the impact on our lives of the illusion of conscious will.

Our modern patterns of thinking and learning are all based on observing a world of 'things', which we think of as separate building blocks. This worldview allows us to count and measure objects without their having any innate value; it provides neat definitions and a sense of control over life. However, this approach also sets humans apart from each other, and from nature.In reality, in nature, everything is connected in a fluid, dynamic way. 'Separateness' is an illusion we have created -- and is fast becoming a dangerous delusion infecting how we relate to business, politi, and other key areas of our daily reality.Giles Hutchins argues that the source of our current social, economic and environmental issues springs from the misguided way we see and construct our world. With its roots in ancient wisdom, this insightful book sets out an accesssible, easy to follow exploration of the causes of our current crises, offering ways to rectify these issues at source and then pointing to a way ahead.