8 Strategies for Successful Step-Parenting

by Nadir Baksh, Psy. D. and
Laurie Elizabeth Murphy, R.N., Ph.D.   

ISBN: 978-1-935387-08-4
Paper, 188 pages, 6 x 9 inches; $14.95

No matter who you are and how much experience you’ve had with kids, becoming a step-parent and “blending of families” is difficult work. The book presents 8 Strategies in the form of action steps to maximize anyone’s chances of success in this endeavor.

Use this book to:

• create a “parenting partnership”
• move beyond resentment of or competition with the former spouse
• examine and work with your unrealistic expectations about yourself and your kids
• build new and happy memories with your step-children, while respecting their old ones
• understand the “Family Hierarchy Ladder” to resolve many problems before they show up
• get the help you need when “things” or people break down.

8 Strategies for Successful Step-Parenting is written in a non-apologetic voice, offering strong and specific direction to address current problems. Vignettes of 30 real-life family situations support the strategies suggested. Issues and examples are applicable cross-culturally, and address needs of both men and women.This book will empower readers to take up their new challenge with common sense, firmness and compassion; but most of all, with greater self-knowledge—the best strategy for success in any important task.

Nadir Baksh, Psy. D. is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist specializing in family, clinical and forensic psychology since 1984. Laurie Elizabeth Murphy, R.N., Ph.D. is a registered nurse counselor who works with children and adults in issues concerning family and relationships. Each has been practicing in these fields for over 23 years. They are the authors of In the Best Interest of the Child: A Manual for Divorcing Parents (2007), and You Don’t Know Anything…!: A Manual for Parenting Your Teenagers (2008), both from Hohm Press.

“Being responsible for the day-to-day physical, emotional and spiritual care of someone else’s children takes a lot of guts. It also takes persistence, optimism, focus, and love for your new partner, enough to commit yourself to his or her children.”—from the text

Directing The Power of Conscious Feelings

Living A Life Closer To Your Own Truth

by Clinton Callahan

ISBN: 978-1-935387-11-4
$21.95
Paper, 384 pages, 6 x 9 inches

This book is about feelings, and the ways that we, as individuals and as a culture, have numbed ourselves against them. It is about unleashing the possibility of conscious feelings to re-make our lives into what really matters to us.

The Power of Conscious Feelings introduces readers to the concept of the “personal numbness bar”—a measure set high by modern culture as a way of keeping everything “cool,” under control, and consequently out of touch. This book provides the insight and the means for lowering that numbness bar. “You can feel more,” the author asserts. “You can regain the intelligence and energy of your feelings, so long denied and dressed up to appear acceptable.”

The Power of Conscious Feelings is so much more than a book of self-help or inspiration. Ultimately, it is about our connection with and responsibility for the fate of the Earth. When we are no longer numb, we are freed from solitary confinement in our private world of thoughts and beliefs. We emerge, already connected with other human beings, connected in the world of feelings we all have in common.

Choosing numbness was probably unconscious for most of us. But Callahan is committed to showing us, step by step, in this moment, how we can change the mind and learn to consciously feel.

Clinton Callahan was born in Kansas, and has lived and worked in the US, Australia, Japan, France and Germany. He is now director of Callahan Academy, based in Munich, Germany. His teams conduct seminars and trainings in relationships and “Possibility Management” for individuals and businesses in Europe and the U.S. Since 2007 he has focused his work on human feelings, relating personal experience to the collective pain of a civilization in peril due to global warming and peak oil.

“Being cool” allows you to look the other way about torture, invasion, pollution and injustice, and to accept the generic malaise that characterizes so many relationships. — from the text

The Soul and a Loaf of Bread

The Teachings of Sheikh Abol-Hasan of Kharaqan

Translation by Vraje Abramian

IISBN: 978-1-935387-12-1
$12.95
Paper, 120 pages, 5 ½ x 8 ½ inches

This book contains new translations of over 100 short statements of Sufic wisdom from Sheikh Abol-Hasan of Kharaqhan (died 1034), a “Sufis’ Sufi.” He is not known as well or as widely as some of the great Muslim saints from Khorasan—Attar, Rumi, or Bahaoddin Naqhshband. But, this near anonymity was deliberate, according to the Sheikh’s wish when he lived.

Despite being a hidden saint, his spiritual affinity and grace are still very much acknowledged among the living Sufi circles across Iran and in the region. Even today, a steady stream of dervish pilgrims visits his tomb in Iran. His enduring presence is still potent among those whose aim in life is to attain higher knowledge and refinement of the heart.

In this collection, Sheikh Kharaqani’s statements—collected and recorded centuries ago by his companions—have been rendered into English for the international reader. To best appreciate these secrets today, readers need a longing heart, earnestly seeking for the heritage that we humans, enmeshed in the grossness of material existence, so easily forget.

Sheikh Abol-Hasan of Kharaqhan (died 1034) was an unlettered villager, a farmer and gardener whose spiritual attainment was, by his own wish, concealed from the world at large. He was mentor and spiritual guide to some of the most advanced mystics of his time who, to this day, are greatly venerated in Sufi circles across the world.

Vraje Abramian, translator, was born in Iran, studied applied linguistics at UCLA and is a certified instructor in English as a Second Language. He is a writer specializing in the Persian poets of Sufism.

Sheikh Abol-Hasan Kharaqani said:
...whoever knocks on this door
feed him and ask not of his faith
for if he deserved a Soul from his Creator,
he certainly deserves a loaf of bread from Abol-Hasan.

Free Range Learning

How Homeschooling Changes Everything

by Laura Grace Weldon

ISBN: 978-1-935387-09-1
Paper, 312 pages, 8 ½ x 11 inches;
$24.95

Free Range Learning presents eye-opening data about the meaning and importance of natural learning. This data—from neurologists, child development specialists, anthropologists, educators, historians and business innovators—turns many current assumptions about school-based education upside down. The book’s factual approach is balanced by quotes and stories from over 100 homeschoolers from the U.S., Canada, Germany, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Mexico, India and Singapore. These parents and kids are the true authoritieson alternative learning.

Free Range Learning demonstrates:
• that children and teens can best be nurtured outside of restrictive educational systems
• that we can restore what is heart-centered and meaningful back to a central place in education
• how networking with others enriches the learning experience for our kids
• how homeschooling has become a force of positive social change—making the community a better place for everyone.

The simple choice to homeschool is much more significant than a homespun method of education. Laura Weldon asks us to consider this choice as participation in a cultural shift toward redefining success; and as a form of collective intelligence with major implications for the future of education.

Laura Grace Weldon writes for national publications about learning, sustainability and spirituality. She is a long-time columnist with Home Education Magazine, and an award-winning poet. Laura lives on a small farm with her husband and their four homeschooled children. Her background includes teaching conflict resolution and developing community enrichment workshops. Visit her at http://lauragraceweldon.com

“Free Range Learning will encourage anyone considering homeschooling, and will explain to anyone else why so many families are making this choice.”—Ron Miller, Ph.D., Editor, Education Revolution Magazine

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