10 Conversations You Need to Have with Yourself

Shmuley Boteach

Description

Celebrity author and therapist Rabbi Boteach shows how to use the power of self-talk to reach your full potential

Some of the most effective talk therapy is self-talk therapy—learning to connect positively with that internal voice that serves as your own personal GPS to guide you through life. Rabbi Shmuley teaches the reader to reconnect with the inner voice of conscience, the source of personal dreams and values, which has been so drowned out by the noise of a culture that emphasizes form over substance, career over calling, and consumption over conviction. Drawing on Rabbi Shmuley's extensive counseling experience, this book helps you defeat negative self-talk and strengthen your positive inner voices of inspiration, conscience, and deepest self to help you move forward and live your truest life. Filled with dramatic real-life examples and practical exercises, it guides you through the ten most important and life-changing conversations you will ever have.

• Shows how to use the art of conversation and self-reflection to turn negative self-talk into positive self-talk and improve your life
• Includes dramatic stories from Boteach's own counseling work and practical self-improvement exercises
• Covers important life issues such as love, self-esteem, success, and fear of aging
• From the star of TLC's television series Shalom in the Home and author of 10 Conversations You Need to Have with Your Children and other books

Start the conversation today and you'll find the voice of inspiration, the motivation to make the right choices in your life, and the ability to be true to your innermost self.
Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

part i the voice of inspiration

1. Embrace Hunger 15

2. Choose Love, Not Attention 35

3. Give the Ego Its Due 55

4. Defy Death 75

part ii the voice of conscience

5. Do Your Way Back to Feeling 93

6. See Yourself in the Third Person 111

7. Be a Blessing, Not a Burden 131

part iii the voice of the innermost self

8. Seek to Struggle 149

9. Always Ask 169

10. Know Your Gift 193

Epilogue: Who Do You Want to Be? 215

Notes 221

Index 223

Sujets

• Santé et bien-être
• Développement personnel
• Vie de famille
• Parentalité et Éducation des Enfants
• développement personnel
• Spiritual Growth
• Personal Growth
• Hebrew school
• Wellness
• Self-help
• Parentalité
• Parentalité
• Parentalité

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 02 septembre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781118095188
• Langue: English

Extrait

Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I: The Voice of Inspiration
Chapter 1: Embrace Hunger
Conversation 1
Chapter 2: Choose Love, Not Attention
Conversation 2
Chapter 3: Give the Ego Its Due
Conversation 3
Chapter 4: Defy Death
Conversation 4
Part II: The Voice of Conscience
Chapter 5: Do Your Way Back to Feeling
Conversation 5
Chapter 6: See Yourself in the Third Person
Conversation 6
Chapter 7: Be a Blessing, Not a Burden
Conversation 7
Part III: The Voice of the Innermost Self
Chapter 8: Seek to Struggle
Conversation 8
Chapter 9: Always Ask
Conversation 9
Chapter 10: Know Your Gift
Conversation 10
Epilogue: Who Do You Want to Be?
Index
Also by Shmuley Boteach
10 Conversations You Need to Have with Your Children

Copyright 2011 by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Boteach, Shmuley.
10 conversations you need to have with yourself : a powerful plan for spiritual growth and self-improvement / Shmuley Boteach.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-118-00386-2 (hardback); ISBN 978-1-118-09516-4 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-09517-1 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-09518-8 (ebk)
1. Self-talk. 2. Self-perception. 3. Conduct of life. 4. Communication in families. I. Title. II. Title: Ten conversations you need to have with yourself.
BF697.5.S47B675 2011
158.1-dc23 2011021416
To two great men who have walked with me through a long and challenging path:
Michael Steinhardt, mega-philanthropist of Judaism and worthy causes globally, devoted friend, guide, and counselor, who serves as my wise inner voice, inspiring me to be a better, more devoted Jew and human being.
David Slager, student, disciple, teacher, supporter, and friend, whose humility, dedication, and ber-generosity to Jewish causes worldwide and to the teachings and work of our great Rebbe in particular, as well as to my own modest efforts, never cease to inspire or amaze.
Acknowledgments
I want to first thank my former publisher and dear friend Judith Regan for helping me craft the original idea for a 10 Conversations series. The first book was 10 Conversations You Need to Have with Your Children , which was launched on The Oprah Winfrey Show and continues to have a devoted following. This is probably because most of the book consists of wisdom I garnered from my wife and kids as I ve tried to accomplish life s hardest and most meaningful task, raising good and decent children. True, my hair, even my beard, has begun to turn white in the process, but, boy, has it offered wisdom.
I came up with the idea for this book shortly thereafter. I have always tried to hear-or is it quash?-the murmurings of my own inner voice of conscience. Yet the book would never have been published had not Tom Miller of John Wiley Sons endorsed the idea and helped me beat it into shape before I started writing. Tom is that unique editor with a luminous spirit whose rays you perceive on first meeting him. Unassuming, professional, authentic, and possessed of great depth, he looks for books with soulfulness that genuinely help the reader. In the process, he has made me a more focused author and a better man.
Brandon Proia did an outstanding job in helping me edit the overall book, organize my thoughts, and order them into chapters. The way I write is to first throw everything down on paper-stream-of-consciousness style-in one huge amorphous blob. Having someone like Brandon who could then take it and break it into coherent chapters so that I could then rewrite the manuscript was invaluable to an ADD guy like me. Brandon is a fine young scholar and a gentleman with a huge future ahead of him. And please don t blame me for the ADD. I wasn t like this before I had nine kids. They are the guilty parties.
Jason Kitchen has been my assistant and colleague for many years now. And his reward? His hair has now fallen out along with his teeth, and he regrets the day he was born. But for all that, he has never abandoned me, and I am grateful to him for being such a true and loyal friend and a highly developed human being.
Speaking of my kids, Mushki, Chana, Shterny, Mendy, Shaina, Rochel Leah, Yosef, Dovid Chaim, and Cheftziba-whew, let me catch my breath-thank you for interrupting me on every occasion when I tried to get some peace and quiet in order to write. Because of you, I have become a vampire, writing through most of the night and waking up with bags under my eyes like Ted Koppel. But you are all the light of my life and my greatest blessing. And you have also provided outstanding material for all of my books. So you end up helping me support you, in a weird kind of way, which I greatly appreciate.
My parents, Yoav Botach and Eleanor Paul, have given me and my brothers and sisters life and love. I witnessed my parents always try to do the righteous and moral thing, and they helped me discern the earliest sound of my own moral conscience. I am forever grateful. (I am, however, wondering where that sound has since gone.)
My siblings, Sara, Bar Kochva and his wife, Iris, Chaim, and Ateret are my best friends and are also those who gave me wedgies and beat me to a pulp when I was a child. Being the youngest can really suck. But thank you for allowing me, as a child, to discover my inner voice of self-pity.
My long-suffering wife, Debbie, is a woman of extraordinary selflessness, wisdom, beauty, and grace. She is the voice of my better self. She wants me to lead a calmer, more tranquil life in which I find contentment and satisfaction. Fair enough-but it probably ain t gonna happen. You married a man with a cavernous hole at his center. Due to your inspiration, however, I always try to fill it with good things, while consciously acknowledging that I will never be as good a person as you. How s that for an excuse? Every book I write is as much yours as it is mine. And if the book sinks like lead in the marketplace, then it s much more yours than mine.
Finally, to the Creator of heaven and earth, God Almighty, what can I say? Do I deserve all of the blessings You ve given me, Lord? A wife who loves me? Nine healthy children, thank God? Enough food for all to eat? A meaningful calling that I can pursue that endows my life with purpose? I m not sure, but probably not. Which makes it a free gift due to Your grace, Lord, for which I am forever grateful. I hope to always use Your blessings to spread Your glory and truth here on earth. May I always be worthy of Your comforting, guiding presence.
Introduction
Readers have noticed the death of conversation. Not only does the average person s vocabulary shrink year after year, severely limiting our ability to express ourselves, but we live in a culture where people do much more passive listening than active speaking. Whether it s listening to the TV, a movie, the radio, or an iPod, we absorb far more than we impart. If William Safire was correct in his argument that the telephone killed off the art of writing, then texting and e-mail killed off the telephone, in turn.
In the end, the primary culprit is the superficiality of modern culture. Real conversation is something that swells up from within. Only people who are in touch with their deepest convictions and emotions can communicate authentic thoughts and feelings to others. No wonder satisfying conversation is so rare these days.
In 10 Conversations You Need to Have with Your Children , I attempted to inspire parents to share their deep convictions, imparting cherished values and beliefs to their children. Now in this book, the second in the series, I ask you to do something even more difficult: to know yourself, to plumb the depths of your being, and to become self-aware. I challenge you to do that rarest of things, to live an examined