Reddit reviews When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (Shambhala Classics)
We found 29 Reddit comments about When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (Shambhala Classics). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Great product!
You may have a look at When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chödrön. The product page at Amazon.com offers a preview of that book. You may also look for some of her talks being available online.
Pema Chodron - http://www.amazon.com/When-Things-Fall-Apart-Difficult/dp/1570623449/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
She motivates Buddhist philosophy through lessons she learned during difficult times. Probably similar to reasons a lot of us like buddhism...well at least me!
You can certainly support him in this, but you can't do it all.
His primary doctor or oncologist should refer him to a psychologist or social worker or to an integrative care specialist who can can do the same. They can point you to programs and classes to help people facing illness handle stress, e.g., meditation, yoga, etc. Anti-anxiety medication like lorazepam can be pretty effective.
Also, he should consider joining a cancer support group. There is something about sharing with other people going through similar things that is very powerful.
If he is actively religious then you may want to speak to his clergy person. You can do this even if you are not religious yourself.
You can do your part by simply being there, listening, and not judging or correcting him. What he is feeling is part of a natural process. In fact, it is a healthy sign that he is sharing his fears with you.
Some specific books that you may want to take a look at both for yourself and for him include:
Those are just off the top of my head. I will let you know if I have any other ideas. Both my parents died from cancer and I went with them through it pretty much every step of the way.
Make sure that as you go through the process of helping your father, you also take care of yourself. The more mentally and emotionally centered you are, the better you can help him. It is like when they tell you on the airplane to put on your own oxygen mask before helping a child put on theirs.
Peace and good wishes to you.
Dan
EDIT-fixed a link
These books were extremely helpful for me during a period where I was recovering from a botched suicide attempt and clinical depression.
When Things Fall Apart
The Places that Scare You
I hope this is what you're looking for. I feel like the first book is most relevant. They're great books, and I get more out of them every time I reread them.
Hi, I'm sorry for your loss.
I would advise a practical approach at this time because the philosophical side of Buddhism can be a tricky path for beginners seeking comfort. It can easily be misinterpreted and lead to nihilism rather than relief. You may find your grieving and depression lessens the more you follow simple Buddhist practices and ethics. Try to stick to the five precepts as best you can and look outward from yourself with compassion and the intention to help others. Depression and grief are very 'inward-turned' emotions, as in they make you think more about yourself and your own situation than about others. Actively trying to not think about yourself eases them, as paradoxical as it may seem.
For meditation you can try a regular routine of Vipassana and Metta. You don't have to be amazing at them, just do them. A few minutes each day, and if you can't manage a few minutes, try a few seconds and build up from there. Set a mindfulness bell app on your phone to go off randomly once every hour or two and commit to doing 30 seconds of vipassana or metta each time you hear it.
A good book for mindfulness practice that avoids trickier philosophy is John Kabat Zinn's Wherever you go, there you are.
For grieving, there are some nice books that can help without getting too into the weeds of Buddhist metaphysics. Pema Chodron's When things fall apart and Thich Nhat Hanh's Fear.
You may also find it useful to join a local school. You may be drawn towards more traditional schools such as Zen or Theravada but I would recommend, since you are grieving and experiencing depression, that you first start with a more secular school, such a non affiliated meditation center. You can look for groups in your area using Buddhanet's World Buddhist Directory
Finally, you may find some sage advice and comfort in Gil Fronsdal's wonderful free mp3 talks over at Audiodharma.net.
Hope this helps and I hope your pain eases soon. be gentle on yourself.
Jumping otters often lift my mood.
The book When Things Fall Apart has also helped, quite a lot.
Generally I just keep on plugging through the bad times because I've found that they often don't last (relatively) long. Stuff that you're worrying about today often isn't going to be a blip on your screen at this time next year.
Good luck.
This reminds me of the book by Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart. I read this when I was going through college and it changed the way I dealt with adversity from a young age, and carried over into how I deal with insecurity and jealousy as well.
Are you... me?
I have no idea how to help you, but my last relationship also deeply scarred my desire to be close to anyone. Somewhere in these past few months since the relationship ended, I've seen so very clearly that I'm not meant to find the answers "out there." I'm meant to turn inward and reconcile this most important relationship that I've been ignoring for far too long. I haven't figured out how to do this quite yet, but I'm working on it. Right now I'm reading the book When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön. It seems to be helping some.
Also, you seem to write pretty well. Maybe you can morph this pain into a novel?
Good luck on your journey.
Edit: grammar dammit
I'm not currently in a position to offer much advice, but i can recommend a book that helped me immensely during a similarly difficult time. The book is based on Buddhist philosophies when dealing with difficult times. I hope it can offer you the same peace that i found in it.
When Things Fall Apart
https://www.amazon.ca/When-Things-Fall-Apart-Difficult/dp/1570623449
Is it good so far? Another two that helped me a few years back when I was struggling with similar issues were Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart and the Dalai Lama's The Art of Happiness, if you might like to check those out :)
I'm currently reading Frank Herbert's Dune. I'm trying to read more this year... I used to read quite a bit, and then fell off when I was in college. So my goal is a book every two weeks.
Maybe you don't have to do anything - not even make medicine out of poison. Maybe you just have to let yourself be. Let yourself feels the grief, the pain, and the despair. Perhaps the only thing that is asked of you is to sit for a while with these feelings. When you get to know them, maybe you will realize that you are empty and they can pass through. You may also see that there is no bottom to life. There is no ground to stand on. We are always embraced by the uncertainty and peace can always be found at this moment, among the chaos of life.
If you can, I would also like to encourage you to check out "When things fall apart" by Pema. She did a wonderful job teaching about uncertainty of life.
When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (Shambhala Classics) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1570623449/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_X-BMub1S4SS9B
When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron.
Hi. So first, an anecdote: I was clinically depressed with major anxiety and manic-depressive episodes. After dabbling in a sitting practice (two sessions a year at most), I started a regular sitting meditation practice. It's simple to do (in some ways), but specific. I'd seek out some guidance on that. I started with 5 minutes a day and eventually worked my way up to 30 minutes a day. It's been
lifemind-changing.Second, here's a book I sent to someone when their life was on the rocks. I'm sure you're probably looking for a little immediate relief and inspiration, so it's less a foundational Buddhist text and more, for lack of a better word, self-help. The name of the book is When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron, who I believe went through a messy divorce herself, and eventually found peace and enlightment.
Hope this helps
Pema Condron speaks candidly about relationships and attachment in When Things Fall Apart.
I do not bury my feelings. I embrace them with open arms. Life is full of heart break and life is full of wonder and so many things. Burying your emotions trains you to be numb and not really see any of it. It is not a way to live. Are you familiar with Buddhism at all? This is a great book.
inspirational quote
You've had several losses this year. It is totally understandable that you would feel grief, depression, anger, guilt, and a lot of other things. I believe the best thing you can do for yourself is to seek out a therapist to help you through this difficult time. It is possible to start over from seemingly nothing and build up the life of your dreams. It just takes time and work.
I have a few book recommendations if you'd like something to read in this time:
On Grief and Grieving by Elisabeth Kubler Ross - I haven't read this one yet but it's on my list of things to read next. It has a lot of great reviews and is a classic.
No Death No Fear by Thich Nhat Hanh - This is one of my favorite books. Birth and death are deceptive concepts and arbitrary notions we use to try to explain the world around us. Life just changes; life is not annihilated and life is not created from nothing. Nihilism and our society's Christian-influenced view of birth and death are two extremes and the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron - This is my other favorite book. We're so afraid of feeling bad. We can't just let ourselves feel shitty about things sometimes. We want to escape and run away from it all, but that just makes things worse. The best thing is to just face your fears and sit with the uncomfortable feelings and be at peace with them. Everything comes together and falls apart and we can try to run away or try to face it. Bad things happen and you feel like the biggest piece of shit on earth but it's not true. Our view is just messed up.
I'm sorry for your loss and I'm sorry you feel like shit. I hope you can make a happier life for yourself :)
Buy her this book.
Wow, cool bike thing.
Regardless of belief system, this kind of loss is not easier or faster to deal with. Faith tries to provide some future redress of grief as hope and as a method of blunting the trauma of the loss and provide some handwaving platitudes about why it happened and the inherent unfairness of life. These might help at a superficial level but they can sometimes make things worse in the long run - why is it god's plan that there be a disease that is incurable and inflicts intense pain? why is it god's plan that your wife is taken in the way she was? No one is able to provide answers to those questions, they shrug and say mysterious ways, blah, blah, blah. Then you end up hating god and still suffering the loss of your wife.
I think the only way is to truly let go of the lost person, easier said than done. Try to be a bit Zen about life for a while, be in the present moment and fully in whatever activity you are doing - when sweeping, there is only the broom and the floor, etc.
http://www.amazon.com/Present-Moment-Awareness-Step-Step/dp/1577314859
Also, there is no linear progress on recovering from loss, I lost my dogs years ago and still find days I can't deal with it (thanks Futurama) - and they were dogs not wives or kids.
Pema has written about loss and her books are supposed to be written for a diverse audience (faith-wise).
http://www.amazon.com/When-Things-Fall-Apart-Difficult/dp/1570623449
I've struggled with depression all my life, and one time when things were particularly rough, a kind online friend sent me [When Things Fall Apart] (http://www.amazon.com/When-Things-Fall-Apart-Difficult/dp/1570623449) by Pema Chodron, and a few other books by the same author. I found them really helpful. Sending positive vibes your way :).
It really is. One of my favorite books that helped act as a catalyst was When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron.
She puts a lot of intensity in such soft terms.
That sucks, endless chain of causality or no. I highly recommend the book When Things Fall Apart and wish you the best.
Oh hey, something I can comment on.
Yeahhhh I'm seeking some form of enlightenment, turns out it happens kinda frequently but very few people have ever hit the "end zone" of "nirvana." Let me lay down what I've got.
It's worth reading my other post on meaningfulness, impact, and ability
My life, currently is based around a depressing spiral that lead me so far down the hole of existentialism that I came out the other side. The otherwise crippling dread that comes with nihilistic reckoning is little more than a memory to me. I have, throughout my life, been wrong... a lot. and every time I'm wrong I want to know why. At some point, I jumped tracks a little. Not why I am wrong in a divisive, "this is the real answer" sense but more how I can be wrong. What is wrong? What is right? Does anything do the thing I think it does? The answer is unsurprisingly "this question is intrinsically flawed."
This is what I do. I am Adam, the guy who spends his time trying to learn about how he perceives reality. My most recent mindbitch is Buddhism, with a few dates in learning about ADHD. I've come to a lot of realizations, mostly things that someone somewhere already knew, and a few that are in some way my own but might also be something that someone already knew. Here's one such example.
My goal is to become the god of wisdom. I'm an agnostic atheist so we'll see how that goes.
With that in consideration, let's talk about enlightenment. Enlightenment is, in a traditional sense, effective epiphany. Something you realize that changes you. In a Philosophical sense, it's something that changes your behavior. In a Buddhist sense, it refers to specifically the experience of life without expectation, attachment, desire, or the filtering of any pre or postconceived notion. Your world, unshackled from what you are told/would think/have come to learn it to be, is a much more tolerable world than any you have experienced before. There is much that can be written on Buddhist enlightenment in this sense and indeed, much has. When my arms started getting weaker, when I worked them too hard, a friend of mine gave me a book which really set me in a better way, and this helped me survive 2016, which was personally an extremely rough year. It probably does the best job I have seen of presenting the idea of enlightenment in a digestible way. It comes down to this:
Nihilism is what you get when you peer into the abyss. Nothing has any intrinsic meaning if you think about it, we're all going to die. Buddhism is nihilism +1.
If you allow yourself to be a slave to your thoughts, you will never be content. You can be, but it requires rigorous training, and a detachment to a lot of things that you hold dear
Enlightenment is, from what I've learned extra empty. Making Nihilism look like that bag of chips that still has enough crumbs to eat but not enough to turn into nachos.
A friend of mine gave her friend a book whose title escapes me at the moment. Her friend was going through an excrutiating divorce, dealings with an abusive and alcoholic ex-husband who later committed suicide, while keeping her child safe.
It was a book about getting over a very emotional and difficult time, just wish I could remember the title.
Edit: I think I just remembered the title of the book: [When Things Fall Apart] (http://www.amazon.ca/When-Things-Fall-Apart-Difficult/dp/1570623449)
Gotta love an innoculous referral link. Here's one without it:
https://www.amazon.com/When-Things-Fall-Apart-Difficult/dp/1570623449
Wish you nothing but the best OP.
Talk to her just like this. Honest and accepting. Full of love.
Just stay strong if it goes bad. It might hurt a lot man, but you can use that as even more motivation to get your shit together. Times of suffering are the best times for personal growth.
Not sure if it is your style, but i have two book recommendations for you. Each only costs a couple of dollars on amazon(check used section). They are straightforward and easy to grasp beginner buddhist teachings. Written by an american too so it is relatable. Really helpful for times like this.
http://www.amazon.com/When-Things-Fall-Apart-Difficult/dp/1570623449
And its sequel
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1570629218/ref=pd_aw_fbt_14_img_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=1BA33ENK9BCG9ZZQR8E0
Any questions or if you want to talk. Hit me up. Im of similar age and can relate in various ways.
https://www.amazon.com/When-Things-Fall-Apart-Difficult/dp/1570623449
Pema is awesome
Yes, you need a support group, and so does he. Sending you both big hugs. I wish there were more I could say or do to help you...the one person who comes to mind if you don't know her work already is Pema Chodron, whose book "When Things Fall Apart" has been very helpful to my good friend with terminal cancer. You might find it comforting. http://www.amazon.com/When-Things-Fall-Apart-Difficult/dp/1570623449
I know this feeling, I've been there often and occasionally still find myself there.
One thing that really helped me when my divorce first started was this book. It's Buddhist but that may still work with your scientific, atheist beliefs? And they have it on Kindle now so you can start it immediately.
https://www.amazon.com/When-Things-Fall-Apart-Difficult/dp/1570623449
Things start to slowly turn around but it takes a really long fucking time and you don't move forward linearly, I see it more like a spiral of concentric circles.