My Last Diet

The Five Things We Cannot Change: And the Happiness We Find by Embracing Them - by David Richo

"A lucid, thought-provoking, and illuminating book about the realities of human existence—a wonderfully useful guide to fluid acceptance of life as it is."—Martha Beck, author of Finding Your Own North Star and The Joy Diet

"I started highlighting splendid passages in this book and my highlighter ran dry. The whole book is splendid."—Brother David Steindl-Rast

Description
Why is it that despite our best efforts, many of us remain fundamentally unhappy and unfulfilled in our lives? In this provocative and inspiring book, David Richo distills thirty years of experience as a therapist to explain the underlying roots of unhappiness—and the surprising secret to finding freedom and fulfillment. There are certain facts of life that we cannot change—the unavoidable "givens" of human existence:

(1) everything changes and ends, including you and me,
(2) things do not always go according to plan,
(3) life is not always fair,
(4) pain is a part of life,
(5) people are not loving and loyal all the time.

Richo shows us that by dropping our deep-seated resistance to these givens, we can find liberation and discover the true richness that life has to offer. Blending Western psychology and Eastern spirituality, including practical exercises, Richo shows us how to open up to our lives—including to what is frightening, painful, or disappointing—and discover our greatest gifts.

"Mindful presence means that one person enters the interior garden of the other and walks through it without trampling any of the flowers, without blaming anyone for the presence of weeds, with great appreciation for all the time, pain, and growth it took to be the way it is." (The Five Things We Cannot Change, pg.56)

David Richo, Ph.D., M.F.T., is a psychotherapist, teacher, workshop leader, and writer who works in Santa Barbara and San Francisco California. He combines Jungian, transpersonal, and mythic perspectives in his work.

**I like the quote and include the stuff about Richo and his book for what it is worth.**

My Last Diet

I dreamed all I had
and when I woke, was thinning
down as the dream left,
taking the bloated
parts of me very gently
away, little by
this as if I could
walk away from all the fat,
weighs me this far down.

December 14, 2009 8:10 PM