The Buzz at Book Expo America by Daphne Michaels
The Buzz at Book Expo America
By Daphne Michaels
This year at the
International Book Expo in New York
someone had a great idea to do something new and wild. While the Book Expo has
traditionally been limited to trade professionals, this year they opened the
last day to the public. It was amazing to be a part of this experience! One day
people were holding business meetings and talking shop, the next day up to ten
thousand readers made there way through long lines to be a part of the
international readers experience. From tiny children being carried by adults to
teens hoping to meet their favorite authors, people looking for gifts for loved
ones and book club members deciding on their next selection, the enthusiasm
that readers brought to the event was incredible.
I was there to launch my new
book, The Gifted: How to Live the Life of Your Dreams. While it was
amazing to see Neil Patrick Harris, Tavis Smiley, Anjelica Huston and Lisa
Scottoline in person (and they all gave fabulous talks) I must say that for me
the highlight of the entire show was when the readers poured in.
It has been said before that
writing can be a lonely profession. It is easy to feel this when we, as
writers, spend so much time in our own thoughts and in front of computers.
Launching my new book at Book Expo America where a sea of enthusiastic readers brought the
“business” of writing into proper perspective has forever changed my experience
of writing. As a steady stream of book fans pushed through joyfully crowded
isle ways their smiles, appreciation and words of encouragement vaporized any
sense of separation I may have had. Writers and readers are inextricably linked
— I not only know this in my mind … but now in every cell of my being.
It was wild — in a blissful
sense — to be part of such a successful experiment. Someone had a great idea —
and acted on it!
About the Author:
Daphne
Michaels is an author, speaker and licensed psychotherapist whose institute has
helped hundreds of women and men transform their lives through the
"gifts" every human being is born with. Daphne began her own journey
of transformation at a young age, pursued it fearlessly, and later studied
formally in the fields of social science, human services and integral
psychology. The
Gifted: How to Live the Life of Your Dreams launches both Daphne
Michaels Books and The Gifted series, whose goal it is to share with the
widest audience possible the principles that guide the Daphne Michaels
Institute. Daphne's earlier book, Light of Our Times, featured her
conversations with such international figures in the fields of spirituality and
personal development as Ram Dass, Julia Cameron, Dr. Masaru Emoto, and Thomas
Moore.
Visit
her website at www.daphnemichaels.com.
Connect & Socialize!
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About the Book:
In The Gifted:
How to Live the Life of Your Dreams author, speaker and licensed
psychotherapist Daphne Michaels celebrates the nine gifts that are our
birthright, guiding readers in how to recognize and use them to transform their
lives. In her author's preface, Michaels reveals how her own journey of
life transformation began when she was young and realized that human existence
wore two conflicting faces--one of love and joy, and one of fear and despair.
She decided then to commit her life to reconciling these two visions because
she knew that, irreconcilable though they seemed, together these two faces held
the secret to living a life of endless possibility and authentic happiness. Her
personal journey and formal education in social science, human services and
integral psychology led to the founding of the Daphne Michaels Institute, which
has helped hundreds of men and women design the lives of their dreams.
In The Gifted
Michaels shows us that the first three “gifts” we must recognize and embrace
within us if we are to re-design our lives are Awareness, Potential
and Stillness. These three allow us to identify and use the remaining
six with a life-changing power: Disharmony, Harmony, Ease, Clarity,
Freedom and Engagement. Each of these six relies on the
“essential three” for its own power to change our lives, and each has its own
gifts--its “children.” By approaching the nine gifts with real-world metaphors,
Michaels answers in easily understood ways what for many readers have been
lingering questions about personal transformation—such as how it works, what
kind of commitment it takes, and why, if we’re committed, real transformation
becomes inevitable—and addresses obstacles that readers may have encountered in
the past in trying to reach in life a happiness every human deserves.
While the human
universe’s face of love is celebrated in The Gifted, so is the face of
fear that haunted a young girl decades ago. As Michaels shows us in her book,
even Disharmony—the “quagmire” of life born of the human ego’s fear,
defenses, delusions and despair—is a gift, too, and one as important as the
others if we know how to see it clearly and use it. Once we understand
Disharmony, we are ready to understand the real purpose of Harmony in our lives.
Disharmony does not need to rule us. It is ours to use as we design the
lives of our dreams.
The final gift in The
Gifted, Michaels tells us, is the gift of Engagement.
Engagement—with the universe and with ourselves—allows us to use all of the
other gifts with more power and joy than we ever imagined possible.
That mountaintop
decision never left me. It drove my life’s work and over the years led me to
understand that there are gifts – nine of them, in fact – that we are all born
with but rarely experience in their full glory and potential. These gifts
– which make each and every one of us “The Gifted” of this book’s title – are
the keys to living lives of endless possibilities and, in turn, achieving an
authentic happiness that cannot be lost. They are, in other words, the
keys to achieving the life of our dreams.
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