How can you be calm and content when the world is crashing down on you? The secret is to work from the inside out not from the outside in. We are trained to believe if we can control our environment, make people around us happy, get all our work done, clean the house, finish the shopping and so forth then we can relax and be content and happy. That is a lie that works just enough to keep us stuck in the same cycle of working from the outside in. The key to true contentment is to work from the inside out. Learn to calm your inner critics, send love, compassion, kindness and curiosity to yourself, create new positive messages to guide your life ("I am enough", "I am lovable", "It will be OK."). Doing so will allow you to be calm and enjoy all of your life, whether you are working, playing, relaxing or whatever. The result is working from a place of inner calm in which you do not allow yourself to be responsible for others feelings. If you know you are a competent, compassionate person and you act in such a way to reinforce that, there is no need to be upset or stressed when others lose their cool. Be kind, compassionate and curious to yourself and then you will have energy to do what you want and need to do and more importantly you will be able to be kind, compassionate and curious to those around you, not because they deserve it but because doing so will make you feel better.Review:"If you are a person who has a desire to move toward a more hopeful and encouraging future - then "Crisis to Calm: A Handbook for Emotional Healing" by Alan Pennington is a good start with lots of insightful and helpful practices. It is filled with many simple (doable) exercises to help you discover more kindness, compassion and curiosity for your present journey as well as for your future. You are, no doubt, a person that wants to move beyond negative messages and discover internal messages that bring out the best of yourself and pursue a "more hopeful, joyful and satisfying life!" Good for you! The chapter on "Defenders" can be very helpful in understanding the "stuck" places in our thinking and then how to embrace the reframing of the internal messages with some helpful guidance in order to move beyond the stuck points in our minds! It may be a short book, but it is filled with so much helpful information that you will return to it time and time again as you pursue being filled with "kindness, compassion and curiosity."- Mike Runcie, LMFT, Counseling and Pastoral Care Minister