A book for extraordinary people

Not sure if this is the right spot for this. I wrote it in my blog earlier today then when I came here I thought it might fit here.

At work on Thursday I had the pleasure of participating in a family Therapy reflecting team. This is a strengths based process where a family who feel they are “stuck” and have asked for help in becoming a happier family comes to our workplace and sits in a room with a one way mirror. The family talks to 2 therapists and about 4-5 other therapists sit on the other side of a mirror and watch with the knowledge of the family. Halfway through things are changed around and the family watches while the therapists talk about what they saw using a strengths narrative approach. That means they find all the positive things they see the family doing and saying and in some cases they reframe any negative things that may come up. Then the family comments on what they saw. This can be very challenging and I really admire any family brave enough to do it. 

Re: A book for extraordinary people

Hi Jenny,

Definitely this is the right place to post this :-) What a beautiful thing it is to hear about wanting to write a book that will not only help others, but help them to heal too. Thank you very much for sharing this. I think it would be equally wonderful if you were to collect these stories and ideas together - as a whole I think that it would probably help alot of people to read them. It is not only inspiring, but also very wise these words from the mouths of babes.

Although not at all on the same topic, my sister-in-law and I put together a book a year ago in order to help a family friend's granddaughter deal with the death of her sister. We self-published the book (I just did the illustrations) The site we used was easy and straightforward: Emileigh's Dream this will give you an idea of what I mean. There are other sites out there as well, that allow you to create a book and have it available for other people to purchase etc. The proceeds from this book all go to the Children's Hospital here.

I find that boys struggle greatly when their fathers behave badly. They need positive role models and want to be good people but they struggle when they havent seen a man behaving well. How do they become a gentleman if there is nobody there to model that?

This is such a powerful question, not with easy answers I think. The kernel is there, the seed in these boys now with the desire to be the change… maybe writing the book will help them be heard too :-) Suddenly I am reminded of lotus blooming out of the mud.

xo
Leigh-Anne

Re: A book for extraordinary people

Thats inspiring Leigh-Anne. This could be done maybe to help other children with the big questions. The boys were also joking about wanting an agent to help them get their book out there. Maybe its not such a difficult thing after all. Thankyou.

 I also have another book idea around the non-profit organisation where we taught swimming and karate. I used to run it for children and young adults with disabilities. I have some beautiful stories. Have been trying to decide for years whether to just write a story about it, or a workbork on running the programmes or both. The time just hasnt seemed right. I have lots of photos too. 
I wrote about some of the stories in Mikey_Dees blog and he suggested I put it somewhere in its own right. I have put the blog comments to Mikey in my blog section for now.

Re: A book for extraordinary people

Maybe I should start collecting these insightful comments.

Oh, Jenny… I do hope you will. What you shared above was just wonderful (and I hope that boy ends up writing his book one day; I'd be the first to order a copy). Also, I think that meeting children (or anyone) with the expectation that they are far, far wiser than most of us assume, and that they have great gifts to impart, helps elicit that wisdom so much more than treating them as though they've little to add. And having a book that would provide some evidence of this would be great.