Blog Tour. Stepping Stones to Emotional Resilience by Marquita Herald

I usually blog my own content on Tuesdays, but on some occasions I make an exception, and today is one of them. When I heard about this book, I thought I had to read it, and once I read it, I decided to take part in the blog tour and also review it. I’m hoping to have Marquita, the author, come for an interview and bring me some of her other books soon. Ah, and pay attention, as there is a giveaway to go with the tour!

First, a bit abut Marquita:

Marquita Herald
Author Profile

Marquita Herald is an author, blogger, trainer in personal resilience and founder of Emotionally Resilient Living and Owner of Resilient Living Publications.
Her professional background includes a successful 20 year career in international sales and marketing, followed by a decade as an award winning life and small business coach.
Marquita is an avid reader, loves to take spur of the moment road trips, and enjoys the occasional game of golf. She is a lover of all dogs (especially her adopted pal Lucy), and a passionate advocate of grassroots volunteer movements and community service. She is also a world-traveler and her trip of a lifetime is Machu Picchu via Orient Express.

Connect with Marquita Herald
Website
Emotionally Resilient Living
http://www.emotionallyresilientliving.com
Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/emotionallyresilientliving
Twitter
http:/twitter.com/MarquitaHerald

Email
m.herald@emotionallyresilientliving.com

Here I leave you a link to the media page for the book:

 

Stepping Stones to Emotional Resilience Media Page

Cover of Stepping Stones to Emotional Resilience by Marquita Herald

Stepping Stones to Emotional Resilience
A Guide to Embracing Your Inner Strength
by Marquita Herald

You don’t need to be facing a crisis to decide you want to become stronger and more resilient.
Trials will always be a part of life … a lost set of keys, financial stressors, overloaded schedules, relationship or health crisis. Even the most longed for changes such as marriage and the birth of a child require adaptability and emotional resilience.
Consider this … how it is that two people can be faced with the same obstacle and while one becomes mired in a web of negativity and feelings of helplessness, the other is able to overcome the challenge and bounce back stronger than ever?
Emotional Resilience is the Key
When we make the choice to look at all experiences as stepping stones for growth and greater long-term resilience, we are able to approach life on a whole new level, and in the process realign ourselves with what is truly important in our lives.
Stepping Stones answers the questions …
* What emotional resilience is and why it matters.
* Is resilience a gene reserved for the lucky few or can it ever be developed?
* Is the value of emotional resilience limited to crisis management or can it improve the quality of everyday living in any meaningful way?
* Is it ever too late to begin cultivating the habits of emotional resilience?
* How does one go about changing behaviors and strengthening the capacity for resilience?

“Unlike so many other books that wander in the vagaries of self-empowerment and self-motivation, I found “Resilience” to be not only practical, but applicable to literally every day of life. Stepping Stones is an uplifting and easy read, with some especially poignant quotes. Well done!”~M. Hanks

And here, my own review:

Stepping Stones to Emotional Resilience. A Guide to Embracing Your Inner Strength (2^nd Edition) by Marquita Herald

Common-sense advice on how to empower yourself to live the good life (or as good a life as possible)

As a psychiatrist I read plenty of professional publications on mental disorders. One of the many issues with much of the professional writing about the subject of health and mental well being is that it is written with a very specific public in mind: other professionals. Readability is not always the priority and some can be dry and not particularly engaging (although there are many good writers in the field). When recommending books or articles to patients and service-users it is important to keep in mind who the books are addressed to and how much common ground they cover.

On the other hand there are books that are very personal accounts and can be inspirational but not always easy to generalize to other cases. And some of the books containing advice make no reference to any theoretical approaches and lack firm evidence to back-up their suggestions.

I was pleased when I read Marquita Herald’s book ‘Stepping Stones to Emotional Resilience’ (2^nd Ed) to note that it does not fall into either of those categories. It is neither a dry professional book, nor a personal account lacking research and good evidence behind it. The author gives credit where credit is due, clearly stating where her ideas come from, and also acknowledging the lack of research in some areas (like the effects of Spirituality on resilience).

The concept of resilience fits in well with the “stress-vulnerability” model that many patients seem to find helpful in understanding their mental health difficulties. In brief it’s the idea that we are all born with a certain vulnerability to stress (sometimes we use the metaphor of a bucket of a certain size, with some people having a bigger bucket, and therefore being more resistant to stress, whilst others are born with a smaller one and a lesser degree of stress might topple them over the edge) and if stresses accumulate over our level of tolerance we’re bound to become mentally unwell. There are a number of techniques that can help (not make the inborn bucket larger, but make escape valves or holes on it that would allow relief and make it possible to handle more stress), including medication, enhancing coping strategies and a variety of therapies. Ms. Herald’s book points at ways of building up resilience, that she notes is like a muscle and can be trained. She also emphasizes the importance of knowing oneself, as that is the first step towards being able to build on our strengths and find mechanisms to overcome our weaknesses.

Despite the references and research behind the concepts, the book is written in a common-sense easy-to-follow manner, highlighting the main concepts in bold, adding summaries that go over the ideas of each chapter, and it is written with the theories of how we best learn in mind. That makes it a good book for a large variety of audiences, those with a good basis on mental health issues and also people looking for good tips and advice to improve their life.

‘Stepping Stones’ is enhanced by examples, not only the personal account of the writer, but also many inspiring stories, from heroic feats to smaller but important achievements, that pepper the chapters and keep the momentum going. There are also a number of brief accounts and reminders of famous figures who had in common their perseverance, learning from experiences and indeed resilience. They illustrate further that good things are worth working for and also that it is not all down to talent and inspiration. Keeping at it also plays a very important part.

I recommend ‘Stepping Stones’ as a user-friendly self-help book based on sound concepts, containing easy to follow ideas, that does not promise life will be happy and fluffy if you read it, but if you work hard and never give up you’ll be better prepared to cope with whatever might come your way. Are you ready to give it a go?

I hope you are, and here there is further information and links to the book:

Published

1st Edition April, 2012

2nd Edition March 2014

Genre: Personal Transformation

Size: 159 pages

Format: Kindle eReader

Available Amazon Worldwide

http://mybook.to/EmotionalResilience

U.S. Price: $4.99

And now, the always important giveaway. Marquita is kindly offering an e-copy of this fabulous book:

 

Cover of Inspirational Words of Wisdom by Marquita Herald

1st Edition April, 2012

2nd Edition July, 2013

Format: Kindle eBook

Amazon Worldwide

http://mybook.to/WordsofWisdom

 

 

Here’s the Giveaway Link (Prize = an eBook of “Inspirational Words of Wisdom for Challenging Times” – a companion piece to Stepping Stones):

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks to you all for reading, to Marquita and Making Connections for inviting me to take part in the tour and you know, if you’ve enjoyed it, like, share, comment, take part in the giveaway and of course, don’t forget to CLICK! You’ll be inspired! Oh, and the author just reminded me that for this week of the tour, you can get her book for $0.99, so take the chance!