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Dr. Barbara Becker Holstein is the originator of The Enchanted Self. She has been a positive psychologist in private practice and licensed in the states of New Jersey and Massachusetts since 1981.
Family Relationship Award of Excellence
My Books
Secrets: You Tell Me Yours and I’ll Tell You Mine…maybe!
Following on the heels of the best-selling book, The Truth, SECRETS is the continuing diary of a girl moving into her teen-age years. The Girl has plenty to fill her journal. The pages reveal a new school, a new baby in the family, new friends, a new guy and a new set of issues to face. Share the secret world of an almost-teen as she learns which secrets to share and which to keep to herself.
Download an excerpt of Secrets here.
THE TRUTH: I'm a Girl, I'm Smart and I Know Everything!
In the mothers' and daughters' version, this girl encapsulates the spark and energy that your daughter has inside of her, and that you had inside of yourself as a girl. It is this special capacity for fun and wisdom that we need to protect in our girls and get back to ourselves!
Let's rejoice in the girl inside of ourselves. Let's give courage and affirmation to our daughters and granddaughters so they know from the inside out, it is ok, in fact, essential to keep her alive, as they grow up.
The Truth, I'm 10, I'm Smart & I Know Everything.
The adult women's version is a delightful, humorous secret diary, written by a girl who is 10-11 years of age. She is wise and yet so innocent. She makes us cry and laugh and remember ourselves. Behind this very easy read is the psychological message to the women reading THE TRUTH that they can and must recapture the fire and passion of their girlhoods not only for themselves to flourish and be happy, but for the next generation to also have the gifts of good emotional and spiritual health.
This book is filled with emotional and delightful reminiscences that will charm you even as you are inspired to begin thinking of your own ways to bring delight into your hearts.
A collection of stories that is guaranteed to make you Feel Good. Click on the title to find out about the free gifts you will receive or here to learn more about the stories.
Recipes for Enchantment, The Secret Ingredient is YOU! is a culmination of over ten years of work and research in the field of personal enchantment by Dr. Barbara. She teaches us how to recall positive memories, regardless of our history, recognize our potential, and bring into our lives more of what gives us pleasure and joy. This is all combined with daily positive actions.
The Enchanted Self, A Positive Therapy
Through my work as a therapist, I have become concerned that we do not keep clearly enough how to reclaim what is positive about ourselves. This led me to write my book, The Enchanted Self, A Positive Therapy, published in 1997 by Harwood Academic Press. This book was probably the first and only book for mental health care providers and the interested public, to lay out the tools necessary to create a positive mind set and live an affirmative and affirming way of life!
Taking Charge of Our Own Enchantment
Taking Charge of Our Own Enchantment
Have you heard the story about the man who brought peanut butter sandwiches to work everyday? He was always complaining. He hated peanut butter sandwiches he would tell his co-workers.
"I’m so tired of peanut butter sandwiches. And the white bread is always too soft."
"Oh, no! Here it is again, another peanut butter sandwich," he would say as he opened his lunch pail.
His co-workers pitied him and assumed that his wife or someone where he lived always prepared the same sandwich, day after day.
One day, one of the men said, "Why don’t you ask your wife to make a different kind of sandwich?"
To which the man replied, "My wife? I don’t have a wife. I make my own lunches."
The morale of this story is that so often we, ourselves, are repeating in our lives what is unpleasant and distasteful. Oftentimes habits have set in and we don’t even realize anymore that something unpleasant has been set in motion, not by a stranger, but by ourselves. For example, I was uncomfortable sitting at my computer in my home. Why? Simply because the chair was not the right height for me. It would catch my knees at a bad angle and they would ache a lot after working at the computer.
One day, I realized that I had the power to sit at the computer with a different chair. Of course, on some level I knew that all along. But habitual patterns had set in and so I never thought about replacing it. It was probably even less on my mind, as my husband was perfectly content with the old chair.
Once I took back my power it took me less than a week to break my habit and buy a really comfortable office chair at a discount office supply house. I love my new chair. The seat can go up and down, even forward and backwards and my knees really thank me.
Take a look around your world and see how many peanut butter sandwiches you are eating!
o you feel about peanut butter sandwiches? All my best, Dr. Barbara Becker Holstein, www.enchantedself.com
More on Twenty Ways To Get and Stay Happy
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/0,28757,1631176,00.html
Here is the link to the original article I was quoted in, in TIME on the web by Coco Masters.
I hope you enjoy it! Dr. Barbara Becker Holstein, www.enchantedself.com
20 Ways to Stay Happy!
I was quoted in a great list of 20 ways to stay happy:
Learn to scan your memory bank for your strengths, talents, passions, interests, practical coping skills, and earlier potential — whether it’s actualized or not. Scanning this memory bank and gleaning material that can be used to reinvent yourself to be happier is key, says Barbara Becker-Holstein, psychologist and author of Enchanted Self: A Positive Therapy. For example, someone who would like to be more altruistic can scan their past and know that they didn’t like Girl Scouts in elementary school. That crosses off being a PTA mother. But they might remember that as a child they enjoyed collecting soda bottles and giving the money to the local fire station where they knew the firefighters. That person might consider giving money and time to a local group where they can socialize with people rather than mailing in a check to a distant organization. “Looking at one’s personal style, tastes and interests as we look for ways to be happy today is very important,” says Becker-Holstein.
Get Happy! Stay Happy!
By mkrealist
Scanning this memory bank and gleaning material that can be used to reinvent yourself to be happier is key, says Barbara Becker-Holstein, psychologist and author of Enchanted Self: A Positive Therapy. For example, someone who would like …
Sanctuary… – http://pinkvoices.wordpress.com
Recipe for Happiness-Dreaming of Department Stores
Dreaming of Department Stores by Dr. Barbara Becker Holstein
I would like to share a childhood dream of my own that came true, and how it sparked many wonderful enchanted memories!
A few years agp we took a short vacation break that included three nights in London. But where to stay? My husband mentioned hotel names to me that the supplier had offered. I couldn’t help but be intrigued with the name "Selfridge’s". After all, wasn’t that the name of the biggest department store in London? I remembered it being equal to Macy’s in New York City. I said, "Let’s go with that one." And we did.
I was hoping the hotel was close to the department store but I never dreamed it would be so close! It was literally outside the back door of the store — about 50 feet from all the giant food halls that are a part of the store. I was shocked! This was a dream come true. I could wake up and go for breakfast by roaming food halls that brought in delicacies from around the world, and I could stop there after touring and have a snack or lunch, again from anywhere in the world!
Suddenly old memories of my love of department stores floated to mind. I remembered going with my mother to Malley’s in New Haven when I was a young child. I remembered my anticipation as we got off the trolley and neared this glorious store. It was full of giant wrought iron elevators and pneumatic tubes that ran overhead. I loved the sounds of those tubes rushing money and receipts back and forth. I also loved standing in the elevator as the attendant named all the wonderful possible purchases available on each floor! Of course, I was particularly interested in children’s clothes and toys! Yes, let me off at those floors! I couldn’t wait.
Later, as I grew older, we moved to Bridgeport and then it was another department store. Reid’s had a lunch counter and my mother always took me for a tuna fish sandwich and/or coffee ice cream. I even got my hair cut there and the toy department was endless. My real dream was to sleep overnight in the toy department! I would hide out with all those wonderful Alexander dolls. This was a dream that went unfulfilled in childhood.
So, here I was as an adult — almost living out an old dream. And live it I did, except instead of tuna fish I ate delicacies from Thailand, and as I lingered over my cafe latte I had a chance to watch people from all over the world pass by. Instead of toys I shopped for cosmetics! It was a lovely experience. Those early memories layered themselves so nicely on top of my ‘adult’ vacation making a three-day hotel stay really something special.
Have you ever had something positive come around again? Perhaps the shape had changed but the essence was almost the same? If you have, can you share it with us as I did? Or if you can’t think of anything in particular, try to remember several wishes of childhood and think about how they would reinvent themselves now. This can be fun to do and can even lead to a determined effort to finally make an old wish or desire come true.
I hope you will answer me with one of your wishes that you have brought to life! All my best, Dr.Barbara
What is THE TRUTH?
I was with my two grandchildren and the four year old girl was singing a song. Her brother, age 6, said to her, "Stop singing that song!" She said, of course, "No, I want to sing this song." He said, "It’s not real. You made it up." She said, "It is real, I made it up and I am singing it."
What a human delimma. My husband and I sided with our granddaughter that indeed it was real. Even if only one person knows the song, she has every right to sing.
Our grandson was stuck in the notion that you call a song something that many people know and acknowledge as a song. After all, no one else could ever sing the song if she forgot it!
Wow-where does THE TRUTH lie? In my new book, The Truth, I’m Ten, I’m Smart and I Know Everything, the girl has a song that only she knows. It it becomes very important to her as she gets older. And it is a problem that only she knows the song! I will keep a little mystery around what happens.
So what do you think? What makes something real?
All my best, Dr. Barbara Becker Holstein, Positive Psychologist, www.enchantedself.com
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