Choices: Taking Control of Your Life and Making It Matter

What choices have you made, and how have they affected your life and others? What choices do you want to make, and why? When life feels utterly unbearable, what choice do you have in that moment? The book you hold in your hands is an invitation to consider why you make the decisions that you do. It is both an investigation and a celebration of choice, for no matter how crushing circumstances feel, we have the power to choose our responses to life. Bestselling author Melody Beattie returns with a message of hope for difficult times, offering a blueprint for navigating the path of choice, from the least of our everyday concerns to our moments of deepest despair. This inspiring collection of profoundly moving personal stories and practical advice demonstrates the capacity of the human spirit to overcome suffering through the cultivation of awareness and acceptance, heart and vulnerability, service and surrender. Our ability to determine our most authentic choices and live a life of greater freedom is closer than we think. In Choices, the author who changed forever how we experience our relationships once again revolutionizes how we see our lives. Don't do more, be better, or try harder, she says, but understand that all our actions have consequences and we must listen to our hearts and souls to gain a clear sense of how life, relationships, and love really work. We are not helpless; we have choices. We can choose our path and create meaningful lives.

Melody Beattie shows us how even the smallest choices matter. By paying attention to everyday decisions and nurturing an intimate awareness of our lives, we build a strong foundation that can support us whenever the most difficult conditions loom large and require us to act. Beattie's compassionate wisdom shines light on the ways we sabotage ourselves from getting what we want and deserve, whether it's tangible -- good relationships, success in our career -- or the intangible benefits of grace, contentment, and peace. By clearly laying out situations in which we tend to give away our power or make decisions that compromise or diminish us, Beattie shows us the true range of choices we actually have. This book is about feeling again -- coming alive, not staying numb. It's about timeless values that we've walked away from, like service, caring about other people -- and ourselves. It's a new look at some great old ideas that will serve us well in our search for happiness, love, and making sense of the mystery of our lives. It's about reconciling the joy and the sadness, the failures and successes in life, and being willing to live comfortably with what we don't understand. It's about being willing to let go of guilt, and to live with pain. Filled with illuminating stories and offering the kind of practical yet inspirational guidance and comfort that have gained Beattie an audience measured in the millions, this book will move anyone who reads it to a new level of personal freedom, power, and wholeness.