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Several years ago, I was asked to do the keynote address for a small conference for infant-toddler caregivers. The conference included several workshops on different approaches to planning learning experiences for very young children. Because participants would be hearing ideas that may be very different from their current practice, the conference organizers thought that the keynote should focus on the concept of change.

For months I rolled the ideas around in my head: "Coping with Change" . . . . . what would be the best way to approach the topic? As the date approached, I checked in with my colleague about my topic. She was very surprised to hear my title, since the conference was called "Embracing Change." So my keynote speech title became:

My own resistance to the topic intrigued me, and set me on a search for ways to define (and perhaps even experience) change in a more positive light.

A few notes about the following book suggestions:

Finding the books: An effort has been made to identify a wide range of books that are readily available. There are many more. Most of the books were still in print when I first compiled the bibliography (in the last year or so of the last century), and would probably be available at any good public library.

Self assessments: Many self-help books have questionnaires, inventories, self assessments, and other ways of helping you "measure" or describe yourself. These can be helpful, but should be approached with some care. If you choose to use them, take them three or four times, over a period of several months, and compare the results. This can be an interesting way to observe change in yourself over time. These self-tests can also suggest areas where it may be useful to seek out professional help (from a career counselor, mental health professional, etc.)

Maya Angelou, Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now, Random House, 1993.
Maya Angelou's life is an example of resilience. In this book of short essays, she writes with humor, passion, and poignancy about the lives of women, and of black women.

Andre Auw, Gentle Roads to Survival: Making Self-Healing Choices in Difficult Circumstances, Aslan Publishing, 1991.
This book differs from many of the other "self-help" books on this list, and on the market. Auw draws on his 40+ years as a psychotherapist, and on his long personal and professional association with his mentor, Carl Rogers. Using case histories, he identifies characteristics that distinguish between people who survive and those who give up, and seeks to help the reader find the strength and courage that we each have to draw on during times of change. His poetic and gentle approach make this book most useful for those who benefit from reflection.

Barbara Biziou, The Joy of Ritual, Golden Books, 1999.
Rituals make up our daily lives: The first cup of coffee in the morning, a bedtime story, Saturday morning pancakes, favorite family vacations. In this book, Biziou suggests "recipes" to celebrate our milestones and ease our transitions. Such a ritual can be private and personal, or can be planned and shared with families and friends. It can mark an ending, and celebrate a beginning. Biziou includes suggestions for materials that are useful for rituals, and also offers ideas for celebrating various passages in our lives: birthdays, retirement, wedding, divorce, creating conscious family holidays, healing from grief or illness, and many others.

If you don't care where you're going, it doesn't matter what road you take.

Richard Bolles, What Color Is Your Parachute? Ten Speed Press, 1997.
This classic book, first published in 1970, is updated on an almost annual basis to reflect changes in the job market. Intended to help people match their skills and interests to today's job market, the book is rich with assessment tools for identifying skills and developing a job search plan. There are chapters devoted to each of 13 different "special populations" -- ranging from high school students, retirees, immigrants, ex-offenders, women, the "so-called 'handicapped'", gays and lesbians, minorities, and others. The size of the book is a little intimidating, but it is easy to zero in on what you need. The use of humor, along with graphics and summaries, add to its usefulness and readability.

Claude Brown, Manchild in the Promised Land, Signet 1965
What makes a difference for children? What causes one child to take a path so different from the one that seems to be "destined"? This classic autobiography follows the author from his childhood in the Harlem ghetto in his mid-1950's to graduation from college and law school.

David Burns, The Feeling Good Handbook: Using the New Mood Therapy in Everyday Life, Penguin, 1989
Like Martin Seligman's book (see below), this book describes ways to improve your mood through cognitive therapy. In cognitive therapy, the idea is that your thoughts and attitudes have a profound effect on your mood. It's not just the event that creates your mood, but your thoughts and beliefs about yourself and the event. This book offers some useful exercises that help us reframe how we see the relationship between thought and mood. The assessments in the book also may help the reader decide when and how to get "outside help" for emotional problems.

Kenneth Cloke and Joan Goldsmith, Thank God It's Monday! 14 Values We Need to Humanize the Way We Work' Irwin Publishing Co., 1997.
How can you create a work setting in which employees and employers work together to make work more stimulating and satisfying. This book looks at change from the point of view of the organization, and identifies 14 core values needed to create positive work environments in which communication between all levels is respectful, creativity is encouraged and people are acknowledged and supported. These values include collaboration, use of work teams, vision, celebration of diversity, awareness of process, open and honest communication, risk-taking, inclusion, ownership of results, problem-solving, shared leadership, satisfaction of personal growth needs, seeing conflicts as opportunities, and embracing change. The book includes a variety of activities, worksheets and exercises intended to help employees increase satisfaction in their current jobs, help displaced workers and others looking for work find the work setting that is best for them, and help employers keep their best employees by increasing job satisfaction.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein

Bill Cohen, Life Mapping: A Unique Approach to Finding Your Vision and Reaching Your Potential, Eagle Brook, 1998.
Cohen outlines a five-step process for creating change in our lives: (1) Determining your beliefs, (2) developing your principles, (3) deciding on your goals, (4) breaking goals down into necessary activities, and (5) designing a schedule of activities that will keep you on track. For people seeking to keep or find a deeper meaning in their work, this book is a good companion to Bolles' book. Cohen uses several case examples to illustrate how the tools can be used by a person or family to plan and organize their lives better, and to find the balance and satisfaction that it is often hard to find in the modern world.

Kathryn Cramer, Staying on Top When Your World Turns Upside Down, Viking, 1990.
Cramer offers a four-step "growth system" for keeping you moving forward after you have experienced death, divorce, illness, job loss, or financial set-back. She identifies four stages of "self-empowering growth": (1) Challenge (identifying threats and turning them into opportunities); (2) Exploration (discovering the rules to your new reality of living); (3) Invention (masterminding new success strategies); and (4) Transformation (putting your life back in balance).

I think I must have forgotten to read the fine print that came with my warranty:
THIS LIFE IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE

Amy Dacyczyn, The Complete Tightwad Gazette: Promoting Thrift as a Viable Alternative Lifestyle, Random House 1999.
If the changes you seek (or need to make) in your life include living more simply and cheaply, then you may want to run right out to your public library and check out one in the series of books published by the editor of The Tightwad Gazette. Of course, the problem with borrowing the books from the library is that you may find a long waiting list for the books, since one way to save your money is to make liberal use of your local public library! Some of Dacyczyn's suggestions may strike you as odd, impractical, and even waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off base. However, anyone reading this book will find it at least entertaining, and Dacyczyn's strategies, even when they won't work in your own personal situation, may prove to be a framework for you and your own family to do some out-of-the-box thinking about the way you live your lives.

Bob Deits, Life After Loss: A Personal Guide Dealing with Death, Divorce, Job Change, and Relocation, Fisher Books, 1992.
This book includes a variety of helpful exercises and charts for understanding and working through grief. The book has some elements that aren't found in many other books, such as the role of nutrition in recovering from grief. It also includes a small section on feeling words, so that we can help ourselves and others be more clear and descriptive in identifying the feelings associated with loss.

Anne Fadiman, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1997
This is the account of what happened to a Hmong child and her family when the family's traditional beliefs and practices clashed with Western medical practices. Lia Lee had her first epileptic seizure at the age of 3 months. Four years and 23 medications later, believing that the medications were harming their daughter, the Lees stopped the treatment. In the view of the Lees, her soul had left her body and was wandering around lost. Lia's doctor considered that the family's failure to follow his medical directions constituted child abuse, and Lia was placed in foster care. Lia survived the attempts of her doctors to treat her, and when the author met her in 1995 at the age of seven, Lia was being lovingly cared for by her family. Fadiman weaves the history of the Hmong culture from ancient times to the present into a well-researched account of Hmong culture, spiritual beliefs, and ethics, Anyone who works with people who have experienced such major cultural change will find this book interesting and useful.

Andrea Gross, Shifting Gears: Planning a New Strategy for Midlife, Crown Publishers, 1991.
Perhaps you'll find your own experiences reflected in one of the fourteen profiles of men, women, and couples who underwent significant changes in their lives in their mid-forties. Information and assessment tools are interspersed throughout the book, and are designed to help readers set goals, incorporating responsibilities (e.g., to children, to parents) into the changes, financial management, and other topics. This book isn't as easy to use as some others, but some who are considering major life changes (especially around career and location) may find it inspirational.

If you come to a fork in the road, take it.
Yogi Berra

Gina O'Connell Higgins, Resilient Adults, Jossey-Bass, 1994
This book takes an approach similar to the Wolins (see below). The author is a psychologist with a specialty in working with people who have experienced extreme trauma. She rejects the "medical model" that focuses on pathology, and looks instead at what is unique about people who overcome devastating trauma in their early lives, and grow up to become happy, fulfilled. The author developed her ideas through case studies of 40 people who had experienced extraordinary challenges early in their lives, but were currently in good mental health. She identifies the traits that seem to have contributed to the positive outcome for the 40 subjects, and concludes that this combination of traits, which she defines as resilience, can be taught and encouraged.

J. Shep Jeffreys, Coping with Workplace Change: Dealing with Loss and Grief, Crisp Publications, 1995
This workbook is designed for both individual and group study for "survivors of layoffs and other organizational change." The author approaches job loss from the point of view of John Bowlby's research on attachment, and Elizabeth Kübler-Ross's work in the area of death and dying. The workbook looks at the normal feelings, attitudes and behaviors that arise from the grief related to job loss and job change. Using Bowlby's ideas, he identifies three phases in the loss process (Protest, Despair, and Reorganization). He then uses Kübler-Ross's stages of loss to suggest four tasks of mourning that must be accomplished in order to heal the grief: (1) Accepting the reality of the loss; (2) Reaching the pain and other feelings of grief; (3) Making the needed changes for a new work situation; and (4) Developing a new group identity and new group bonds). Finally, the book provides suggestions for moving through the stages in a healing way.

Harold Kushner, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Avon 1989.
This small, easy-to-read book has become a classic since first published in 1985. Rabbi Kushner wrote the book after the death of his 14-year-old son. It describes ways to deal spiritually with an unfair loss or tragedy, and addresses the feelings that arise from such losses.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gifts From the Sea, Vintage, reissued 1991
First written more than 40 years ago, this book deals with how we can reconcile our personal needs with our relationships and obligations to family, friends, lovers, and work. Lindbergh is able to distinguish loneliness from solitude, and describes ways that she has been able to find solitude in the simplest of daily tasks.

Linda Otto Lipsett, Remember Me: Women and Their Friendship Quilts, Quilt Digest Press, 1985
The Friendship Quilt is a symbol of the many changes faced by women, men, and families in the early years of this country. This book started out of the author's interest in friendship quilts from her own family, and developed into an extensive research project. She reviewed diaries and letters, communicated with living relatives of many of the quilt-makers, and traced the history of each of the quilt artists as she experienced birth, death, marriage, and westward travel. Anyone interested in the fabric arts, in pioneer life, or in the lives of women in the 17th and 18th centuries will find lessons in this book.

Life is a journey, not a blueprint.

Janet Luhrs, The Simple Living Guide: A Sourcebook for Less Stressful, More Joyful Living, Broadway Books, 1997. DON'T BUY THIS BOOK! Instead, borrow it from your local public library. I'm not sure that the authors would appreciate this warning, but as noted above (see Dacycyn, above), the voluntary simplicity movement is at least in part about saving money. The significant contribution that Luhrs makes in her book is that it is about so much more than money. It's not about living poor, but rather about living well: Making decisions about how you spend your time, money, and effort in wise and responsible ways. Though not explicitly religious, this book is somewhat more "spiritual" in its approach. That may make it more or less appealing, depending on your personal inclinations.

Frances Mayes, Under the Tuscan Sun, Broadway Books, 1997
One reader says that this is "about a woman who buys a house in Italy and restores it. It's a lot about the culture of Italy and the adjustments she has to make as she travels back and forth from US to Italy and the cultural differences, language, food, landscape, etc. She adapts to the change by being open to a new way of life and by embracing wholeheartedly much of Italian culture."

Mary McConnell, Life Choices and Challenges for Women, Harbinger House 1990
This is a book written by a sixty-something about women her own age and older. The author builds the book around a series of vignettes which portray the choices and challenges faced by older women. Widowhood, adult children, medical care, and finding purpose in life are some of the topics addressed. Though the book isn't based on research, some may find the book hopeful and affirming.

If you don't like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it. You just do it one step at a time.
Marian Wright Edelman

Sandra Martz, Editor, When I Am An Old Woman, I Shall Wear Purple (1987)
and If I Had My Life To Live Over, I Would Pick More Daisies (1992) 810.809287If1i Papier- Maché Press.
These are two award-winning anthologies of short stories and poems about the richness in women's lives in midlife and beyond.

Sharan Merriam and M. Carolyn Clark, Lifelines: Patterns of Work, Love, and Learning in Adulthood, Jossey-Bass, 1991.
Written by two professors in the field of adult education, the intended audience for this book is counselors, educators, and others who work with adults. However, it would also be useful for the motivated reader who wants to have a better understanding of the relationship between work, love, and learning. The book is a readable blend of case studies and research, and includes a questionnaire for charting your own pattern of work and love.

Carol Orsborn, The Art of Resilience: 100 Paths to Wisdom and Strength in an Uncertain World, Three Rivers Press, 1997
The book is set out in a series of 100 short (2-3 page), easy-to-read vignettes or chapters. A theologian at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, the author draws on both Eastern and Western spiritual traditions. Though not a book of lists, she does offer ten stages of resilience, with suggestions for each stage.

M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth, Simon & Schuster, 1978. (Also available in Spanish: La nueva psicologia del amor)
Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck lays it on the line at the very beginning of this book. The first line reads, "Life is difficult." A central idea of this book is that we often go through our lives assuming that life should be easy, and then suffering when we find that it is not. Peck suggests that if we accept that life has problems, and that change is inevitable and sometimes quite difficult, we will prepare ourselves with the tools we need. In fact, says Peck, ". . . . it is in this whole process of meeting and solving problems that life has its meaning." This book is most useful when used with a separately published study guide, Exploring the Road Less Traveled, by Alice and Walden Howard (Simon & Schuster).

Mary Pipher, Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of our Elders, Riverhead Books, 1999.
In an earlier book, Reviving Ophelia, the author wrote about the challenges faced by girls in adolescence. In Another Country, she looks at the changes that await us at the other end of the spectrum as we age. Just as importantly, she talks about being a middle-aged "child" dealing with your parents' failing physical (and sometimes mental) health, the segregation of "retirement communities" and accompanying loss of interaction between generations, and other concerns of those in the "sandwich generation."

I thought I could change the world. It took me a hundred years to figure out that I can't change the world. I can only change Bessie. And honey, that ain't easy either."
Bessie Delaney at age 104

Martin Seligman, Learned Optimism, A. A. Knopf, 1991
Seligman started his work with lab rats in the 1950's, but by the mid-sixties was applying his theories to understanding human behavior and learning. According to Seligman, pessimists believe that bad events are everywhere, will last forever, and are their fault. In contrast, optimists either see defeat as a temporary condition or as a challenge to be conquered. They also view themselves as in control of the "good" events in their lives, but don't blame themselves when bad things happen. Most importantly, Seligman believes that you can learn a set of skills that will help you change from a pessimist to an optimist. Seligman has also written a book for parents, The Optimistic Child. Though it has a useful focus on positive self esteem, the author doesn't very effectively address the causes of "pessimism" and depression in children.

Gail Sheehy, New Passages: Mapping your Life Across Time, Merritt Corporation, 1995.
Passages, the first in Sheehy's series of books on life passages, was written in 1976, with an eye toward helping the flower children of the 1960's cope with "aging" (reaching their 30's and beyond). Believing that no one was adequately addressing menopause, Sheehy tackled that topic in her book The Silent Passages. She now follows her mid-1970's "thirty-somethings" (now post-menopausal) into their 50's and 60's to reassure us that if we can survive all of the change that happens to us in mid-life, then life is good. Reviewers have either loved or hated the book. Some found it repetitious, others found it depressing, while others found it affirming and uplifting. You are most likely to glean some useful nuggets from this book if you are older, and if you liked her earlier books.

When I'm an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in others people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausage at a go
Or only bread and pickles for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Jenny Joseph

Or, said another way:

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream

Mark Twain

Gail Sheehy, Understanding Men's Passages: Discovering the New Map of Men's Lives, Merritt Corporation, 1998.
Sheehy uses a combination of interviews and research to address the passages that occur in the lives of men, with a focus on the 40's into old age. It is easy to read, and may provide some useful guidance to men who are experiencing changes in their lives.

Sandi Kahn Shelton, Sleeping Through the Night . . . . and Other Lies, St Martin's Press, 1999
I haven't seen this book, but heard the author on National Public Radio. One way of coping with embracing change is to have a good laugh, and this one seems to combine humor and common sense in a way that would be especially useful to first-time parents. Example: Be careful what name you give to "nursing." If your baby is still nursing after she learns to talk, you don't want to be in the middle of a grocery store with an impatient, hungry child yelling "I WANT MY BOOOOOOB!"

Velma Wallis, Two Old Women, HarperPerennial, 1994
This simple telling of an Athabascan Indian legend is a story that has been passed through the oral tradition from mother to daughter for generations. The tale describes the changes that both the old women and the tribe had to make in order to survive the harsh realities faced by this nomadic tribe from the upper Yukon River in Alaska.

Valora Washington and J.D. Andrews, Editors, Children of 2010, Children of 2010, 1998.
This book looks at change from a broad perspective: What changes do our children face as we approach the new millennium, and what can we do now that will help children for a future of growing diversity and rapidly changing social and economic conditions?

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

John Lennon

Steven Wolin and Sybil Wolin, The Resilient Self, Villard Books, 1993,
Why do some people from troubled families become healthy, happy adults, while others do not? Wolin and Wolin suggest that, while often hurt by the hardships of growing up in troubled families, some children emerge from these challenges with a set of strengths that the authors call "the resilient self." The seven strengths of the Wolins' Challenge Model are insight, independence, relationships, initiative, creativity, humor, and morality. Although the authors don't tell us why some abused children grow up to be emotionally healthy and others don't, the positive approach they take in the Challenge Model is a useful way to view development.

Joyce Wycoff, Mindmapping, Berkley Books, 1991.
Mindmapping is a problem-solving technique originally developed by Tony Buzan in England some 25 years ago. Buzan developed the technique as a method of improving memory, concentration, and creativity. Wycoff's focus is on the use of mind maps as a way of looking at personal and organizational problems and goals. Using a combination of words, lines, and pictures, the mind map becomes a visual representation of one's ideas. It is a useful technique for organizing ideas. When used in group problem-solving it can be fun, and encourages creativity and brainstorming.

How many self-help books does it take to change a light bulb?

None. The light bulb has to want to change itself.

Note: If you prefer to print this bibliography, please refer to this text-only version.