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Mars and Venus Starting Over: A Practical Guide for Finding Love Again After a Painful Breakup, Divorce, or the Loss of a Loved One

A breakup, divorce, or loss of a loved one isn't just the end of your relationship with that person. It's a continuation of every feeling of abandonment you've ever suffered. It's the loss of a system of approval you'd come to depend on. The struggle, as Gray points out in Starting Over, isn't just to find a new partner, but to get over those feelings of abandonment or loss or anger or whatever else gets dredged up by the end of a relationship.

Perhaps the book's most crucial chapter posits that the best way to get over the loss of love is to focus on the "love" more than the "loss." That may seem impossible, especially if the bum took off with your best friend, your life savings, and your Lyle Lovett CDs, but Gray didn't get to be a household name because the advice in his Venus and Mars books doesn't work. Remembering only the bad parts, Gray says, leaves you with an important part of your emotional being closed to new business.

As for the Venus and Mars stuff, that comes in the second half of the book, when Gray looks at how men and women start new relationships from different points of view, with different priorities (a man might want to have fun with no strings attached; a woman might carry with her a lengthy list of requirements for her next partner, a list that excludes virtually all available men).

If you've never read Gray's work before, you have to be prepared to check your cynicism at the door. This is earnest stuff, but it's also based on decades of experience counseling clients. He's not one of those photogenic, nine-times-divorced shrinklets who's telling you how to conduct your relationships without any real clue of what makes love last. This is the real package: nothing glib, nothing quick and easy, nothing you could've figured out from a "Love Is..." cartoon.

John Gray has helped millions of men and women develop better relationships with his phenomenal New York Times bestseller Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.

Now he turns his attention to the millions of people who find themselves single again and compassionately presents a process for healing a broken heart. Here are just some of the issues and challenges John Gray covers in this supportive and practical guide to becoming whole again:

• Emotional Lag Time

• Grieving the Loss of Love

• Getting Unstuck

• Good Endings Make Good Beginnings

• Saying Good-bye with Love

• Processing Our Hot Spots

• 101 Ways to Heal Our Hearts

• Glorifying Our Past

• Over-Romanticizing

• Focusing on the Negative

• Who Needs a Man?

• Women Who Do Too Much

• Fear of Intimacy

• My Children Need Me

• All or Nothing

• Work, Money, and Love

• Positive Addictions

• We Don't Have to Stop Loving

• Soul Mates Are Not Perfect

• Can't Live With Them and Can't Live Without Them

• HoldingBack

• Bigger Is Better

• Self-Destructive Tendencies

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus

Why Mars and Venus Collide: Improving Relationships by Understanding How Men and Women Cope Differently with Stress

Practical Miracles for Mars & Venus: Nine Principles for Lasting Love, Increasing Success and Vibrant Health in the 21st Century

Hoping to demystify the miraculous, author John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus) offers a handbook on creating "practical miracles." Having experienced a personal miracle when he recovered from near blindness, Gray began to realize that humans could actually participate in creating their own miracles. "Miracles don't just happen for some and not for others," he notes. "They occur when specific conditions are nurtured." In order to nurture these conditions, Gray suggests living by nine guiding principles, including "Love as if for the first time," "Work as if money didn't matter," and "Relax as if everything will be okay."

Typical of Gray, he has narrowed his book down into concise formulas, following step-by-step, stage-by-stage plans and exercises. This compulsion to script his theories into neat little self-help packages is his downfall, limiting what could have been a meaningful and important discussion about miracle making in everyday life. Instead, we can't help feeling that he's simply holding up a bottle of his latest formula and saying, "Ladies from Venus, gentlemen from Mars, for just under $20 you too can be a miracle maker...." Nonetheless, his heart seems to be in the right place and there are passages of impressive wisdom. Even hardcore skeptics could live a better life (and may even encounter a miracle or two) by following his excellent list of guiding principles. --Gail Hudson

"The power to create practical miraclesis now within your reach. " -- John Gray

According to John Gray, the author of the phenomenal bestseller Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, just as the pace of life has accelerated so has your potential for change. By awakening your hidden power to create practical miracles, you can more effectively adjust to life's challenges and respond with greater peace, joy, confidence, and love.

John Gray provides nine guiding principles for creating miracles in your life as well as new practical tools and techniques for taking charge of your personal destiny. These easily can fit into your life, and they work right away.

How to Get What You Want and Want What You Have: A Practical and Spiritual Guide to Personal Success

What you want materially and what you want spiritually are both important, says John Gray, Ph.D., in How to Get What You Want and Want What You Have. "Wanting more is the nature of our soul, mind, heart, and senses," he says. As an antidote of sorts to the sometimes overly strict books of late that advocate a life of utter simplicity, he concedes that it's okay to want a big promotion or fancy car. It's also noble to want a solid spiritual life and to want to be at peace with yourself. However, he says, you need to recognize and work on the many self-defeating behaviors that may be thwarting your chances for reaching your goals. In fact, he identifies 24 typical stumbling blocks to look for.

How to Get What You Want and Want What You Have is perfect for the ostensibly successful businesspeople who can't explain why they're miserable, or people who blame their partners for their miseries instead of looking inward. It's filled with anecdotes and tools to help you achieve a fuller sense of identity. Gray says that one of the most important steps to reaching this level of self-awareness is meditation, and Gray gives dozens of stepping-off points for meditation exercises to help you ascertain what exactly it is that you want, and how to remove any obstacles--whether external or internal. Take it from a man who used to be so ascetic that he was rendered homeless but now has achieved a strong sense of self and has managed to write nine bestselling books: both spiritual and material success are within your grasp.

Create The Life You Want

John Gray, the author of the Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus relationship classic, now presents a brilliantly innovative program for achieving personal success. The wisdom and techniques in these pages will enable you to feel greater joy, love, confidence, and peace.

Some Wise Words From How to Get What You Want and Want What You Have

• Your experience of the world reflects your inner state.

• Whenever you are not getting what you need, you are always looking in the wrong direction.

• Find your soul's desire, and start getting everything you want.

• Material success can only make you happy if you are already happy.

• The power to get what you want comes from confidence, positive feeling, and desire.

• You have the power to change. No one else can do it for you.