About-face for a better future
If I'd Known Then: Women in Their 20s and 30s Write Letters to Their Younger Selves
Edited by Ellyn Spragins
Da Capo, 192 pp., $18
Your Personal Renaissance: 12 Steps to Finding Your Life's True Calling
By Diane Dreher
Da Capo, 288 pp., paperback, $15.95
What Would Audrey Do?: Timeless Lessons for Living With Grace and Style
By Pamela Keogh
Gotham, 272 pp., $22.50
Project Renewment: The First Retirement Model for Career Women
By Bernice Bratter and Helen Dennis
Scribner, 241 pp., $20
Self-help is definitely an eyes-front kind of reading - you want to look where you're going rather than keep your focus on where you've been. But this month, there are some intriguing new books that prove that the past can actually be the prologue to a more satisfying and happier future.
Looking at your life in hindsight can make you realize just how far you've come. In "If I'd Known Then," edited by Ellyn Spragins, 35 successful women pen intimate, thoughtful letters to the girls they once were, putting their previous angst, doubts, and even failures into brilliant perspective. Part of a series of "If I'd Known Then" books, this volume, targeted at young women, offers a boost of hope that today's turmoil can foster tomorrow's growth, success, and happiness. From actress Jessica Alba and author Hope Edelman to champion skater Sasha Cohen, these women reflect on how adults can be wrong, why it's important to give up control, and how risk can be paramount to a rewarding life.
Is the writing any good? Well, only from the writers in the bunch. What's important here are the honest self-reflection and the reaching out from one generation to another. Younger women will be inspired by the advice, but women of all ages will love the fascinating insights into some truly remarkable lives. The message that past pain can lead to astounding triumphs and a little self-compassion goes a very, very long way.
The past is also prominent in "Your Personal Renaissance," by Diane Dreher. While initially I thought it might be just a tad forced to put the Renaissance together with self-help, this wise little book soon changed my mind.
Renaissance men and women saw themselves as instruments of change and had a firm belief that they each had a true calling in life, based on inner strengths that were uniquely theirs. Dreher's research in modern psychology shows that finding and using such "signature strengths" can boost self-esteem and help each person make a contribution to the world.
Her innovative 12-step program, which, by the way, is so successful it's used in clinical practices, is based on figuring out what really brings you joy and what values are important to you. Then the idea is to recognize and get rid of the roadblocks stopping you from doing what you love.
Dreher, who has a doctorate in Renaissance literature, suggests eight Renaissance practices to help you maintain this sense of calling and jump-start creative energy: faith, self-examination, mentoring and improving friendships, meditation, involvement in the arts, reading, exercise, and discipline. The book's message is bolstered with empowering success stories about Renaissance figures like da Vinci, Galileo, and Giotto. "Renaissance" means "rebirth," and when you think of it, what could be a more perfect metaphor for transformation?
Looking for a historical and cultural role model? You can't go wrong with the sublimely gamine Audrey Hepburn. In the buoyant "What Would Audrey Do?" Pamela Keogh explores all things Audrey even as she pinpoints how the way Audrey lived her life just might work for us mere mortals.
Living life like Audrey means overcoming adversity with grace (her father walked out on her family when she was very young, and she suffered two messy divorces), being memorable and modest, and maintaining a sense of wonder about yourself. Of course, it also means knowing what styles suit you, and Audrey's love of simple, classic lines made her an icon. She was no slouch at being lovely on the outside, but more important, she knew how to fashion a life worth living, and her humanitarian work with UNICEF gave her a glowing inner beauty.
While any bookstore is crammed with career books for women, what about advice for what comes afterward? "Project Renewment," by Bernice Bratter and Helen Dennis, offers a trailblazing prototype that's positive, proactive, and downright inspirational. Started by a group of women in Southern California, Project Renewment brings women together to find solutions for an enlightened retirement where adventure and self-renewal are key. The first section of the book offers 38 essays exploring the challenges of retirement, which are in turn raw, revealing, and deeply intimate. The second section is designed to help readers create their own enlightened retirement and/or retirement group.
"Chase your passion, not your pension," the book advises, which is great advice for all the stages and times of anyone's life.
Caroline Leavitt is the author of eight novels, most recently "Girls in Trouble." She can be reached at carolineleavitt.com
