Conscious Living: How to Create a Life of Your Own Design [Paperback]

Gay Hendricks (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 9, 2001

In his bestselling book Conscious Living, pioneering therapist Gay Hendricks taught couples how to find balance and happiness in relationships.Now he gives us Conscious Living, a practical guide for the individual that brings new insights into a fundamental truth of daily truth of daily life. Five simple lessons of "conscious living", rooted in the ancient traditions of Stoicism and Taoism, help us overcome obstacles and fears and awaken our own creativity.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Gay Hendricks is a master of intimate relationships.” (John Gray, author of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus )

About the Author

Gay Hendricks is the author and coauthor of more than twenty books that deal with personal growth, including the New York Times bestseller Five Wishes and Conscious Living.

Product Details

• Paperback: 278 pages
• Publisher: Harper (January 9, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062514873
• ISBN-13: 978-0062514875
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #258,478 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gay Hendricks has served for more than thirty years as one of the major contributors to the fields of relationship transformation and body-mind therapies. Throughout his career, Dr. Hendricks has coached more than eight hundred executives, including the top management at firms such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, and KLM. Along with his wife, Dr. Kathlyn Hendricks, he has coauthored many books including Conscious Loving, The Corporate Mystic, and his latest, the New York Times bestseller Five Wishes, which has been translated into seventeen languages. Dr. Hendricks received his Ph.D. in counseling psychology from Stanford University. After a twenty-one-year career as a professor at the University of Colorado, he founded the Hendricks Institute, which offers seminars in North America, Asia, and Europe. He is also the founder of a new virtual learning center for transformation, www.gaiailluminationuniversity.com,
and The Spiritual Cinema Circle.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Conscious Applause, September 26, 2005

By 

Zinta Aistars "Writer & Editor" (Portage, MI United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Conscious Living: How to Create a Life of Your Own Design (Paperback)

Life is an ongoing, neverending process of self-improvement and enlightenment. While we can be given the best advice and offered the most valuable lessons over and over again, it takes a readiness in ourselves, an open heart and mind and a willing spirit, to be receptive to those lessons. And, to be truly effective, we need be not only ready... but conscious of the lesson learned and applied.

A good friend who has earned my respect with her ability to maneuver through her life with serenity and acceptance, even while learning the toughest lessons, recently recommended Hendricks' books to me. I value her advice, and so I approached the Hendricks' bookshelf with high expectations. I found many books on the shelf, written by both Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks, and with this volume as my introduction, I expect to be reading several more.

Hendricks has probably not told me anything in this book I don't already know. We must love ourselves before we can truly love another. Anger denied does not go away. Moving through life and its choices by default rather than thoughtful and considered decision is guaranteed to end in disaster. Choosing love partners by chemistry alone can only mean heartbreak. We get what we expect. Negativity in attitude and expectations magnetically draws to us more negativity. If your life is not what you want it to be, guess what, it's you who is at the wheel. Yes, I knew all of this.

I knew it, but I have too often failed to apply these sound, common sense lessons to my own life. I suppose there is something in all of us that feels the irresistible impulse to put our hand in the fire even when we have been told, over and over again, it will burn. Unfortunately, nothing is so effective a teacher as pain.

But by the time I picked up this book, I was ready to listen. I was, you might say, fully conscious of these wisdoms and ready and willing to apply them at last. I almost feel a little silly stating how my mood and attitude improved by just reading this book. It sounds rather simplistic, doesn't it? Then again, we humans do tend to overcomplicate our lives, don't we?

I feel confident in recommending this book to anyone... but only with this note: if you are ready to steer through your life with conscious intent, you'll love this book and its sensible advice. If you are not, if you are still looking for someone else to do the work for you, or if you prefer your old comfort zone, or if you want to shirk your responsibility for the course of your own life a while longer, well, read a comic book instead. Up to you.

As for me, I loved it. Ready and awake! I like that the responsibility for this adventure is all mine.

62 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A New Level of Clarity, April 11, 2000

By 

[e-mail] (Gonic, NH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Conscious Living : Finding Joy in the Real World (Hardcover)

Over the last few years, I have read an assortment of relationship books with loads of great strategies that combat a wide array of issues. When I encountered the book "Conscious Loving" by Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks, I was amazed by how different the book was. Gay and Kathlyn were communicating at a more fundamental level that bridged the gap between examples and strategies.

When "Conscious Living" came out, I eagerly pounced on it to see how much more I could piece together. On my first pass through the book, I was deeply moved by the quantity and depth of "aha, that's why" connections I was making with my life and my prior readings. This book did not disappoint me since it was working at the fundamental building block level that I first encountered with "Conscious Loving". After reading the book for the third time, I'm still in awe at how much clarity Gay brings to the journey of life. If I had to sum it up, I would have to say that I was left smiling at the profound beauty of life. I was also pleasantly surprised and deeply moved by the spiritual connections I made through reading the book.

The book follows a natural progression where Gay takes you from a great personal and historic introduction through the five required lessons followed by the inner shifts and outer moves that create a conscious life. The second half of the book deals with conscious solutions to some of the most crucial areas of real world life. I found the book to be chock-full of interesting examples and inspiring snippets of wisdom. One of my favorite snippets was "We argue for our limitations, and, sure enough, we get to keep them."

31 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Aha! Experience, March 31, 2000

By 

K'ran Gullrajaani - See all my reviews

This review is from: Conscious Living : Finding Joy in the Real World (Hardcover)

I have read several of Gay Hendricks books and each is a masterpiece. He surprises me every time by having so much to offer. Reading 'Conscious Living' is an enlightening experience. What touched me deeply is its simple profundity.

Its evident that Gay writes from a depth of authentic experience. He blends the sublime with the practical, the mystical with the earthy, the miraculous with the ordinary. I am confident that this book will become a landmark in the human evolution to embrace its own divinity in ways that are magical.

As I read it, I was in an inspired space to act out of integrity in ways that create enduring change towards greater inner joy & success in the outer world.