The Gift of Change audiobook

A truly wonderful book about healing the soul and moving forward to embrace the possibility of greatness and happiness in our lives.“Every morning as we wake up, we can bless the world. We can pray to be servants today to something holy and true. We can take a deep breath and surrender ourselves to God’s plan for our lives. And when we do, we will experience miracles” (23).“As the mind is permeated by the realization of the awesome power that lies within us, and as we allow ourselves to embrace the principles of higher awareness, the ego in time takes a back-seat to higher truth. It cannot stand before a mind that has begun to awaken to its true reality. Eventually, accumulated spiritual knowledge pays off, and a larger life begins to emerge” (30).“We are taught that grades, credentials, past influences, mistakes, marriages, divorces, degrees, resumes, money, parents, children, or houses – whatever label or identity someone wants to stick onto us – are our essence. As a consequence, we forget who we really are” (31).“In fact, training our minds is as important as training our bodies and is just as important to our health” (35).“What was found – after twenty-five million dollars of research – was that the single largest determinant in making children learn is the presence of at least one adult – and this does not have to be a biological relative – who cares whether they do” (58).

"Here is what Caroline Myss, author of Sacred Contracts, wrote about this book: The Gift of Change needs to be read by every person who can feel the speed of change rapidly increasing in her/her personal world. In this essential book, Williamson examines change as a spiritual necessity and offers the reader insights into the meaning of embracing the next step on one's life. Never has a society needed this wisdom and guidance more than now." This book was published in 2004, much in reflection of what occurred after the events of 9/11/2001. I started reading the book just after the November elections, and felt the immediate applicability of this book now as well. While this is considered a spiritual-type book, I found myself reflecting often about how what I was reading applied to the work environment as well. This was especially true in the first few chapters where she talks about what we celebrate in other's lives, we draw into own own. One of my favorite paragraphs is "Practice kindness, and you start to become kind. Practice discipline, and you start to become disciplined. Practice forgiveness, and you start to become forgiving. Practice gentleness, and you start to become gentle." Surely this applies to both my professional and personal life. With what has happened in the US over the last several months, The Gift of Change is an incredibly relevant, powerful book. Highly recommended. "

This is a book about surrender and love. I first read it during the last few months of my husband's life, in 2005, while he was dying from cancer. Marianne Williamson has scattered prayers throughout the book that are helpful during a transition, a time of change, when all you can do is surrender to the power of love. Re-reading her book again has helped me to reconnect with prayer every day, no matter the circumstances in life.

reading a bit at a time. Great for meditations/ This was a great book for me. I was able to get so much joy and comfort from its spiritual perspective. I just gave it to a friend and I sincerely hope she enjoys it as much as I did!

Marianne Williamson writing and words resonate with me so.

Another book of Marianne's that I reference all the time. I love her words and how she writes. I recommend anything this women writes!

Incredibly relevant, insightful, enlightening... Heart, soul, spirit, mind opening, healing for self, others and world. A must read if one hopes to reach our highest point in ourselves, others, worldI loved loved loved it a few years back but this time the message reached greatest heights in my core being, the Christ spirit in me...Some notes for me... important truths to share... please don't look at the sentence structures... just Marianne's message of loveThe Gift of Change embodies God is here and all is well. Holy Spirit is love. Ego is fear. God is. Love is. Now= sacred. Oneness. Miracle is a shift from fear to love. What we need love will provide and make right what seemed unrightable. My holiness stands forever perfect and untouched and in it all things healed for they remained as God created them. Eternal holiness abides in each of us. Love erases pattern of fear ... we remember who we are = love.We are surrounded by miracles unnoticed and unpraised. God's infinite power of love that abides in us. Power of thoughts/words. Subconscious hears everything. Word can heal and reprogram our minds . Heaven is awareness of oneness. hell is the separation from oneness. Smallest of forgiveness leads to peace. What we proclaim we believe. Train our minds like we train our bodies. Loving choices for ourselves and others. Our instinct is to choose love/heart.My thought about me affect you and your thoughts about you affect me. We are one. One can not achieve one's highest potential when one does not recognize that potential in another.... Blessing and loving all lifts all out of fear and into love, bring darkness to light (not bring light to darkness).. God's light and love, within us, extends to all; we become more humble, contrite... fire purifies us and return us to our truest self, that was created out of pure love.Chapt 4Fear causes our hearts to contract. When our hearts are contracted, everything is contracted relax and let go of stress, fear, our need to do ... just be.. trust in God Love Universe's power of love and its perfect existence. tress comes because we accept the illusion as reality. Peace comes when we put everything in God's hands and trust in the universe perfect way in handling all.We are here to extend love, help each other see our best light in one another... Our true nature is love, innocence... We are all God's children. Choose to remember love and let everything go. A forgiving mind is close to our natural state of love and peace. Holy Spirit in us is the voice of love and innocence; our task is to be still and hear that voice in us and help others to hear theirs. We can choose to see spiritual perfection in people and nurture our desires to heal.Holy Spirit can undo our past mistakes by bringing God's forgiveness and restores us fully. Holy Spirit restores, renews us and we are reborn. Have the audacity to believe that we are born to greater life, joy, and not just new life. We can carry our new life/spirit into new world/journey.Have faith that all are innocent, people's actions are based on love, acknowledge oneness, do unto others only loving acts, don't blame, humanity is not perfect, just loveWhat one experiences all experiences.

Sometimes books just come along at the right time in your life and this is one of them. So many quotable items from the book that I will refrain. Her thoughts on changing the world are very interesting as she runs for the Democratic nomination. While she probably will not win, perhaps by trying she will create some positive change.

I love Marianne Williamson, particularly because of the way that she writes. Its hard for me, growing up in the life I have, around the people that I have, to believe there are people this good in life, who really want to love always. But I like the aspect of it. It's something I aspire to do, something I aspire to become, in my own life. Become a more spiritual person, become loving in all that I do. But I know that it will be a challenge. It's hard to change, but its definitely possible. I like reading about her personal experiences and challenges in becoming the person she is learning to become each and every day. She is humble enough to explain how she felt in certain situations which ended up helping her to grow, despite being difficult to do. She explains the mistakes she made in attempting to be the person she desired to be, and what she did in order to live that way. I think its a great book about being a person who is loving in all his/her actions they take. It's a difficult path, but a well earned one.

This is one of the first eBooks I ever bought for my Kindle. I loved the sample so much that I immediately went to Amazon and bought the entire book. What I love about Williamson is her gentle, sincere spirituality. I feel like we share the same religious views, which are free from Dogma but are about expressing love to others. That's one of the things that I love about reading spiritual authors who might not share my same religious background. I feel like I learn so much more from these writers than the ones that clearly identify themselves as "Christian." I was lucky enough to find a hardback version of this at my local Goodwill store, and I snatched it up to donate it to my church's library. It's one that I would quickly recommend to anyone who wants to be "spiritual but not religious." At the same time, it's one that represents what I feel is an authentic expression of what "Christianity" should and can be.

Este, al igual que los otros libros que he leído de Marianne Williamson, me pareció una maravilla. ¡Me encanto! A través de conceptos espirituales basados en Un Curso de Milagros ella nos va mostrando los pasos a seguir para lograr un verdadero cambio en nosotros mismos, el cual evidentemente se reflejará en el mundo. Quizá realizar este cambio en el mundo ha sido necesario siempre, pero creo en lo personal que ahora es imperativo hacerlo. La única manera de mantener alejada la oscuridad que nos merienda día a día es realizar un verdadero trabajo espiritual en lo individual. Esto permitirá traer más luz a la colectividad y ayudará a reparar nuestros maltrechos mundo y humanidad. Se necesita disciplina, convicción y disposición para lograr este cambio. Pero basta sólo con pedirlo y Dios nos guiará para lograrlo.

This women is the most amazing writer. Every sentence is epic. I just read and shake my head, she is so profound. How can every sentence be epic, I ask myself? I love her books. I have many. This one, in particular, is such a work of art and so perception changing. You can just feel hardness and sharp edges resting and falling off of you. It uses the topic of change as the platform to get you in a place of being able to think deeply. And in that process, you can actually feel yourself loosening the grip on the need to control, which is the fear response you didn't even realize was present. She expresses so precisely the effects of control and fear, and what life could look like without it. It's a teaching on setting your mind free. The ability to let go, brings the substance of change. What a blessing this book is. You won't be disappointed.

What I'm learning with this book is that change is inevitable but does not have to be hard and should not be! We change every day, each one of us goes thru events that shape our hearts and minds. Whether we accept or fight is usually motivated by our past, but the good news is we can over come anything in our past regardless what it was. We need to remember who our "source" is. Is our source our biological parents or is our source GOD? We have to decide whose the source of our being, spiritual being is. Yes our parents are our biological makers but our essense, spirit, heart and soul came from our Creator and we need to remember we were His first. Very moving book so far!

Great perspective. Although published 5 years ago, everything Marianne talks about in this book is still very relevant today in regard to our spiritual selves and the state of the world. I gave it 4 -4.5 stars. I felt that there could of been a specific example of how she uses prayer/reflection/meditation on a daily basis, or how one might do so for themselves when they have a busy schedule, versus speaking of it in a general sense. Otherwise, it covers spiritual growth from many angles and adults of all ages wanting to better navigate change with a focus on God will find this book insightful and helpful.

There are many words that describe this book. One of them is mindblowing. Another is liberating. Marianne explains that the small-minded ego has each of us in its grip, confining our concerns to narrow attachments that we fear losing or not ever having (and that we mistakenly believe constitute our identity). Her words open up for the readers an intuitive knowing of who they truly are: boundless, inseparably one with all, eternal, and complete. Try this book, and get a glimpse of the peace and power within.