10 Ways to Thrive Even When It Feels Impossible
Slay Your Dragons With Compassion (inspired by the suicide of his daughter)
by psychotherapist Malcolm Stern
29th September 2020 – paperback – £10.99
Malcolm Stern is one of the UK’s leading influential thinkers in the wellbeing and spiritual sector. Slay Your Dragon’s With Compassion is an accumulation of ‘psychospiritual’ wisdom that he has gained from his associations of working with the world’s leading spiritual leaders as co-founder of Alternatives, from thirty years of holding intense group psychotherapy work and the dragons he’s had to slay with compassion in his own life.
This beautiful and profound book has already received high-advance praise from global best-selling authors, Eckhart Tolle, Elizabeth Gilbert and British singer, songwriter Craig David. Gilbert calls it, ‘an inspiration, a practical, yet infinitely humane, method of saving your own life from the darkness.’ Whilst David says, ‘With deep heartache and tragedy comes the possibility of deep growth physically & spiritually….this intuitive wisdom of being gentle in difficult times was actually his greatest power.”
Slay Your Dragon’s With Compassion is a moving and transformational book, inspired by Stern’s daughter Melissa, who ended her life in 2014. The book is an honest account of Stern’s grief, filled with real and sensitive stories from the therapy room, where Stern reveals the ten key practices that we can all learn from and engage in our lives in order to create our own more meaningful, happy and fulfilling existence.
These practices include: building a support system, (what the Buddhists call a sangha) of like-minded others to support us on our life’s journey, practicing authenticity in our relationships, when necessary, speaking uncomfortable truths to ourselves and others but always with compassion and developing real self-knowledge, so we can access wisdom rather than reactivity.
Stern advocates that in order to thrive, we must confront our resistances, fears and self-doubts and view the challenges that block our way as dragons, which we are called to slay with compassion. If we can meet and navigate our darkest moments in this way, we can discover the gold that lives within each of us.
This standout book will live forever on our bookshelves, where we will draw on the easy practices that the author teaches us to help us face our demons and build emotional muscle, so that when the inevitable storms blow across our path, we have the power tools to draw on to support ourselves.
Biography
Malcolm Stern has worked as a group and individual psychotherapist for nearly 30 years. He is co-founder and co-director of Alternatives at St James’s Church, London's most important spiritual events platform, since 1982. Stern also teaches and runs groups internationally. His first book Falling in Love, Staying in Love was published in 2004. Malcolm also co-presented with Vanessa Lloyd Platt, the Channel 4 series on relationships Made for Each Other in 2003 and 2004.
For more information or to request a review copy please contact Vikki Scott on vikki.scott@watkinspublishing.com