Into the Magic Shop - James R Doty

Blurb: Extraordinary things happen when we harness the power of both the brain and the heart

Growing up in the high desert of California, Jim Doty was poor, with an alcoholic father and a mother chronically depressed and paralyzed by a stroke. Today he is the director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) at Stanford University, of which the Dalai Lama is a founding benefactor. But back then his life was at a dead end until at twelve he wandered into a magic shop looking for a plastic thumb. Instead he met Ruth, a woman who taught him a series of exercises to ease his own suffering and manifest his greatest desires. Her final mandate was that he keep his heart open and teach these techniques to others. She gave him his first glimpse of the unique relationship between the brain and the heart.
 
Doty would go on to put Ruth’s practices to work with extraordinary results—power and wealth that he could only imagine as a twelve-year-old, riding his orange Sting-Ray bike. But he neglects Ruth’s most important lesson, to keep his heart open, with disastrous results—until he has the opportunity to make a spectacular charitable contribution that will virtually ruin him. Part memoir, part science,  part inspiration, and part practical instruction, Into the Magic Shop shows us how we can fundamentally change our lives by first changing our brains and our hearts.

My Rating: 4 1/2 stars

Genre: Health and wellbeing, Biography

My Thoughts: Don't be put off by the title of the cover, there is more yo this book than what is first perceived.  

As soon as I picked up this book I was hooked, the language used reaped me in. The mix of self help and biography drew me deeper into the book and my own mind.   I do believe that we have a certain level of power that is based on our confidence and self belief and that is what this book is based on. The ability to meditate as directed in the writing is the key to finding ourselves. The amount of times I have told someone who keeps moaning they are unhappy - that only they themselves have the ability to change and without the effort nothing will change.

I liked this book a lot and I think some of it will stick with me for a long time.

Read:  22-24th September 2015