A Mother-Son Bond Through Books

When my son was very young I would talk to him and read his books in Spanish because I wanted him to be bilingual. I still talk to him in Spanish, but not as much as I use to. 

This is how it started: 

4 Books For a Better Person

There are so many books out there that we can read to help us become a better person. I think most of us are always trying to better ourselves—internally.  We want to learn how to get rid of that hate, we want to heal from that trauma, we want to live joyfully, we want to be more compassionate and loving to ourselves and others. I think that is the best thing we can do in order for us to move forward. It really all starts with ourselves.

To be a better mother (or father) we must take care of ourselves. Nourish ourselves mentally and physically so that we can be better equipped to help our children. Help them deal with whatever emotional thing they are dealing with, and by modeling love and compassion towards others.

This is the same as a being a teacher. I remember one of the classes I took emphasized taking care of ourselves as teachers so that we can be suited to care for our students (meditation was one of the practices that was recommended). Being a preschool teacher can be very taxing, especially on our mental being, as we could have a troubled student that needs a lot of love, and/or a lot of attention, in addition to having to be there for the rest of the students. 

We must learn how to care for ourselves in order to be able to care for others. 

So, if we need to take care of ourselves first of all (both as parents and as teacher), then to be a better friend, or a better person and a better human being of this world, why shouldn’t we need to take care of ourselves first?

The Surrender Experiment

Would you be willing to try an experiment? An experiment that will have you accept everything that comes your way? Everything that life presents in front of you. Would you say yes? Michael A. Singer, the author of The Surrender Experiment, did just that. 

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

I just finished reading his book and it was very interesting. I did have some reservations though about the ways he went about certain things, but the overall concept is what I liked. After having a deep spiritual awakening, Singer decided to let life happen no matter what his mind thought. He wanted to see what would happen if he surrendered and accepted everything that life put in front of him.

The Book Thief- A Read I Couldn't Put Down

I spent most of my Saturday and Sunday finishing up the last 250 pages of The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I wasn't going to post so soon, but it was a good book I had to write a bit about it.

The novel is about a girl name Liesel who is being cared for by foster parents in Germany during World War II. A few month’s after the girl’s arrival they take a young Jew in and hide him in the basement. The girl develops a special bond with all of them. “Papa” is a gentle and patient man who teaches her the alphabet and how to read. She discovers that “Mama” has a soft side, and even with her tendency to swear so much, she is motherly. The young Jew becomes a very close friend and someone she cares deeply about. Everyday she gives him a weather report, and every Thursday a discarded newspaper with a sometimes blank crossword puzzle. When he got very ill and fell into a deep sleep for over two weeks, she brought him gifts from the outside every day (they are extremely poor, so the gifts would be trinkets and things she’d find discarded on the ground). The bond they share is due to what they have in common: they wake up almost every night from nightmares—nightmares of the family they lost. Through him Liesel learns that words are powerful and they can help to heal or to hurt.