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Artfelt Inspiration: Let Your Freak Fly!

PASSION, CONNECTION, AWARENESS. Are you feeling empty…on a rat wheel, meeting responsibilities, or barely so, and wondering if this is all there is to life? With the dawn of the Industrial and Digital Ages, our culture has become increasingly disconnected from our inner selves, resulting in depression, addiction, and anxiety being at an all-time high. Laurie Ritchie has been there. She was the classic “do-gooder” on a path of self-destruction until she found the value of expressive arts. Initially a mental health occupational therapist, Laurie ached for “something more,” realizing she’d been drawn to the arts herentire life. Self-described as a “schizophrenic art enthusiast”—loving many forms, but not traditionally gifted at any—Laurie initially resisted with the typical excuses she hears from her clients at Whole Arts Connection: “I’m not an artist. I don’t know what to do with that blank page.” She quickly found out—at first through writing and then later through expressive arts therapy—that art was the fast track to unveiling passion, deep connection, self-awareness, and a way to remove all the stumbling blocks along the way. Artfelt Inspiration will inspire you to unleash your innermost creative self, and reconnect with that “inner freak”, just waiting to be set free. Each of the 12 chapters offers inspiration through art, poetry, storyand creative exercises, helping you re-discover hidden talents, your unique beauty, and awakened spiritual connection. If you are ready to “Let Your Freak Fly,” this book is for you!

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Artfelt Inspiration: Let Your Freak Fly

PASSION, CONNECTION, AWARENESS. Are you feeling empty…on a rat wheel, meeting responsibilities, or barely so, and wondering if this is all there is to life? With the dawn of the Industrial and Digital Ages, our culture has become increasingly disconnected from our inner selves, resulting in depression, addiction, and anxiety being at an all-time high. Laurie Ritchie has been there. She was the classic “do-gooder” on a path of self-destruction until she found the value of expressive arts. Initially a mental health occupational therapist, Laurie ached for “something more,” realizing she’d been drawn to the arts her entire life. Self-described as a “schizophrenic art enthusiast”—loving many forms, but not traditionally gifted at any—Laurie initially resisted with the typical excuses she hears from her clients at Whole Arts Connection: “I’m not an artist. I don’t know what to do with that blank page.” She quickly found out—at first through writing and then later through expressive arts therapy—that art was the fast track to unveiling passion, deep connection, self-awareness, and a way to remove all the stumbling blocks along the way. Artfelt Inspiration will inspire you to unleash your innermost creative self, and reconnect with that “inner freak”, just waiting to be set free. Each of the 12 chapters offers inspiration through art, poetry, story and creative exercises, helping you re-discover hidden talents, your unique beauty, and awakened spiritual connection. If you are ready to “Let Your Freak Fly,” this book is for you!

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Think Like a Freak CD: The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain

The New York Times bestselling Freakonomics changed the way we see the world, exposing the hidden side of just about everything. Then came SuperFreakonomics, a documentary film, an award-winning podcast, and more.

Now, with Think Like a Freak, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have written their most revolutionary book yet. With their trademark blend of captivating storytelling and unconventional analysis, they take us inside their thought process and teach us all to think a bit more productively, more creatively, more rationally—to think, that is, like a Freak.

Levitt and Dubner offer a blueprint for an entirely new way to solve problems, whether your interest lies in minor lifehacks or major global reforms. As always, no topic is off-limits. They range from business to philanthropy to sports to politics, all with the goal of retraining your brain. Along the way, you’ll learn the secrets of a Japanese hot-dog-eating champion, the reason an Australian doctor swallowed a batch of dangerous bacteria, and why Nigerian e-mail scammers make a point of saying they’re from Nigeria.

Some of the steps toward thinking like a Freak:

First, put away your moral compass—because it’s hard to see a problem clearly if you’ve already decided what to do about it. Learn to say “I don’t know”—for until you can admit what you don’t yet know, it’s virtually impossible to learn what you need to. Think like a child—because you’ll come up with better ideas and ask better questions. Take a master class in incentives—because for better or worse, incentives rule our world. Learn to persuade people who don’t want to be persuaded—because being right is rarely enough to carry the day. Learn to appreciate the upside of quitting—because you can’t solve tomorrow’s problem if you aren’t willing to abandon today’s dud.

Levitt and Dubner plainly see the world like no one else. Now you can too. Never before have such iconoclastic thinkers been so revealing—and so much fun to read.