Changing the World One Relationship at a Time: Focused Listening for Mutual Supportand Empowerment

Want to change your life? Get together with a trusted friend and spend an allotted amount of time each week focusing on truly listening to one another. Sheryl Karas recommends focused listening as an ideal way to change yourself, your relationships, and your world for the better. Karas, who has a Masters Degree in Transpersonal Psychology, is a practitioner of re-evaluation counseling. Her second book, Changing The World One Relationship At A Time: Focused Listening For Mutual Support & Empowerment, is based on over fifteen years of experience in helping people improve their lives. Karas teaches people "how to create partnerships and alliances that have the power to change the world. Starting with a few simple techniques, you and a friend can learn to empower and support each other to take charge of your lives and go after your dreams." Once you learn the basic skills, you can then communicate better with a wider group of people, until eventually you've helped make the world a happier place in which to live. She explains that her teachings focus on society, rather than on the individual, asserting that "people in the United States are starved for community and often must struggle to create and maintain adequate personal relationships." Not recognizing the importance of relationships leads to a life that is out-of-balance. Rebalancing starts with listening. Nearly all the exercises in Karas's book require a "listening partner." The key to success is learning how to truly listen to each other. Feeling free to say exactly what they're feeling to someone who is concentrating on listening in a supportive and loving manner is a new experience for many people. That experience often heals old hurts and releases pain, enabling most people to form healthy and loving relationships with others. Karas says that "anything is possible when the appropriate human connections are made." Changing The World One Relationship At A Time teaches readers the needed skills for connecting with others, starting on a personal level and advancing to the community and the world beyond.Sandra I. Smith, Reviewer