Chasing Happy

Have you ever looked around yourself and thought that there’s just got to be more to life than this? I did. Have you ever wondered why, despite giving your best efforts at life in all its departments, it still always feels like there’s something missing? I did. Ever thought that ‘completely happy’ is really an illusory state of being that only exists and belongs in fairy tales? I did, and so did most of the other people I knew. Well, I’m here to tell you now that if that’s true, you can call me Cinderella!......And we all know what happened to Cinderella, don’t we? She found Happy! You can too!

‘Truly and completely Happy’ is not only possible but also much closer than you may think, and if you haven’t experienced it yet, it’s simply because, so far,  you haven’t looked in the right places.

Brannie takes an informed and humorous approach in looking at how you too, can go about finding ‘Happy’, that bright, shiny place on your horizon; not too far away, but always somehow just out of reach for today...! Until now!

Chasing Happy is written in a practical, easy and friendly style that will have you smiling as it inspires you to dare to make your own dreams come true.

Choosing Life

Have you ever wondered how to escape from depression? Or indeed, how to help someone escape from such a prison? This book finally opens up the doors to a mysterious world that an outsider cannot normally experience. Up until now, there existed an almost unbridgeable gap between the ‘normal’ world and the ‘depressed person’s’ world. Using a personable and honest narrative, the text provides a unique window of experiential understanding, whereby the sufferer can feel truly helped, and no longer alone; by accompanying someone who has really been there too.

Using a unique approach, interweaving three different strategies comprising hard-won personal experience, a practical cognitive tool-kit that works and God’s living word full of wisdom and truth, the author sign-posts for the reader the pathway towards a real and lasting freedom; a freedom which sometimes challenges our worldly notions of life and success that tend to keep us imprisoned and enslaved.

The book is a powerful and inspiring portrayal of upheaval and renewal, demonstrating to the reader that a strong backbone for life can come from an often overlooked source.

Come Follow Me

I suggest you do not read this book so much; allow what you find between these pages to become a part of who you are as a pilgrim on the way to the Eternal City where God lives amongst us, the same way God does here below, in the daily “stuff” of our lives at this very moment in time. For I believe the Eternal City can be found here, today; not in a distant future, after we die. I believe it can be found when we live with forgiveness and mercy, love and compassion, as Jesus came to show us how, as the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Courage to Face Long Loss

Being with a loved one through a degenerative illness or disease takes us on a journey that requires courage. Rather than an immediate singular loss, we experience ‘long loss’ which includes multiple losses and changes over time. Long loss requires us to face, endure, and adapt to what is happening. Written from a personal perspective of supporting older parents with vascular dementia and episodic delirium, this book defines and applies courage to manage this form of loss.

Included is the wisdom of older adults from Christchurch, Aotearoa, New Zealand, who took part in the author’s doctoral study into courage. Their life experiences in managing adversity, from coping with a bombing in World War II to surviving domestic violence, illustrate courage, grit and resilience – and how to put these into action. Through the sharing of personal insights and knowledge, this book supports the application of inner strength and courage to help stay the course when experiencing the long loss of a loved one.

Divine Communication

Divine Communication is about Julia's experiences in helping people on many levels, including communication between a person and their loved ones in the spirit world. She tells the reader about the strange happenings in her own home and about the spirit who had been stuck there for many centuries. She describes personal cases of deep healings, both physical and emotional, and many cases of healing animals and birds. She has described the miracle of how her beautiful horse Tammy was healed of four broken bones in her leg after a road accident. Included are cases of helping spirits to pass into the light and clearing homes of negative energies. This includes a huge undertaking to help more than 200 spirits from a 5^th-century battleground in a village in Devon to pass over. She describes her own spiritual crisis, visions of the spirit world, nature spirits and some very interesting experiences in Glastonbury, Somerset.

Don't Expect a Standing Ovation

How shall I lead my life? What will bring me happiness (and can I possibly know this in advance)? Where do my ethical values, feelings and opinions come from? How do I know if I really understand something, or are my judgements always just opinions? Should I be optimistic or pessimistic about ‘human nature’ – including my own, of course? Finally, are there any ‘objective’ answers to all of this or is any answer always as good as any other?

If such questions seem important to you personally, then this book is written for you. Its focus is precisely on methods for understanding better the nature of our experience, behaving more ethically and with greater emotional awareness.

Don’t Expect a Standing Ovation is a reworking in contemporary terms of an ancient Buddhist teaching on meditation, but it is intended for readers of any ‘faith’ (or none), i.e., for anyone who is open to meditation as a possibly helpful practical response to the sense of unease arising from the questions listed above. Buddhist teachings are, therefore, introduced not as a ‘religion’ but as a combination of psychological, ethical and philosophical ideas that are nevertheless in themselves not unfamiliar.

The teaching consists of fifty-nine slogans or maxims, which taken together form a practical handbook of guidance in responding skilfully (and indeed, therefore, ‘wisely’) in our everyday interactions with others.

Double Deuce

This is a book on merging different aspects of man into a single whole. There is formula, a code for how this is done. People have called it Da-Vinci code, a secret or simply a code.

The code is your key, every man’s key to health wealth and happiness. It is a formula for achieving wholeness. As a formula it states that if a is to b is as c is to d and this comes to 1.6, then b is equal to c. Many people think that they know this, maybe they know it but they do not understand it.

If you want to understand it, if you do read this book with an open heart and mind then like Archimedes you soon will exclaim, ‘Eureka!’ (I get it). Welcome to the club.  

Equation to Confidence

Has fear ever held you back from doing something you always wanted to do? Have you ever talked yourself out of doing something, giving yourself lots of excuses why not to do it?  Have you ever wished you were more confident? More assertive?

This book provides the answers to how to free yourself. It provides the equation to confidence! If you are determined to be more confident, more assertive and learn about yourself along the way, then this book is for you. This is a book for life – as every day is a day to learn something new about yourself. So, take this book with you wherever you go, make notes in it, and use it daily.

Trust the process… I promise you it’s worth it! You will be the best thing you have ever worked on!

Everything I Need to Know About Life I Learned from My Houseplants

Life is a journey and finding our place in that life can feel overwhelming. Who am I? Where do I belong? How do I cultivate a life that makes my heart happy?

“He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.” ― Lao Tzu

While there are many books written on self-discovery, Everything I Need to Know About Life I Learned from My Houseplants is unique in its approach by using the growth cycle and care of houseplants to impart wisdom and essential life lessons for living an authentic life.

Throughout the book, the author’s own journey of personal growth unfolds alongside practical information and care tips for raising happy, healthy houseplants. While this little book tackles some tough topics, such as her struggle with depression and experience in an abusive relationship, it is done with a lightness and humour that makes you feel like you’ve known the author for years.

This book will leave you feeling inspired and ready to change and improve your own life, as well as those of your houseplants.

Fallen Through The Cracks

Press your chin hard against your throat. Now turn your head to the left and lift your left shoulder until it touches your ear. Keep your chin against your throat, your left ear against your left shoulder, contract your neck and shoulder muscles as tightly as you can and hold it like that for the rest of your life. That’s right. Eat like that, brush your teeth like that, drive like that and keep your head like that when you go to sleep at night.

This is what psychiatrists in South Africa did to me and they expect me to live like that for the rest of my life.

Get OVA It!

Good Fat Lip Smack Diet

This book is a practical, informative approach to “begin your journey” into weight loss. The idea of “good fats” as opposed to the unhealthy and detrimental “saturated fats” sets this method apart from the rest.

Other dieting methods are critically evaluated and exercise routines are covered briefly. There is a worldwide pandemic of obesity in developed and some developing countries.

Sugar is the killer!