Tough Transitions: Navigating Your Way Through Difficult Times

Neeld, a consultant to Fortune 500 companies and a former professor at Texas A&M, offers useful guidance on handling difficult life passages, like divorce, illness and the death of a parent or spouse. She also includes transitions that blend joy and challenge, such as retirement, the birth of a child or a desired career change. Her program is well thought out, incorporating four steps—responding, reviewing, renewing and reorganizing—illustrated by inspiring personal testimonies (including her own). For instance, in responding, which means handling emotional swings, the author recommends, among other things, slowing down and seeking the help of a professional. After emotions have subsided, it's time to review by exploring hopeful possibilities, and reorganizing means beginning to find a new sense of purpose. This stage flows directly into renewing, a period of new creativity and celebrating a stronger self. Throughout each stage, Neeld (Seven Choices: Finding Daylight After Loss Shatters Your World ) strongly advocates listening to music as an escape, an aid to meditation or simply a soothing activity (she even recommends specific works for particular needs). Neeld's wise advice will help many through life's inevitable transitions. Agent, Chris Tomasino. (June 15)