Finding Your Purpose: A Guidebook to a More Meaningful Life

by Cindi Saj, Christa Smith

Overview

Do you feel as though you're spinning your wheels, trying to find your place in the world? Finding Your Purpose is a practical journey toward finding out who you are, what brings you happiness and meaning to your life. Once you've identified t...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781038300225
Publisher:	FriesenPress
Publication date:	02/06/2024
Pages:	174
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.63(d)

About the Author

Dr. Cindi Saj is the co-founder of Guidebook Consulting. Dr. Cindi works by supporting clients in their journey of self-discovery, by helping them uncover their unique strengths, values, and aspirations. She has experience in both rural and urban settings working with individuals with a diverse range of issues, such as anxiety, depression, trauma, low self-esteem, criminality, abuse, anger management, impulsivity, suicidality, substance, and dependency/concurrent disorders. She is trained as a graduate with a Doctorate degree from University of Manitoba, Master of Social Work from Lakehead University and Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Simon Fraser University. Dr. Cindi also has additional extensive training in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Indigenous Focused Oriented Therapy (IFOT), Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR), Interpersonal Therapy (IPT), Yoga for Trauma Recover and other expressive art therapies. She has a strong foundation in Positive Psychology and Humanistic approach to therapy, such as Person-Centered, Gestalt and Adlerian psychology. Dr. Cindi is also a University Instructor at Yorkville University and Thompson Rivers University which supports her passion for learning and teaching by helping others to becoming clinical counsellors and social workers. She is passionate about making the world a better place.

Christa Smith is also the co-founder of Guidebook Consulting. She is also an executive director of a social agency and has spent the last 20 years in leadership. She has a Master's degree in Counseling Psychology and a Master's in Business Administration along with a Bachelor's in Social work. Her passion is helping people within systems to be stronger and more resilient and thrive throughout every element of their lives, from the personal to the professional.

Dr. Cindi and Christa both live in Williams Lake, British Columbia. Together, they created Guidebook Consulting which specializes in individual and group psychotherapy, motivational workshops, and seminars.

Editorial Reviews

2024-03-14
Consultants Saj and Smith present cognitive behavioral therapy techniques for those seeking more meaning in their life.

The authors write that having a firm sense of purpose bestows many benefits, including longevity, better health, more rewarding relationships, and greater happiness. However, finding one’s purpose isn’t easy. People are accustomed to looking outward for answers and seeking gratification through social media or consumption. Saj and Smith aims to show such searchers ways to take a more active role in finding their reason for being, pointing out, “You are the expert of you.” Their guidebook uses techniques of cognitive behavioral therapy, employing the “cognitive triangle” as an illustration of how it functions: The tip of the triangle is thought, and the bottom two vertices are behavior and emotion. They’re all interconnected, the authors write, and an improvement in one area helps to strengthen the others. To foster positive thinking, the authors suggest creating a vision board of images that personally resonate, and taking pride in what one sees as defining character traits. One may acknowledge unhelpful thoughts, they write, but one can reframe them or visualize them as floating harmlessly away. They also show how one can get in touch with one’s emotions by cultivating awareness of them. Techniques include identifying feelings on an emotional awareness wheel or creatively assigning colors to emotions and adding them into a “cup-o-feelings” drawing. The authors also helpfully show how to build an action plan with clear-cut steps to take toward one’s end goal. Overall, Saj and Smith’s book is clearly written and down-to-earth in tone. It unquestionably covers similar ground as many other self-help books, but it may appeal to those who eschew more spiritual self-help methods and are unfamiliar with CBT. Its goal appears to be to win over skeptical readers, and it provides extensive references to that end. The authors occasionally insert a few accounts of their own personal experiences, but they generally stay in the background, giving CBT principles a starring role.

An appealingly manageable and practical self-help book.

Kirkus Reviews