The Way of the Happy Woman written by Sara Avant Stover
About the Book
Our ancestors adhered to the daily, seasonal, and yearly rhythms of nature by necessity, but modern life overrides these cycles, compromising women’s health and happiness.
In this book, Sara Avant Stover shows how simple, natural, and refreshingly accessible practices can minimize stress and put us back in sync with our own cycles and those of nature. When we honor spring’s seedlings, summer’s vibrancy, fall’s harvest, and winter’s quietude, we harmonize our inner and outer worlds.
Sara’s suggestions nurture the body, invigorate the mind, and lift the spirit. Illustrated yin and yang yoga sequences, one-day season-specific retreats, enticing recipes, and innovative self-reflection techniques make it easy to reconnect with the essential.
Sara Avant Stover is a yogini, inspirational speaker, teacher, mentor, and author of the best-selling book The Way of the Happy Woman.
Sara graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from Columbia University’s all-women’s school, Barnard College. After a cancer scare in her early twenties, Sara moved to Thailand, where she embarked on a decade-long healing and spiritual odyssey throughout Asia. She became a certified yoga instructor, and went on to teach thousands of women in over a dozen countries, from United Arab Emirates to China and from Greece to Sweden.
Sara is a student of Sofia Diaz, Sarah Powers, and others. She has been practicing yoga, Buddhist meditation, and women’s work for fifteen years. She taught the first 200-hour yoga teacher training in Thailand and is the creator of the world’s first Women’s Yoga Teacher Training. A pioneer in merging modern women’s spirituality and lifestyle, she now teaches at centers such as Kripalu and Shambhala Mountain Center. Sara’s writing has been published in Yoga Journal, the Huffington Post, andYogi Times. She has also been featured in Newsweek, Natural Health, and on ABC, NBC, and CBS.
My Review
Have you ever read a book that truly made you reflect on the life you are living? That’s exactly how I felt when I read The Way of the Happy Woman. This remarkable book encourages women from all walks of life to live their lives to the fullest and to lift your mind, and spirit.
At the age of twenty-one, Sara Avant Stover (the author) was diagnosed with cervical dysplasia, precursor of cervical cancer. It was, she screamed inwardly, not fair–she was a runner, she practices yoga, she was vegan. How could something like this happen? Yet she knew that she was unhappy–sad, lonely, confused. She was bulemic, anorexic, and dominated by an inner tyrant who demanded she do more, do it better. When she asked the doctor what she could do, his answer was to wait three months.
Through a series of fortunate happenings, Stover was offered a teaching position in Thailand where she learned to face herself. Her Type A personality slowed down, and she was introduced to healing wisdom from several sources–traditional Chinese medicine, Buddhist medication, Ayurveda (traditional Indian medical system), massage, and natural detoxification programs. These Asian approaches to health dominate much of this book.
This is a book about every woman being able to make similar dramatic changes in her life, a book about taking care of yourself through meditation, yoga, prayer, and diet. Women, Stover reminds us, are traditional nurturers. We must learn to care for ourselves, just as we care for others.
The book is divided into four sections, one for each season of the year: Spring is for beginnings, summer for rejoicing, autumn for harvesting, and winter for listening. Each section contains extensive yoga poses and sequences, some philosophical suggestions, and lots of recipes which incorporated ingredients such as quinoa, hummus, cucumber water, split pea soup. In autumn, there is a concentration on root vegetables. Her diet suggestions are both gluten- and dairy-free. For most of us, these diet changes would require a dramatic change in the way we eat. Yet many would find, that such change makes a world of difference in well-being. And that’s what this book is about.
For many of us, being able to dramatically change the way we eat, exercise and see ourselves as contributing citizens would take a lot of hard work and dedication. I am not sure that my life has been changed forever after reading this book, but it is a read that I will definitely come back and visit once or twice in the future. With its illustrated yoga poses, inviting recipes, and innovative journaling, being able to reconnect with who you really are is a possibility. Don’t just dedicate a day, a weekend, or even a year – devote your life to bettering yourself and those who surround you.
To learn more about this book, you can visit the book’s website, the author’s website, follow the author on Twitter, and/or purchase it for yourself via Amazon.com.
Post published by Melissa Roach, our Product Review & Giveaway Specialist.
Melissa is a Full Time Mom & Blogger HERE (please check out her blog!)
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