Book: A Blueprint for Your Castle in the Clouds: make the inside of your head your favorite place to be by Barbara Sophia Tammes
Genre: Self-help
Publisher: Conari Press
Publication date: 2012
Pages: 157

Source: Purchased

I love the castle in the clouds in the metaphor and the subtitle

Summary: A picture book for adults, A Blueprint for Your Castle in the Clouds provides inspiration for how to live in your own head in ways that lead to an better outlook. Three “pre-fab” places get you started. The tree house felt particularly welcoming and cozy:

When you enter this space, you can feel clearly that you are part of something bigger–lifted and heightened, safe and protected, wise, closer to heaven, in touch with nature. Because of the grandeur and beauty around you, you can’t help but feel a deep respect for all that lives, including yourself. p. 25

Thoughts: With the pre-fab places ready to visit any time I wanted, the rest of the book helped me build my own castle in the clouds. Since I read this book to help with my resolution, Improve my mood, the Head Office has been particularly helpful. Here, I’m invited to file and re-file my emotions to figure out what is really going on — and I always end up with surprising answers! With the increased knowledge of the situation, I’m much better able to finally file it into an appropriate action folder or a save folder or even throw it in the recycling bin because I’m done.

The New Year proved to be the perfect time to start my Garden of Wishes where I planted seeds for things I want in 2015 underneath my Gratitude Tree where I daily add leaves describing what has gone well. Gratitude and wishes, it turns out, grow well together.

I’ve even started adding my own rooms. The Throne Room is where I go to remind myself who is really in charge of my life and that there is only one person I’m primarily responsible for — if I’m not queen of my own realm, there’s not much I can do for others. Next to the Throne Room is the Privy Council Chamber. This is a variation on Tammes’ Ballroom where you can meet and greet the parts of yourself. In my Privy Council Chamber, I meet with the parts of myself I’ve identified as particularly trustworthy for providing discussion that helps elevate my mood, meet my goals, and improve my life.

Appeal: A Blueprint for Your Castle in the Clouds by Barbara Sophia Tammes will appeal to anyone looking for an imaginative way to work with thoughts, feelings, and perceptions.

Reviews: I learned about this book when Ms. Bookish had it on her Reading Stack.

Challenges: This is my first book for this month’s New Year’s Resolution Reading Challenge. Three more to go — fortunately, I’ve got a start on all of them.

Can I count this as nonfiction? It’s very imaginative, but not a novel, so I guess it will be number 1 of the 16 nonfiction books I intend to read in 2015 for the Nonfiction Reading Challenge.

I’m going to count this as my title with a color (BLUEprint) for the What’s in a Name Challenge.

I’m also adding this post to the Small Victories link-up on Sunday at Mom’s Small Victories, because I think that group will like the charming and uplifting aspects of this book.

Have you read this book? What did you think?