‘Corsets and Romance: Rediscover Passion, and Master the Art of Attracting Love’ is set for a new marketing campaign

HALIFAX, NS, Oct. 3, 2023 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Lynn Sorge, PhD, wants to help those who become so unhappy in their relationship that even if they do recognize the cause, they have no idea of how to repair it, and where to begin. She also wants to help those who do not have a soul mate or loving partner in their lives, and are suffering from loneliness by laying out the means to find a partner without going online at all, instead drawing upon everyday occurrences to meet and get to know that someone special.

In “Corsets and Romance: Rediscover Passion, and Master the Art of Attracting Love”(published by Balboa Press in August 2022), Sorge presents a two-part story and guide that helps couples rediscover passion and romance, and leads singles of all ages to find lasting love. This book is divided into two parts. The first is a fictional account of a married couple who have lost their passion for each other, the problems within their relationship which this has caused, and the extreme lengths to which one of them goes to solve the problem. The second, non-fiction, is a step-by-step guide aimed at those who have not been successful at finding a loving partner, and succinctly lays out the steps one can take to find that special someone without using a dating site.

“Currently, we are living in a fragmented society where many of us live and communicate mainly online. In-person relationships appear to be becoming a thing of the past, and consequently, it is easy to become lonely and to feel isolated. Many of us miss touching and being touched by another human, and have become so accepting of our aloneness that we do not even realize something is missing from our lives,” Sorge says. “This book is intended to be an antidote to our solitude and sense of isolation. It is all encompassing in that it lays out and provides a practical and immediate solution to those in relationships where the passion that once existed has gone missing, while also providing a plan, including its practical application, for finding someone anew with whom to fall in love.”

When asked what she wants readers to take away from the book, Sorge answered, “I want them to realize that, regardless of how hopeless they feel their situation might be, there is always a solution to whatever challenge they might be facing. With a bit of creativity, honest communication, and the will to succeed, problems arising within an already-existing relationship can be solved. For those who have been unsuccessful at finding love, there is every possibility that employing suggestions from the tried and true blueprint offered in the book will very likely lead them to finding love and happiness with the person of their dreams. I also want them to understand that applying many of the concepts outlined in the book are applicable not only to their love lives, but also to many unrelated challenges they might face in their lives.” For more details about the book, please visit https://www.balboapress.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/813771-corsets-and-romance

“Corsets and Romance: Rediscover Passion, and Master the Art of Attracting Love”
By Lynn Sorge, PhD
Hardcover | 5.5 x 8.5in | 142 pages | ISBN 9781982272722
Softcover | 5.5 x 8.5in | 142 pages | ISBN 9781982272708
E-Book | 142 pages | ISBN 9781982272715
Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

About the Author
Lynn Sorge, PhD, earned a BA from Dalhousie University, an MA from New York University, and a doctorate from Oxford Brookes University. She had a tenured position at Dalhousie University in the costume studies program for four decades, followed by an adjunct position in the faculty of graduate studies. This is her second book.

Balboa Press, a division of Hay House, Inc. – a leading provider in publishing products that specialize in self-help and the mind, body, and spirit genres. Through an alliance with the worldwide self-publishing leader Author Solutions, LLC, authors benefit from the leadership of Hay House Publishing and the speed-to-market advantages of the self-publishing model. For more information, visit balboapress.com. To start publishing your book with Balboa Press, call 844-682-1282 today.

Media Contact

Marketing Services, BalboaPress, 844-682-1282, [email protected], www.balboapress.com

SOURCE Balboa Press

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Reading for enjoyment is not a frivolous pursuit but rather a means of enriching one’s life, broadening horizons and providing much-needed escapism.

For students who feel that reading is a dry exercise in information absorption, fiction can be a revelation. It offers a world of imagination and creativity, providing a break from the rigors of textbooks and exams. It invites readers to dream, to explore the uncharted and to unleash their own creativity. However, fiction reading is often brushed aside as something non-productive, particularly when compared to nonfiction such as self-help and textbooks. Many students often view reading as an academic chore or a means to acquire knowledge. While non-fiction certainly has its merits, fiction can spark a newfound passion for reading in those who might otherwise steer clear of it.

Before 2020, avid readers were rare, but when we were isolated during the pandemic, book sales boomed. Many individuals sought solace in the pages of fiction, turning reading into a common pastime—in 2020, consumer spending on recreational reading increased 22.9%. In 2023, however, there is now a decline in book sales, and its popularity lessens once more. In a world that often feels overwhelmed by relentless digital distractions and world affairs, opening the pages of a fantasy or romance novel may appear to be a waste of time. But the truth is that fiction offers a much-needed mental sanctuary. It encourages mindfulness, allowing readers to disconnect from the constant stream of notifications and news to enter worlds and meet characters they love.

Fiction offers a unique blend of entertainment, escape and enlightenment; it enables readers to empathize with characters, to walk in their shoes and see the world through diverse lenses. It prompts readers to analyze characters’ motivations, decipher complex plots and ponder the moral dilemmas presented within the story. Readers who engage with words often become more familiar with writing techniques and become better writers. These analytical skills are transferable to academic pursuits and can enhance students’ comprehension and critical reasoning abilities.

But perhaps the escape aspect holds the most allure. Just like self-care is essential to productivity, books that provide fictional escapism are as valuable as any nonfiction book. Maybe you are a lonely college student missing the comfort of old friendships, and want a fantastical escape. You can find solace in the found family trope in “Six of Crows” by Leigh Bardugo. Perhaps you’re grappling with an existential relationship crisis and want a comforting romance — read “Beach Read”by Emily Henry. If in need of romanticized academia to motivate your studies, pick up “The Secret History”by Donna Tartt. There are endless options for just about any mood. But bear in mind that each book has vastly different characters, pacing and literary complexity, even within the same genre. Not enjoying one book doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy another—in fact, finding what you don’tlike will steer you in the direction of what you will love.

The books you read don’t have to be renowned classics with literary awards. Sometimes re-reading the Percy Jackson or Harry Potter series can be just enough to kickstart your mental endurance, allowing you to segue into other novels and genres afterwards. Tastes can vary; some prefer high concept, complex science fiction and fantasy, others prefer simple, swoony romances and others prefer contemporary realism. Many readers prefer to read across numerous genres. As you read more, trying different fiction genres from literary to fantastical, you will be able to discover your taste to better help you when choosing your next read. You will gain the ability to identify not only the genres that you enjoy but the character types, tropes and settings that bring you the true weightlessness of being lost in a book.

Despite the recent ebb in book sales, book culture in 2023 is still a reader’s dream, for books are more accessible than ever. Until 2020, online social media communities like BookTok and Bookstagram were barely blips on the radar, but today they are cultural phenomena, allowing readers both new and seasoned to find a favorite read with a quick search. While the aisles of bookstores can be daunting to even an avid reader, there are even BookTok tables in Barnes and Noble stores with the recent most popular reads and the titles currently appealing to new readers. This metamorphosis in the way we engage with literature is not only an easy door for new readers to access books but a testament to the power of fiction. It showcases how stories, even imaginative, are necessities to our hearts and minds.

As bookstores like Barnes and Noble plan on opening new locations in the DFW area, including Richardson this fall, students have an opportunity to discover or rekindle their love for fiction. The presence of such stores not only provides access to endless novels but also fosters a sense of community among readers. Explore aisles of fantasy, contemporary and science fiction, among others, and perhaps even meet a new friend with recommendations in the process.

In the ever-changing landscape of our world, fiction is as necessary as any other book, nurturing creativity and strengthening critical thinking while offering an escape. Stop by a bookstore this week or when the new ones open and introduce yourself to the boundless universes of fiction. Whether you are new or long-since returning, within a book’s pages you will always be welcome.

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Mark Williams is Emeritus Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Oxford. He has spent many years researching how mindfulness can combat cycles of depression. He is also a bestselling author and co-developer of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT).

Dr. Danny Penman is a meditation teacher and the author of several books on mindfulness meditation, including the two-million-selling Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World, co-written with Mark Williams.

Below, Mark and Danny share 5 key insights from their new book, Deeper Mindfulness: The New Way to Rediscover Calm in a Chaotic World. Listen to the audio version—read by Mark and Danny—in the Next Big Idea App.

1. We’re stuck inside a personal simulation of the “real” world.

Every morning, a man walked his four dogs in the park. Three of them always darted about, barking happily, tails wagging with delight. The fourth seemed happy enough but would only ever run around in tight little circles (albeit covering quite a distance), staying close to the man as he walked. Day after day, the parkkeeper watched the dog’s strange behavior. After a while, the keeper plucked up the courage to ask the man why his dog was behaving so oddly.

“Ah,” the man replied. “She’s a rescue dog. She was locked up for most of her life. That was the size of her cage.”

How often have you behaved like that dog? Free, but constantly running around in little mental circles. Free to be happy, yet caged by the same dark, repetitive thoughts. Free to be at peace with yourself and the world, while remaining trapped and entangled by anxiety, stress, unhappiness, and exhaustion.

Free as a dog in a cage.

So much of life is needlessly marred by little tragedies. Deep down, we know that we can live happy and fulfilling lives, and yet something stops us. Just as life seems to be within our grasp, it slips through our fingers.

“We do not truly see the world; we see what our minds think the world is about to look like.”

What we regard as the present moment is actually a stunningly realistic illusion created by the mind—an illusion so compelling that we mistake it for reality. This is called a simulation and it relies upon a process known as predictive processing. Predictive processing works by constantly “guessing” what information the senses are about to send to the brain. We do not truly see the world; we see what our minds think the world is about to look like. Nor do we truly hear, but instead experience the sounds that the mind believes are about to hit our ears. The same is true for other senses. The mind predicts what we are about to taste, feel, and smell. In practice, it is this prediction (or simulation) that we experience, rather than the “real” world.

This is a fantastically complex process, but a simple analogy helps: if you are talking about politics in the UK and someone mentions the Houses of P . . . you can guess what’s coming next (the word “Parliament”). Because you have predicted the word, you don’t need to listen to the word itself. You can instead use that moment to capture the meaning of the whole sentence. Such predictions make perception and responses more fluent because the world is normally predictable. We create predictions for all our senses simultaneously. We construct a global model that incorporates sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and sensations. This model is constantly updated and incorporates any deviations from the real external “reality”; we move through the world creating and updating—predicting and checking.

2. Mental distress can arise from an inaccurate simulation of the world.

The data from our senses is used predominantly to check the accuracy of the brain’s predictions. So, if you’re not paying attention, then these predictions can drift slowly away from “reality.” Much of our distress and mental ill-health can be seen as a simulation that is becoming increasingly less accurate.

We must be clear though, this idea of a simulation does not mean that if you feel anxious, stressed, depressed, or in pain you are in any way making up these feelings. You are truly feeling those things. What it means is that their origin and the mechanisms underpinning them are just different from what you may have believed.

3. An ancient practice can help your simulation regain its accuracy.

In the moment that the unconscious mind crystalizes into consciousness there is a very brief pause in which the mind senses—in a very simple way—whether something is pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. It’s not a judgment. It’s an acknowledgment of how something feels. In Sanskrit and Pali, spoken in the lands of ancient India and Nepal, this feeling was known as vedana, often translated as Feeling Tone.

These moments are fleeting but they are often the most important ones in your life. This is because vedana is the tipping point in your mind that sets the tone for the sequence of thoughts, feelings, and emotions that follow. If it is pleasant, you will tend to feel positive, dynamic, and in control of your life. If it is unpleasant, you will likely feel slightly gloomy, deflated, and powerless. If it is neutral, then you will tend to feel bored and restless.

Feeling tones only ever come in these three flavors. It’s like a gut feeling. It’s not a matter of thinking hard about it, or searching for it, it’s more like the taste of something; you just know it when you taste it. Like tasting milk that’s gone sour, you know it’s unpleasant without having to think about it.

“Alternative futures are available.”

The trouble is that we humans have a special difficulty when it comes to vedana: our mental life is so complex that we can become lost inside of it. Our thoughts, memories, and plans also carry feeling tones, and these trigger ever more thoughts and emotions, which also carry feeling tones. The vedana can easily tip you into a vicious downward spiral that can ruin your whole day, and sometimes far, far longer.

Learning to sense the feeling tone teaches you to recognize your underlying state of mind and helps you make allowances for your sensitivities and entirely natural biases and reactions. It gives you space to respond rather than react. It helps you compassionately accept that although you might be anxious, stressed, angry, or depressed in this moment, this is not the totality of your life. You can change course. Alternative futures are available.

Tapping into an alternative future is as simple as sensing the underlying flow of feeling tones. This idea is common to many ancient traditions. And now, neuroscience agrees.

4. Mental health problems have their origins in the deepest reaches of our evolution.

Feeling tones rely on sensitivities built into every cell of our bodies from the earliest days of our evolution. Even single-celled creatures are sensitive to both nutrients and toxins. It allows them to distinguish between one and the other. This is the essence of vedana. It helps all living beings distinguish between the things that they should move towards (pleasant) and those that they should move away from (unpleasant) and encourages them to sit tight if everything is fine (neutral). Without such sensitivity, they would be like a boat without a rudder, with nothing to steer them away from danger and towards a friendly port.

In countless ways, vedana marks the difference between life and mere machinery. But our mental life is so complex that we can become lost inside of it. Our thoughts, memories, and plans can compel us to flee from our own minds.

And while we can flee, we can never escape.

This is the origin of much mental distress: the sense of being trapped within ourselves, destined to forever re-live our own distress, just like that dog in the story.

5. Meditating on feeling tones can relieve anxiety, stress, and depression.

Although vedana can make our lives very difficult, it can also be our salvation. Much mental distress can be gently relieved by learning to pay attention to our feeling tones in a special way.

Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) and mindfulness-based therapies such as MBCT teach people how to “see” their thoughts, feelings, and emotions as if from the outside looking in. Negativity feels less personal. Distressing states of mind become seen as a stream of mental events. You can then learn to watch this sequence of mental events as if it were a stream flowing past you, with you watching with curiosity from the bank.

“It is possible to learn to pay attention to the moment-to-moment rise and fall of your feeling tones.”

In this way, such therapies enhance perspective and dissolve and dilute negative thoughts, feelings, and emotions—but they can only do this after they have first appeared in the mind and, crucially, begun to trigger other thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

But what if you could stop distressing states before they appear? What if you could go upstream to the moment just before they crystalized in your mind and gained momentum? Before the little stream of thoughts had turned into a raging torrent? If you could do this, then it would be far easier to “de-center” from your negative states of mind and your mental tangles would begin to unfurl, all by themselves.

It is possible to learn to pay attention to the moment-to-moment rise and fall of your feeling tones. It is possible to sense the moment just before your negative thoughts, feelings, and emotions appear. Before you slide into a vicious downward spiral.

Feeling tone meditations teach this skill. They are a way of recalibrating your simulation and the mental models it relies upon, of reconnecting with life at its most basic and profound level. Despite its ups and downs, the mind has the potential to be re-set to bring it ever closer to its natural state of quiet contentment.

To listen to the audio version read by co-authors Mark Williams and Danny Penman, download the Next Big Idea App today:

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