Intentional Living: Lessons from the Tree of Life

Linda Abbott Trapp, PhD
BookeSurge Publishing (2008)
ISBN 9781419686177
Reviewed by Sandra M. Webster for Reader Views (8/08)

Thoughts cause emotions. Emotions generate behaviors. How we behave leads to consequences, either good or bad, and it affects everyone. Learning and understanding why we think the way we do and how to sometimes change that way of thinking results in “Intentional Living.”

Linda Abbott Trapp, PhD, author of “Intentional Living: Lessons from the Tree of Life,” uses the Ceiba tree from the ancient Mayan culture to show how the chain of behavior links our “ideas and thoughts through emotion, action and consequences, to possibly even produce the reward of fruit.”  Each part of the tree is important from the roots designating “stability and nourishment.” to the crown which signifies our thoughts.

The author illustrates how we are all products of out environment. Race, gender, age, personality and religion are only part of what shapes us and how we think. Other factors also are influential and sometimes those factors can lead to negative thought patterns. We must learn to take responsibility for our own actions.

How to analyze our behavior, understand it and understand what we must do to change it, as well as how to set goals are all detailed in simple steps that are easy to understand and implement by anyone with the desire to change.

As a former Dean at the California School of Professional Psychology, Linda Abbott Trapp has years of experience studying and understanding what makes us tick. She is the author of six other books and has written numerous columns and articles in psychology, business, ecotourism, gardening and the arts.

In this very perceptive study of human behavior and its destructive patterns, Doctor Abbott provides advice on recognizing and changing behaviors that are harmful, and may be keeping us from living a stress-free, fulfilling life to be proud of. In “Intentional Living,” she shows why our current way of thinking has developed and how to take the steps necessary to revise it. This process of change not only benefits us, but others around us and the rewards are metaphorized as the fruits of the tree of life. Whether your fruit is sweet or sour is up to you!

 

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