Books

A classic book on the art of building and nurturing long-lasting love, The Hard Questions is the perfect gift for wedding showers and anniversaries, for anyone considering a committed relationship, and for couples who want to reconnect.

Marriage is about more than loving each other, it’s about creating a life together that you both love. What do you know about how each views your shared life? What have you shared and what are you holding back? In this simple yet profound relationship tool, Susan Piver shows couples at any stage of their relationship–be they newly engaged or married for decades–how they can forge and strengthen lasting, intimate bonds. Focusing on key areas such as home, money, work, community, and family, The Hard Questions contains over 130 thought-provoking questions that challenge and inspire couples to gain a deeper understanding of each other. This revised edition contains new questions about social media, political ideology, and societal concerns. Meant for straight or LGBTQ+ couples and those from similar or mixed cultural backgrounds.

To apply a Buddhist viewpoint to relationships is eye-opening. It points to a radically different worldview, one that runs counter to the spirit of much of the conventional advice we receive.

Broken hearts, resentment, affairs, divorce. Why is it so hard to make relationships work? New York Times bestselling author and mindfulness expert Susan Piver applies classic Buddhist wisdom to modern romance, including her own long-term relationship, to show that ancient philosophies have timeless—and unexpected—wisdom on how to love.

The Four Noble Truths of Love will challenge the expectations you have about dating, sex, and romance, liberating you from the habits, traumas, and expectations that have been holding back your relationships. This mindful approach toward love will help you open your heart fearlessly, deepen communications with your partner, increase your compassion and resilience, and lead you toward a path of true happiness. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain: expansive, real love for yourself and others.

If you want to meditate but have no idea where to start, this book will help you: it contains everything you need to know to start a meditation practice and, even more importantly, to continue one. It defines what meditation is (and what it is not), offers tips for making the practice a part of your life, dispels the most common misconceptions, describes the obstacles we all face and how to navigate them, and addresses the most frequently asked questions.

Piver gives a concise overview of the various popular styles of Buddhist meditation and offers suggestions on how to explore them further. Most important, this book contains specific, concrete steps for beginning your own meditation practice in a stress-free, dogma-free, jargon-free way.

Also available from IndieBound and Barnes & Noble.

When a relationship ends, the anguish and disappointment can be devastating. A broken heart is genuinely traumatic. Typical recommendations to keep busy, move on, repair your hidden flaws, and then forget about it may not be helpful. In these pages, Susan Piver reveals that heartbreak actually creates an opportunity for genuine emotional and spiritual transformation, enabling you to emerge on the other side stronger, softer, and capable of loving with renewed confidence.

In the years following her own experience, relationship writer Susan Piver searched the world’s wisdom traditions and discovered that heartbreak can be an uncompromising teacher of authenticity, power, and even joy. She shares that wisdom here, with instantaneously recognizable anecdotes, insights, on-the-spot practices, exercises, meditations, and down-to-earth advice that make The Wisdom of a Broken Heart a steadying prescription of solace and encouragement, wisdom and humor during the hardest time of your life. Like an infinitely patient, trusted friend, Piver tells you in a thousand different ways the most important thing to remember and the easiest to forget: “You’re going to be okay.”

From the Introduction:

Fear can be conquered. We can meet any situation, important or trivial, old or new, surprising or predictable, with self-confidence, gentleness, and elegance. And we don’t have to change one thing about ourselves to do so. In fact, we already possess all the courage we’ll ever need, and it, not fear, can animate the way we think about ourselves, others, and the world. The ancient practice of meditation can show us how.

The classic New York Times best seller that introduced the notion of discussing marriage (not just the wedding) to hundreds of thousands of engaged couples.

“I ordered this book based on seeing Susan Piver on “Oprah”. Although I didn’t question my love, communication with my husband needed some “work”, so I thought this book could be helpful. I was extraordinarily surprised by the results. My first surprise was that my husband was so willing and eager to participate in this. My second surprise was some of the answers and information we exchanged. Some of the simpler questions that I thought would be one word answers, led to deep discussions. There is no question but that this book has been extremely helpful to us. Even without the book to guide us, we now find the exchange of honest and open conversation much easier. “The Hard Questions” is a good book!!! “ (A Customer, Amazon)