Restlessness is your first clue. Discontent can creep into your life, making you feel uncomfortable, as if sitting too long in a cramped space. It can make you grumpy and put you in a bad mood. It can dampen your spirit and make you feel sluggish, dissociated, and disinterested. Yet you can use it to change your life. Instructions for Your Discontent is an inspiring guide to making discontent the driving force for change in your life. A practical handbook for using bad times to make life better, Instructions for Your Discontent deals with the feeling that we all have from time to time: something is wrong, but we don't know quite what it is. Supportive and refreshingly honest, Barrie Dolnick, author of the extremely successful Simple Spells books, identifies that feeling as discontent and urges us to respect it, rather than ignore it. Discontent is an intensely creative state, she says. It nags and pokes us to get ourselves going and to accomplish what we really want in life. It's trying to tell us something and we need to listen. Covering all aspects of life, Instructions for Your Discontent exploresrelationships, love, jobs, money, family, self-worth, anger, and time. This captivating and thought-provoking book provides creative and sensible instructions to guide you through the challenges, anxieties, and fears that interrupt your life and cause you unhappiness. Instructions for Your Discontent offers accessible, intelligent advice for weeding through the downers and moving beyond a life that is just okay. Enjoy examining your discontent and being happy again. Barrie Dolnick is the author of several books, including Sexual Bewitchery and How to Write a Love Letter . She is also a high-profile consultant whose company, Executive Mystic Services, uses alternative information techniques, including tarot cards, astrology, and meditation, to guide clients to fulfill their potential. She lives in New York City with her husband and daughter. Discontent: The Initiation Restlessness is your first clue. Discontent can creep into your life, making you feel uncomfortable, as if sitting too long in a cramped space. Initially, discontent can make you grumpy and coax you into a bad mood. Later, as discontent settles more permanently into your routine (I hate my job, I'm so lonely, I can't get ahead), you feel much more sour about your life and your future. Discontent is heavy. It dampens your spirit and whites out your hope. Discontent can make you feel sluggish, dissociated, disinterested, even disabled. Discontent starts with a single facet of your life, but left unchecked, it can eventually overwhelm your entire life. This isn't depression -- you are functioning pretty well and you're not sad -- but you're definitely not happy either. You just can't seem to get comfortable. Discontent comes in many guises and for all occasions. It's epidemic and unique, mutable and fixed, relentless and forgiving. Discontent appears to be an enemy of all that is good in your life, and when it leaves, you're grateful -- not only for finally feeling good again, but because you feel even better than you did before. You're more solid and more confident. Now you're able to create even more happiness. Discontent strips you to your most vulnerable to reveal to you your strength. It wrestles you to the ground until you yell "Uncle!" and surrender to its grasp. No matter how happy you think you are, if you're getting fidgety, you're coming down with a case of discontent. Here are some common symptoms. Dragging out of bed every morning. Increased cravings for coffee, sugar, binge foods, or alcohol. Decreased interest in pleasures. Too much TV. Putting on weight. Laughing less -- especially at yourself. Calling all glasses "half-empty." Looking for approval from anyone who can give it. Often using the term "It's not fair." Putting yourself down. Putting others down. Constantly being asked "What's wrong?" Feeling overlooked, unappreciated. Feeling tired even when you're rested. Feeling as if your life is in someone else's hands. Lying because you're afraid that truth isn't good enough. Being suspicious of others. Losing your temper. Listen to the rumbles beneath your daily life. As you face your unique race against time, tasks, and the demands of a job and family and your life, take a moment to pay attention to your underlying feelings. If you do, you may notice that discontent is often there, growling from a corner of your psyche through the peaceful moments. It may emerge during a traffic jam, or after a phone call from a friend. It may jab at you during unguarded, undistracted moments so that in a split second your composure, your peace of mind, and your mood all deteriorate. I'm a perfect example. While I have most of what I've always wanted in life -- my husband, my child, work I love, and the health of my loved ones -- I'm still prone to ignoring the claws of discontent. I like to keep things moving. I