Concise messages packed with meaning that can be readily applied using well-crafted self-assessment questions.
A debut self-help workbook focuses on balancing the mind, body, and soul.
The goal of Morgan Duzoglou and Robert Duzoglou in this manual is to offer readers greater clarity, direction, and control in their life odysseys. The first realm they cover is the mind, encouraging people to identify their positive and negative thought processes and analyze their effects. By becoming more aware of thoughts and values, readers can turn their minds into powerful tools as they journey through life. The second topic the authors discuss is the body. They emphasize the amazing things that the body is capable of doing and suggest ways to amplify its energy, such as meditating and recognizing the center of energy. Finally, they expound on the soul, helping readers identify “soul experiences,” unexplainable moments of connection with God and others. Embracing the idea that “what you measure you can manage,” the authors include several useful “checkpoints” throughout the book that provide deep self-assessment questions and space to record answers. For example, “Write down one predominant thought that repeats itself daily. Try to get to the root of this thought.” Most chapters also have a “Caution Bubble” of something to watch out for, like the warning to stay away from paths “fueled by selfish or egotistical needs.” The brevity of the authors’ insights makes their advice very easy to comprehend and remember, even when exploring abstract concepts like the soul. Creative wordplay also makes the lessons memorable, such as using the word “in-sight” to describe the discernment of thought processes because “your mind is quite literally in sight.” Most of the wordplay is natural and illuminating (for example, “in-sight” and “limit-less”), but some examples seem stretched beyond obvious interpretation (“come-pass” and “identi-fly”). The book is evenly balanced between reading material and writing opportunities, and the self-assessment questions are creative, enlightening, and highly beneficial. This guide is an excellent resource for getting to know yourself holistically through examining and improving the mind, body, and soul.
Concise messages packed with meaning that can be readily applied using well-crafted self-assessment questions.Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5043-9909-8
Page Count: 108
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal freedom.
In her third book, Doyle (Love Warrior, 2016, etc.) begins with a life-changing event. “Four years ago,” she writes, “married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.” That woman, Abby Wambach, would become her wife. Emblematically arranged into three sections—“Caged,” “Keys,” “Freedom”—the narrative offers, among other elements, vignettes about the soulful author’s girlhood, when she was bulimic and felt like a zoo animal, a “caged girl made for wide-open skies.” She followed the path that seemed right and appropriate based on her Catholic upbringing and adolescent conditioning. After a downward spiral into “drinking, drugging, and purging,” Doyle found sobriety and the authentic self she’d been suppressing. Still, there was trouble: Straining an already troubled marriage was her husband’s infidelity, which eventually led to life-altering choices and the discovery of a love she’d never experienced before. Throughout the book, Doyle remains open and candid, whether she’s admitting to rigging a high school homecoming court election or denouncing the doting perfectionism of “cream cheese parenting,” which is about “giving your children the best of everything.” The author’s fears and concerns are often mirrored by real-world issues: gender roles and bias, white privilege, racism, and religion-fueled homophobia and hypocrisy. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using friends and familial references to personify their impact on her life, both past and present. Shorter pieces, some only a page in length, manage to effectively translate an emotional gut punch, as when Doyle’s therapist called her blooming extramarital lesbian love a “dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, the narrative is an in-depth look at a courageous woman eager to share the wealth of her experiences by embracing vulnerability and reclaiming her inner strength and resiliency.
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0125-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A vibrant, encouraging depiction of a sinister disorder.
A British novelist turns to autobiography to report the manifold symptoms and management of his debilitating disease, depression.
Clever author Haig (The Humans, 2013, etc.) writes brief, episodic vignettes, not of a tranquil life but of an existence of unbearable, unsustainable melancholy. Throughout his story, presented in bits frequently less than a page long (e.g., “Things you think during your 1,000th panic attack”), the author considers phases he describes in turn as Falling, Landing, Rising, Living, and, finally, simply Being with spells of depression. Haig lists markers of his unseen disease, including adolescent angst, pain, continual dread, inability to speak, hypochondria, and insomnia. He describes his frequent panic attacks and near-constant anhedonia, the inability to experience pleasure. Haig also assesses the efficacy of neuroscience, yoga, St. John’s wort, exercise, pharmaceuticals, silence, talking, walking, running, staying put, and working up the courage to do even the most seemingly mundane of tasks, like visiting the village store. Best for the author were reading, writing, and the frequent dispensing of kindnesses and love. He acknowledges particularly his debt to his then-girlfriend, now-wife. After nearly 15 years, Haig is doing better. He appreciates being alive and savors the miracle of existence. His writing is infectious though sometimes facile—and grammarians may be upset with the writer’s occasional confusion of the nominative and objective cases of personal pronouns. Less tidy and more eclectic than William Styron’s equally brief, iconic Darkness Visible, Haig’s book provides unobjectionable advice that will offer some help and succor to those who experience depression and other related illnesses. For families and friends of the afflicted, Haig’s book, like Styron’s, will provide understanding and support.
A vibrant, encouraging depiction of a sinister disorder.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-14-312872-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
SEEN & HEARD
Readers Donate Depression Book After Star Suicide
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