I quite liked this book—it’s often mentioned in the same sentence as Eckhart Tolle’s books, but it’s the better read. There’s a few perennial lessons here; basically, they’re the meeting ground of a variety of religious traditions, as well as psychotherapy.

For one, you are not your thoughts. You’re the observer of your thoughts. Sometimes, it feels like my mind won’t shut up, and I associate those thoughts with me. I fall into this recursive rumination, and it’s exhausting. One thing mentioned here that I find useful is to imagine that it’s someone else talking to me. I still won’t be able to turn it off, but it allows me to take it less seriously.

There’s an important section here on trauma, although it’s not called that in this text. We always think about trauma as something so severe; but it’s just emotion trapped in the body. The author falls back on the language of chakras and blocked energy, which I have a natural suspicion of, BUT it is an illuminating visual metaphor that helps to make sense of what’s taking place. It’s true: when there is enough negative energy, it “clogs up” everything else and it’s difficult to see the good. In fact, no positive feelings come in. I feel that a lot lately.

The major argument of the book is to just let go. Holding onto good emotions and bad emotions both prevent us from living our full depth of experience. The way forward is to let ourselves experience what comes up in a given moment without resisting it. To “unclog” bad energy from the past, we have to just sit with it and let ourselves experience it without rationalization, explanation, or fighting back. It’s the only way to really be honest with ourselves, and it’ll past in time.

This is a process that isn’t going to happen all at once, especially if we’ve let the debris from the past accumulate (like I have).

I’m glad I read this; it’s what I needed to hear at the moment. Still, my reading it was probably a distraction (something to avoid!) to avoid sitting with the emotions themselves. I tend to cognify (cognitize?) everything, and that’s part of the larger problem.

So, just let go.