Review: Everyday Enlightenment

Title: Everyday Enlightenment

Author: Luke McLeod

Publisher: 27th December 2024 by Hachette Australia

Pages: 305 pages

Genre: nonfiction, self help, meditation

My Rating: 4 cups

Synopsis:

Peace. Calm. Mindfulness. Enlightenment.

These are appealing concepts, but they never seem like they're within grasp of the everyday person. With all our responsibilities in life, most of us are doing our best just to keep up, let alone have time to find that elusive 'inner calm'.

Luke McLeod knows all about this. He's an everyday person. He's a son, a husband and a friend, trying to find some balance in his everyday life just like everyone else. There is one thing, though, he knows for sure has improved his quality of life every single day.

Meditation.

Luke used to believe meditation wasn't for him but has now become one of Australia's leading meditation experts helping thousands of 'everyday' people, just like himself, enjoy meditation in an easy, down-to-earth way.

Everyday Enlightenment contains encouragement, support, guidance, advice and short meditations to help you start, enjoy and embrace your meditation journey. Let Luke help you find some of that inner peace and calmness without having to move to the mountains and become a monk. Let him show you how the secret to living an enlightened life is hidden within the ordinary and the everyday - it will be one of the best things you ever do.

My Thoughts

Everyday Enlightenment is a breath of fresh air, your own personal mentor gently directing you on how to see things differently and get the most out of this precious life. 

‘ … real richness of life is found when the ordinary starts to become extraordinary.’

Luke divides the book into three stage, three steps to a better understanding of your life:

1. relief by developing inner calmness from our incessant thinking mind through observation 

2. healing and liberating inner restraints, clearing any emotional weights through introspection

3. happiness comes from expanding and uniting all of your senses - opening of awareness

‘It’s about working on yourself. Pulling back all the layers that have built up over time and getting yourself to a point that you feel calm, confident and content.’

Luke’s book is very easy going reading, accessible for all levels especially those who may be embarking on a mindfulness journey and wondering how to even begin. His style is very engaging, down-to-earth and accessible. Luke provides practical examples, good analogies (eg. our mind is like a gearbox - love that one!)  and usable introductory meditations.

‘ … never underestimate the power of what five to ten minutes spent in this neutral gear of the mind can do.’

Everyday Enlightenment is about finding a deeper meaning and understanding to life. Meditation helps lift the fog and provide more peace, calm and enlightenment for everyday living. 

‘Our purpose is not to work out what we are here to do, but to experience who we are.’

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. The quoted material may have changed in the final release.

Review: The House That Joy Built

Title: The House That Joy Built

Author: Holly Ringland

Publisher: 29th November 2023 by 4th Estate AU

Pages: 288 pages

Genre: nonfiction, self help, creativity

Rating: 3.5 cups

Synopsis:

An uplifting, powerful and inspiring book about breaking through fear and finding joy through creativity, from bestselling author, Holly Ringland.

The House that Joy Built is about how to give ourselves permission to be creative. It explores two big the fear that can block our creativity, and the permission we can meet that fear with - to not just create, but to revel in the life-changing wonder and joy of doing so. It offers a jump-start for the nervous heart of anyone whose desire to create is overruled by fear.It is a book for those people who yearn to write, as well as people who find their creativity gardeners, carpenters, sculptors, jewellery-makers, florists, songwriters, dancers, cooks, painters ... anyone who wants to make something but doesn't because they're afraid. Afraid of feeling vulnerable, of criticism and judgement from others, of not being good enough, of not having enough, of having 'bad' ideas, of being too much.It is for everyone who has ever felt stuck creatively, for those who don't know how to begin, for those who feel they have so much welling up inside and are just trying to find a way into themselves. This book is an openhearted clarion call to experience the joy and freedom of creating.

My Thoughts

Holly Ringland, author of The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart and The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding has penned her first nonfiction book, The House That Joy Built. Here Holly details a very personal recount of both the power and pleasure that comes from giving ourselves permission to create.  

This is a personal account in some respects, as Holly details her own steps through trauma, grief and even the seemingly simple self doubts surrounding daily living. She balances this with detailed ways of our innate need to create in whatever form that may take for each person. Holly speaks of the inner country of creativity and returning to the things you often loved to do as a child.

At times raw but also inspiring, Holly encourages readers to take back control of one’s creativity and carve both the time and space for it in this busy world. It is essential to a truly fulfilling life. 

Truth: at any age, at any time we can decide anew to return to the home of creativity inside ourselves.

Truth: it can be frightening to return.

Truth: the choice to create because we love to do it is ours.

Truth: it’s always fearful. Always joyful.

Welcome. 

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. The quoted material may have changed in the final release.

 

Review: The Wisdom of Morrie: Living and Aging Creatively and Joyfully

Title: The Wisdom of Morrie: Living and Aging Creatively and Joyfully

Author: Morrie Schwartz edited by Rob Schwartz

Publisher: 26th April 2023 by Hachette Australia

Pages: 322 pages

Genre: nonfiction, self help 

Rating: 4 cups

Synopsis:

From the eponymous subject of the beloved classic Tuesdays with Morrie comes an insightful, poignant masterpiece on staying vibrant and connected for life. Who am I really? What have I done? What is important and meaningful to me? What difference does it make that I have lived? What does it mean to be truly human, and where am I on that scale?

Morrie Schwartz, the beloved subject of the classic, multimillion-copy number one bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie , explores these questions and many more in this profound, poetic, and poignant masterpiece of living and aging joyfully and creatively. Later life can be filled with many challenges, but it can also be one of the most beautiful and rewarding passages in anyone's lifetime. Morrie draws on his experiences as a social psychologist, teacher, father, friend, and sage to offer us a road map to navigate our futures.

 A great companion to Tuesdays with Morrie or the perfect introduction to Morrie's thoughtful philosophies, The Wisdom of Morrie is filled with empathic insights, stories, anecdotes, and advice, told in Morrie's reassuring, calm, and timeless voice. Let The Wisdom of Morrie be your guide in exploring deep questions of how to live and how to love. 

My Thoughts

‘Later life is a special period of development, with unique limitations and opportunities. And it may be the most important phase of your life. You can change a lot in later life - if you really want to.’

Many readers will be familiar or have heard of Mitch Albom's best-seller Tuesdays with Morrie - Morrie Schwartz, professor of sociology and therapist. The Wisdom of Morrie is a manuscript edited by his son, Rob, and looks at ways to live and age creatively and with joy. Rob edited his father’s manuscript that contains a range of essays and reflections on aging. 

This book provides wisdom, inspiration, case studies and ideas on how to live your best life as you age. It stresses the desire to rethink aging and learn to find joy even if faced with mounting challenges that may come with the territory. For readers who find themselves, or know of someone in this age bracket, this book offers insight on how to adapt and make the most of one’s life. 

A different book to the original in terms of the layout and style, it is still infused with trademark wisdom and a philosophy to adopt a more positive outlook with this precious time we have been given. 

‘…. take a broader view by looking into our entire life, accepting it as it was and as it is, to try to find its meaning and coherence. And who knows? We may come to a better understanding of who we are and what we've lived through. It is an attempt to … identify and use the wisdom we've acquired, the humanity we've developed, and the spirituality we've connected with, to improve the quality of our own and other lives.’

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the author in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. The quoted material may have changed in the final release.

Review: The Perfectionists Guide to Losing Control

Title: The Perfectionists Guide to Losing Control

Author: Katherine Morgan Schafler

Publisher: 31st January 2023 by Hachette Australia

Pages: 294 pages

Genre: non fiction, self help, personal development

My Rating: 5 cups

Synopsis:

From psychotherapist Katherine Morgan Schafler, an invitation to every "recovering perfectionist" to challenge the way they look at perfectionism, and the way they look at themselves.

We've been looking at perfectionism all wrong. As psychotherapist and former on-site therapist at Google Katherine Morgan Schafler argues in The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control, you don't have to stop being a perfectionist to be healthy. For women who are sick of being given the generic advice to "find balance," a new approach has arrived.

Which of the five types of perfectionist are you? Classic, intense, Parisian, messy, or procrastinator? As you identify your unique perfectionist profile, you'll learn how to manage each form of perfectionism to work for you, not against you. Beyond managing it, you'll learn how to embrace and even enjoy your perfectionism. Yes, enjoy!

Full of stories and brimming with humor, empathy, and depth, this book is a love letter to the ambitious, high achieving, full-of-life clients who filled the author's private practice, and who changed her life. It's a clarion call for all women to dare to want more without feeling greedy or ungrateful. Ultimately, this book will show you how to make the single greatest trade you'll ever make in your life, which is to exchange superficial control for real power.

My Thoughts

The Perfectionists Guide to Losing Control provides a fresh perspective on perfectionism offering numerous ideas, case studies and life changing ‘aha’ moments that will have you highlighting furiously. Through practical tips and tricks, women are encouraged to embrace their perfectionism in order to free themselves.

‘All perfectionists chase that which is unattainable, ‘unrealistic’, an ideal …. ideals are not meant to be achieved, they’re only meant to inspire.’

The first half of the book breaks down the understanding of the meaning of perfectionism - there being more than one type, which is in itself interesting to consider. This book successfully lays out perfectionism in all its glory allowing the reader to gain a more in-depth understanding in order to learn to work with it. The second half of the book gives you concrete ways to restructure old habits so that they work for you and not against you in attaining your life goals and dreams. This is about trying to reach a mindset that is both healthy and productive. 

‘The more present you are internally, the more you recognise perfection externally’.

As a perfectionist in many ways (falling into the classic category with a touch of some of the other varieties outlined), this book I found to be so enlightening and refreshing with its very honest approach. There are many solid ideas from which I learned and will hopefully weave into my everyday living eg. replacing the word time with the word energy; and, experiencing my ‘Dorothy’ moment ... realising I had the power all along and it was just a matter of learning it for myself.  This book now resides close by as a handy reference when needed. 

‘We put such pressure on ourselves to know exactly who we are and what we want in every moment; it’s okay for some things to be fuzzy’.

I will always love planning and organising - it’s who I am! Reading this made me realise that I do it because I want to and not because everything may fall apart if I don’t! I will work towards going with the flow and not seek to curate each and every experience. As a restored perfectionist I will define success on my own terms ‘understanding that it’s not that you long for some external thing or for yourself to be perfect, it’s that you long to feel whole and to help others feel whole’. 

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. The quoted material may have changed in the final release.

Review: This Is Not A Book About Benedict Cumberbatch

Title: This Is Not A Book About Benedict Cumberbatch

Author: Tabitha Carvan

Publisher: 2nd March 2022 by HarperCollins Publishers Australia

Pages: 280 pages

How I Read It: ARC book

Genre: nonfiction, self help, biography, feminism

My Rating:  4 cups

Synopsis:

If you feel that sense that there is something missing from your life, some gap between who you are on the inside and who you are on the outside - then this is the book for you.

This is, as the title says, not actually a book about Benedict Cumberbatch.

In fact, it's a book about women and what we love, about what happens to women's passions after we leave adolescence and how the space for joy in our lives is squeezed ever smaller as we age, and why. More importantly, it's about what happens if you subvert that narrative and simply love something like you used to.

Drawing upon her personal experience of unexpectedly falling for the British actor Benedict Cumberbatch while stuck at home with two young children, Carvan challenges the reader to stop instinctively resisting the possibility of experiencing pleasure. Hers is clarion rallying cry: find your thing, whatever it may be, and love it like your life depends on it.

Funny, intelligent, transporting and liberating, this book is a total joy.

My Thoughts

‘If … I told you it was okay, not everything needs to be about making meaning, that not everything has to be justifiable as a good use of your time or mind - then, could you let … your body find its way towards loving what it loves? And what would that look like for you? It’s not that easy.’

Okay … you got me. With an intriguing title like that who wouldn’t pick it up! Tabitha takes her obsession with Benedict Cumberbatch to investigate how the reality of life for women - family, job etc etc - can take away from who you once were and rob you of some of the joys to be found in this world. 

‘You should indulge in things which refresh your spirit or make you laugh or make you feel something.” She sighs. “People deserve indulgences. I wish they could do more. I tell them, ‘Go somewhere! Do something! Feel something! Anything!’

I am a little conflicted with this book. I was not sure whether to read it or not … undecided for the longest time. Eventually I took the plunge and ultimately was glad I did as I walked away affirmed and with many pearls of wisdom, joy bubbles and affirmations. Yet, I am here to say, this is most definitely a book about Benedict Cumberbatch. Now, whilst I like Benedict and find his work to be of the highest calibre, the constant mention (and I get it … he is symbolic as one example of what women of a certain age *cough … splutter* may embrace *figuratively speaking … although I am sure this author would like it otherwise*) it just became a bit too much at times.

‘I did not follow a route determined by the things I loved; the things I loved were determined by the route, my graduation from one life stage to the next. Which is why falling in love with Benedict Cumberbatch didn’t feel natural or unsurprising at all. It felt like a step backwards, in the very wrong direction.’

That has to be put to one side if you are to truly enjoy the many colours of this book -  part memoir, part pop culture, part passion pursuit, part art dissertation on feminism.What this most definitely is a book about, is women. Why is it we often lose that spark along life’s journey and how to stand proud and embrace whatever our passions may be at any age. Here! Here! I fully support the key message that this book offers and I am ever so happy someone stood up and proclaimed “it’s okay!”

‘… motherhood is. The “shattering” is what the writer Sarah Manguso calls it in her Harper’s essay about writing and mothering: the “disintegration of the self, after which the original form is quite gone.’

So, the main message, find your thing! Embrace it! Squeeze every last drop out of it for life is too short to do otherwise. This book affirms that it’s okay to get ‘obsessed’, ‘carried away’, ‘ridiculous at your age’ or worried about what others may think. Tabitha’s book encourages you to recognise and find your lost spark and then build it into a great big fire that will lead you to joy and fulfilment. 

‘I’m desperate for you to know that it’s worth it. Finding your thing, I mean. Feeling a spark of something, and instead of instinctively dousing it, fanning the flames.’

Women need more in their lives than the usual work and family. They need to play! If you feel that this may be something you have been unsure of or forgotten how to do, then this book is sure to both encourage and congratulate all manner of joyful pursuits at any age. Wise and witty - are you up for the challenge?

‘I need to recast myself in this story as someone who is doing what she wants, because she’s just as entitled to it as anyone else. And who should have started a lot sooner.’

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. The quoted material may have changed in the final release.