Reviews with TLC

How Not to Age: The Scientific Approach to Getting Healthier as You Get Older by Michael Greger, M.D., FACLM continues Greger's exploration into the research of how to eat the healthiest diet possible to live the healthiest life possible for the longest healthy life possible. While I understood the need for Greger to refer to videos on his website for further explanation given how long the book already is, I found it distracting at times. How Not to Age isn't a fountain of youth as much as a guide to the benefits of eating healthfully and avoiding unhealthy food. As anyone who has followed Gregor's work knows, the answers are often to follow a plant-based diet still I appreciate that Greger is honest enough to explore even the studies that tangentially point in other directions. How Not to Age debunks myths and explores studies including who paid for the studies and whether the sponsors have a vested interest in the outcome, particularly for their own income at the expen...

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D. felt like being in therapy and studying the therapy technique at the same time. At about the 20% mark, I think, I texted a psychologist friend and arranged a book discussion for when I finished it.  The research Van De Kolk has participated in over his career is fascinating as is the other research he gathered in this book. I repeatedly wished I'd found this research twenty or thirty years ago. That said, there were several times word choices that made me feel uncomfortable and earlier in my life likely would have been triggering for me. I'm certain the research has continued to evolve as research tends to do, but The Body Keeps the Score made me finally realize that all those times I felt like my body was betraying me was it having a normal reaction to trauma. Several of the life techniques discussed in the book, I discovered through a more painstaking and lonely process of ...

The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook: A Proven Way to Accept Yourself, Build Inner Strength, and Thrive by Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer is an interesting and inspiring workbook that reiterates that self-compassion is a way of life not a goal to be met. Neff and Germer gently remind the reader that to be self-compassionate is to constantly notice where one needs self-compassion many times in the book. The exercises in this workbook pushed me to think about events in my life and accept my feelings about those events with compassion instead of judgment but also to approach my judgment with compassion. As I worked through the exercises, old issues I'd thought long resolved resurfaced and reminded me that suppressing isn't the same as dealing with things. Facing these with self-compassion rather than judgment was a helpful exercise. That said, I also found it hard to relate to some of the exercises and felt like I just worked through them without much depth because they felt...

The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion: Freeing Yourself from Destructive Thoughts and Emotions by Christopher K. Germer, PhD focuses on mindfulness in a way that gently glides into self-compassion. Germer weaves his personal and professional experience using mindfulness to get to self-compassion with research into self-compassion in a way that is easy to read and makes both mindfulness and self-compassion feel approachable. He includes exercises and meditations to demonstrate the effectiveness of mindfulness on self-compassion. I really like that Germer explains that self-compassion isn't a self-help goal but a continuous journey that sometimes brings up pain while helping one to heal in a way that encourages and inspires one to pursue embracing self-compassion.  The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion helped me with my own journey to strengthen my mindfulness and my self-compassion. Check back soon for my thoughts on other books I'm reading including: Write for Life: Creative Tool...

Meditation: How to embrace mindfulness, inner peace, and happiness in life by by Rafik Osker is a short, easy to read primer on meditation. I downloaded this ebook during a free promotion several years ago and just got around to reading it. I think it would probably be a good book for a beginning meditator, but was a little too basic for me. All that said, it appears this book is no longer available. Check back soon for my thoughts on other books I'm reading including: The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion: Freeing Yourself from Destructive Thoughts and Emotions  by Christopher Germer Write for Life: Creative Tools for Every Writer  by Julia Cameron Above the River: The Complete Poems  by James Wright The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook  by Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer The Testaments  by Margaret Atwood Reviews will be posted as I finish these books. (Technically, I'm a few books behind on writing reviews right now, so I have already finished reading seve...

Positivity: Discover the Upward Spiral That Will Change Your Life by Barbara L. Fredrickson explains her research into how positivity affects people's lives. I  took a Coursera course taught by Fredrickson several years ago, but I didn't read Positivity until recently. Positivity illustrates her findings and conclusions in an easy to understand way that left me wondering what the research has shown since Fredrickson wrote Positivity . It's always important to understand that science is always evolving. Fredrickson's underlying principles of positivity's effect on one's life seem to be sound and, frankly, just make a lot of sense. I enjoyed reading Positivity even during the moments when I felt skeptical and found myself at my keyboard looking up things to see what the science has revealed since it was published. Fredrickson's work and presentation inspired me to look for the positive in my life. Check back soon for my thoughts on other books I'm readin...

Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff, Ph.D. pushed my buttons... mostly in the best way. Neff offers her research, her own experiences, and her observations mixed with information from myriad disciplines ranging from spiritual to neuroscience. I had read quite a bit of what Neff offers in other places, but she pulls it together in a way that makes it easy to understand and that makes self-compassion feel accessible and attainable. Her arguments for shifting from self-esteem to self-compassion and self-appreciation were better than I expected. She includes exercises along the way to help the reader access self-compassion. Self-Compassion feels like an introductory course and left me curious about what the research has shown since its publication. Neff supports and explains her premise of the life-changing benefits of self-compassion so well that I began to re-examine my own self-compassion journey with a bit more compassion... Check back soon for...

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown offers encouragement and guidance to approach life from a direction that focuses on what is essential instead of trying to do/be everything. I had been looking forward to reading this book so much I almost started it when it arrived even though I was reading 4 or 5 other books at the time... Yes, I needed a lesson in essentialism. McKeown writes in an easy to understand format and presents some ideas that are quite relatable, yet I couldn't help but feel like this book is written from a place of privilege and therefore isn't as universal as it seems. When McKeown offers the example of a CEO whose doctor suggested he take a year off to address his health issues, I guffawed. Seriously? Who can actually do that? I can't even imagine a doctor making that suggestion. This is only one example of the privilege bleeding off the pages in the anecdotes he shares to make his points. I kept wondering who picks up the slack ...

Self-Love: Journey of Self-Discovery and Emotional Healing to Help You Feel Good Enough: Guided Journal by Suzanne Heyn started off putting me on edge because my copy was put together incorrectly. I considered returning it but decided to just go with the flow. It made the entire experience feel like I was reading and writing backwards, an interesting brain exercise. Heyn offers an essay before each daily prompt. I found some of them interesting but mostly felt like this was work I'd already done. Heyn does what the book promises, but also leans into religion and spiritually in places that felt limiting but that could be because my personal beliefs don't align with hers.  I bought the book to help me explore a specific reason for a dip in my self-love. By twisting the prompts, I was able to kind of hone in on my issue. Overall,  Self-Love  was good, but I don't think I'm its target audience. Someone who is earlier on in their self-love journey might find the book far...

It's OK That You're Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn't Understand by Megan Devine explores the way we process grief and the expectations society puts on grief and the grieving.  Devine uses her own experience with grief and people's response to her grief as a foundation for examining how society treats the grieving. She discusses how we often view grief as a problem to be solved and how hurtful that attitude can be.   Devine spends quite a bit of time exploring the idea that everyone's grief is different. She emphasizes that everyone has the right to grieve in the way that best works for them.  I vacillated between finding  It's OK That You're Not OK  very insightful, somewhat short-sighted, and occasionally contradictory.  As I read, I kept wondering why and how we continue to get it so wrong since everyone grieves at some p oint in their life and everyone seems to know we're doing it wrong, at least when experiencing grief them...

We Should All Be Feminists: A Guided Journal  by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a beautifully designed and inspiring guided journal/workbook for exploring feminism and the role feminism plays in an individual's life as well as in society as a whole. I often found that the questions I most dreaded answering were the ones that brought me the most insight into not only my own struggles with feminism but in the messaging of feminism and even anti-feminism to some degree. Exploring the platitudes that often popped into my thoughts and how those platitudes became so much a part of the lexicon helped me find a deeper relationship with my feminism. Many of the exercises helped me better integrate feminism's role in the wider struggle for equality. We Should All Be Feminists: A Guided Journal inspired me to examine my own inner struggle with feminism and reminded me of the importance of speaking up for equality whenever I can however I can. I highly recommend We Should All Be Feminists: A...

I read some really good poetry in 2022 as well as some that wasn't quite as good. I spent much of the year reading a large volume of poetry by Bertolt Brecht.   Call Us What We Carry  by Amanda Gorman offers an interesting collection of Gorman's poetry. For the most part I really enjoyed  Call Us What We Carry . I winced when I got to the erasure poem section because I'm generally not a fan of erasure poetry, reading it or writing it, but when I let go of my aversion, it was better than I expected. Overall, Gorman offered a book of thoughtful, emotional, thought-provoking poetry that addresses the world in which we live with realism mixed with hope.   The Drowning House  by John Sibley Williams bleeds pain and confusion onto the page in these poems. While many of the poems are dark and questioning, they somehow left me with a feeling of hope even while making me think. These poems examine the threads of past, present, and future reminding us all that the past in...

  I read quite a few nonfiction books in 2022 over a relatively wide range of topics. I enjoy learning new things, so I tend to read a lot of nonfiction. This was an interesting year of reading for me in that I was working through my to-be-read piles but couldn't resist a few new releases. I found most of the nonfiction I read in 2022 interesting and informative.   The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss  by Mary-Francis O'Connor, PhD offers an interesting perspective on the grieving process. The research O'Connor has done as well as other research she cites offers a glimpse into the functioning of the grieving brain as we move through the process of grief. The idea of the brain needing to relearn habits as part of the grieving process struck me as particularly important and interesting. While much of the research O'Connor discusses is still influx and therefore perhaps not as definitive as some would like, it is still very interest...

I moved a bit more toward workbook style guided journals than I have used in previous years. I found the ones I used this year to each provide some helpful insights as well as to have some less than insightful points. Whether this is because of where I am in my life journey or a fault of the journals is yours to decide should you decide to try them.   52 Lists for Calm  by Moorea Seal is  a list journal with prompts that one fills out weekly rather than daily. Some prompts are better than others. Honestly, I didn't enjoy this list journal as much as I've enjoyed others in past years. I never could quite figure out why. All I know is that instead of making me feel calm, somewhere around the middle of the year it began to feel like a chore. I've really enjoyed list journals in the past, so I'm not so sure if the problem was with the journal or with where I'm at in my life.   52 Lists for Bravery  by Moorea Seal -  This is another list journal I started at the...