That old adage "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade" has been my guiding principle in looking for the positives sans baby-growing. Since we won't be up all night changing nappies this July we're instead going to hop on a jet plane to visit some very good friends in London and do a bit of Europe (Yay!).
While it's going to be all sorts of amazing, unfortunately sometimes a few weeks of holidays on the horizon isn't enough to lift me out of the holding pattern that is waiting to be pregnant again. So i've spent a lot of time reading and navel-gazing in an effort to find fulfilment and happiness in the everyday, because no one likes a sad sack and let's face it, life's too short.
The last few books i've read and enjoyed on the topic are:
I Could Do Anything If Only I Knew What It Was by Barbara Sher
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
Conversations with Richard Bandler: Two NLP Masters Reveal the Secrets to Successful Living by Richard Bandler and Owen Fitzpatrick
At the suggestion of both my acupuncturist and a friend who had a great experience with it, I've also had a session of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). I went in with a healthy degree of skepticism given it's been largely discredited by science, however it has helped me to rationalise unhelpful thoughts and recognise how much our experiences of the world are shaped by the way we think.
There were some areas of the NLP book I really didn't agree with (such as treating schizophrenics by 'going on a journey' with them - and in fact, believing it's wise to treat the condition with NLP in the first place) but there were some nuggets of wisdom, such as the idea that events are 'neutral' and gain meaning through the version of reality we project onto them. I've been finding this particularly helpful when dealing with the emotions of guilt and fear.
What about you, have you read any 'self-help' books that have really resonated? Or maybe tried some form of therapy or life coaching?
No comments:
Post a Comment