Book Review: I'm Ok, You're Ok by Thomas Harris

I'm Ok, You're Ok by Thomas A. Harris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My therapist in my 20s used the sequel to this book - Staying Okay - as a basis for the tools he taught me to deal with past traumas and events that still affected me, so I was aware of Transactional Analysis, or the concept of Parent/Adult/Child before reading I'm Ok, You're Ok.

I was daunted at the idea of reading this book, as having read many self-help books, some can get very bogged down in the language and terminology, but I found this refreshing and surprisingly easy to read and understand, especially considering it was written in the mid-60s. Thomas Harris uses a conversational narrative which helped it flow.

I found the breakdown of the chapters clear and succinct. The author starts by explaining the concept of Parent-Adult-Child (PAC), which are states of mind that we move between. The Parent comes from the recordings in our memory of things our parents have said to us as children, and the Child is the emotional side of ourselves that feels and reacts to things and is often the victim. The Adult is the rational between the two, which enables us to find a balance so we don't berate ourselves or others with the voice of our Parent, or overreact or create drama from our Child. The mindset we are in can affect our interaction and communication with those around us - our Transactions (hence Transactional Analysis) and understanding which of the mindsets we are in can enable us to improve our interactions.

The author then explains how this works within marriage, referencing a book called Games People Play by his colleague and founder of Transactional Analysis, Eric Berne. And then with children, moving through the different age groups. He uses examples of his own experience as a therapist, giving dialogue and real interactions. I found this helped me understand how it can be applied.

The last couple of chapters in the book felt a bit like fillers to me as he discusses his own thoughts on topics of morality and how this system can be used globally. Some areas were dated - the author has no idea of how much society will change from the time he first wrote this to now, and it reflects in some of the examples he gives of working with clients. Although his views in some areas were quite progressive for the time, in particular about religion. I can imagine religious people might be offended by this book, or dismiss it due to some of the things that Thomas Harris has to say about the dogma and doctrine of religion and how it can be destructive, as it restricts people's ability to question and be open minded. I personally agree with his view on these topics.

I am rather excited about re-learning this system of analysis, and can immediately see how it can help me relate better within my marriage and with my children, although it would be nice to train properly in it. Sadly, it doesn't seem to have become as widely used as the author had hoped and speculated, which is a shame because many people could benefit from this system of relating and understanding both oneself and other people - particularly people like myself, who have suffered trauma and have very contaminated recordings from their childhood that affect them on a daily basis.

Should you be interested in a brief description of this method before delving deeper into this book, I found one here - http://changingminds.org/explanations...

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Book Review: It's All Mind: The Simplified Philosophy of A Course in Miracles by Edwin Navarro

It's All Mind: The Simplified Philosophy of A Course in Miracles by Edwin Navarro
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This book is a summation of another book (A Course in Miracles). And from what I understand it does this quite concisely. My problem with this book is less about the writing than it is about the content. I am not religious & don't believe in or subscribe to any dogma or doctrine relating to the bible, so putting the context of this summation in a religious framework doesn't work for me.

I am spiritual however & cross paths with the idea that we are all one energy & that love & compassion is the key to a happy fulfilled experience in this life. But I am cautious of the concept that what we see externally is an illusion & there is no physical world & that it is all perception, & this is our ego trying to separate us & make us think we are seperate & not a part of something greater, & that is why we experience pain & loneliness.

They are interesting concepts - but for me that is all they are.

If you are religious maybe this book might offer you something, but for me it is far too wrapped up in 'God' & too rigid in its ideas which are based off someone (whoever wrote A Course In Miracles) having a psychic experience they have interpreted in this way.

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Trust issues: how to resolve them & be more you

Do you struggle trusting people? 

Are you never sure if they are going to support you?

Do you second guess the decisions you make?

“Trust is earned when actions meet words.”- Chris Butler

I’ve spent a lot of my life being unsure about the people around me. I want to trust them but I don’t know if I can. I pledge myself: my loyalty, my time, my care, my interest, but time and again I am let down, disappointed and hurt.

For me it started within my own family, first with my mother and then with my sister. Being family I automatically trusted them to love me, to care about me, be there for me and be supportive of me. And when their actions and their words said otherwise, I believed that it was my fault, that I was doing something wrong. So I’d remain open and trusting, leaving myself open to more abuse, allowing the cycle to repeat itself. 

I knew with my mother early on that it was her and not something I was doing, so I took steps to limit the contact I had with her once I left home, reducing the toxic effect on my mental and emotional health. I did, however, have moments where I thought it was safe to ‘let her in again’ only to find that I was mistaken. By the time I started my own family I had learnt to keep a tight control on how much I interacted with her, which continued until her death.

With my sister it took many more years to realise the extent to which my trust was being abused. My sister had been someone I could turn to about my mother, but I realised that although she showed me one face, she showed another to my family, telling them private things I had trusted her with, as well as claiming I had done things I hadn’t. When I refused to continue tolerating this, it created two large show downs over a span of five years, and resulted in a breakdown and physical stress-related injuries, which led to me choosing to disconnect for about 10 years, only my mothers illness & imminent death brought an end to it, but only when she unexpectedly acknowledged her behaviour & apologised. 

“The only way to win with a toxic person is not to play.” - Unknown

Looking back, I realise that the abuse of my trust and the self-blame I put myself through had been going on since I was a young child. It affected my ability to form and create lasting relationships and friendships. It caused me to second guess everyone around me, breaking off perfectly good friendships and in some cases withdrawing entirely, especially from social interaction. 

I reached a point where I knew it had to change. I couldn’t continue to live in isolation, emotionally and physically. So I asked myself, how can I change this? How can I start trusting and being open again? 

I understood the reasons behind my problem, but I needed to heal from the trauma of it. I had taken the first step by removing the people who were toxic to me, but how did I risk exposing myself to other people who could be potentially toxic too?

I found the answer in the dictionary:

Trust: firm belief in the reliability, truth or ability of someone or something. 
Synonyms: confidence, faith, belief, sureness.

And the person I had to have confidence, faith, belief, and sureness in was myself. 

“Trust yourself, you know more than you think you do.”- Benjamin Spook

I realised that trust is like seeking approval: you can seek it externally but only once you give it to yourself will you start to live the life you are looking for. 

If I started to trust myself and be sure of myself, then it didn’t matter what the people around me said or did, I knew I was there to support me and care about me. If they wanted to as well, great, but I no longer needed to worry about trusting them, because I could trust myself.

But how do you start going about doing that? 

It starts by listening to yourself: hearing how you feel about something, hearing what you believe about it, and being honest with yourself. 

“Listen to your own voice, your own soul. Too many people listen to the noise of the world, instead of themselves.” – Leon Brown

I don’t mean listening to the chatter of negative thoughts in your head, I mean listening to your heart. 

Be still with yourself a moment and ask: 

How do you feel about you?
What do you want to do with your life?
Who do you want to be?
Who do you really believe you are?
What are the things you love?
What are the things you hate? 

Listen to the answers.

All of us have an inner child:  a version of ourselves inside that still feels as we did when we were a child. Sometimes that child still feels sad or upset or disappointed by life and people. We need to nurture that child within, comfort them, and love them. Listen to their feelings, believe and trust them. Because that child is us. 

“Can you remember who you were before the world told you who you should be?” – Danielle LaPorte

I then understood that the inner peace and calm I was looking for came from connecting to my feelings: listening and believing them. Being honest with myself meant that I could trust myself to live my truth. I no longer second guessed myself and thus the people around me. I knew who I was. I no longer had a desire to alter myself to suit others: if they weren’t happy with who I was then they didn’t need to be in my life. 

And as an added bonus, as a result of trusting myself, I gained a sense of security within myself, of self-assurance and self-belief, and the feeling that I was OK, so everything around me was OK. 

Why don’t you try it? Surely no one is more deserving of your trust than you. 

"The more you trust your intuition, the more empowered you become, the stronger you become, and the happier you become." - Gisele Bundchen

Book Review: Your Aura and Your Chakras: The Owner's Manual by Karla McLaren

Your Aura and Your Chakras: The Owner's Manual by Karla McLaren
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was very interested in reading this book to clearly define in my mind the meaning of each of the Chakras and this book did do this. It also gives information on Aura's and how to ground yourself. I found this interesting and very helpful. Karla McLaren goes into detail about how she goes about doing all these things.

My only difficulty I have with this book, and have experienced with other writers of these types of metaphysical things, is that she writes as though what she does and how she does it is the only way and is kind of fixed and factual. To me it is individual and each person perceives things in their mind their own way. As someone that does energy light healing in colours, although I found Karla's methods interesting, I chose to pick and choose which pieces worked for me, and used my own interpretation of some of the things Karla talked about.

I did learn a great deal from this book however, and would definitely return to it for reference.

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The Simple Truth of Forgiveness to Gain Peace of Mind

Do you find forgiveness hard to do?

Do you believe that forgiving someone means letting them off the hook?

Do you wrangle with forgiveness inside yourself?

“Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” – Paul Lewis Boese

There is a lot of talk about forgiveness and forgiving people that have hurt you. People tell you to let it go and ‘do the right thing’. They say that you are holding a grudge if you don’t forgive them and that you are causing more problems by holding on to it.

But it can be hard if it is someone that has abused you in some way, whether physically, emotionally, or verbally (or all three). It is especially difficult if that person is still inflicting pain; if they still say things and do things that hurt you.

This is the situation I had with my mother. I had to distance myself from her because she said things that were hurtful – often unknowingly – from off-hand comments about me personally (my weight, my hair, my daily habits, how I pronounce words) to out and out blaming me for events from the past when I was a small child that I couldn’t possibly have been responsible for.

Even though the things she said and did once I was a full grown adult weren’t a scratch on the screaming verbal abuse she subjected me to in my childhood, they could still cut me to the core.

When I talked about it people would ask me if I had forgiven her, and if not, why not? She’s your mother, they'd say, you ‘should’ forgive her, it will make your life better if you do.

But for years I couldn’t see how I could forgive her for all the things she had subjected me to – and sometimes still subjected me to. I struggled hard, and felt anger and resentment deep into my soul.

“Resentment is like drinking poison, and thinking it will kill your enemies.”- Nelson Mandela

But when I looked more closely at forgiveness and what it would take, I realised that it wasn’t about letting her off the hook for the trauma she had put me through as a child, but letting myself off the hook.

I learnt that forgiveness is not about forgiving them for what they did to you, but about forgiving yourself.

Because you are not to blame for being abused by another, no matter what they say, pretend, or try to twist round.

If you have been abused, it is not your fault.

I’ll repeat that: IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT

So forgive yourself for being blamed.

Forgive yourself for ever thinking it was something you did (or are doing) wrong.

Forgive yourself for letting something from the past still affect you.

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free, and then realise the prisoner is you.” – Lewis B Smedes

And once you stop blaming yourself for being abused you will feel different: You will release the anger and the resentment. You will be less concerned about what they say and do from then onwards. You will move away from caring what they think, because you have put your feelings first and not theirs. You have given yourself the self-love and nurture that you deserve.

What they continue to do is what they choose to do, and you can choose to no longer be affected by it. When you forgive yourself, you also stop responding to them in the same way you did, to the things they say or the things they do. You can choose to stop letting it affect you.

A couple of years ago my mother observed how much I had changed, how different I was towards her - less argumentative, less defensive. I smiled sweetly and thought to myself, I’m not any different, I just no longer react to you the way I did. I no longer allow the things you say to hurt me anymore, because I forgave myself.

“Forgiveness is the gift you give yourself.” – Tony Robbins

I am not saying that the things my mother says don’t still affect me – she is still capable of getting inside my head, but it is very rare now. I have also distanced myself from her physically, and restrict how much contact I have with her. This is something I feel people should do with anyone who is potentially toxic to them – including family.

                           

The most surprising reward for forgiving myself has been the calm it has brought inside. The peace of mind I have gained, and the confidence I have that I will no longer be upset when I am in her company. I feel sure of myself and less likely to be blindsided by my emotions, and have outbursts that make me feel out of control and judged as unstable by others. And I don’t feel angry or bitter inside anymore. I feel okay as though I have a solid foundation at last.

It didn’t happen overnight though; it started by writing my life story out for my therapist, which took some time to do as it was hard to face the things that had hurt me.

Seeing in black and white what I had been put through made me lose all guilt about feeling angry towards my mother. I finally understood why I was angry. I could see that what I had been put through was not right or fair and that I wasn’t to blame for any of it. 

Once I stopped arguing with my anger and trying to find reasons to justify my mother’s actions, I stopped feeling angry. I accepted what had happened and that I was not to blame for any of it.

It released me from the anger and also from the guilt. In writing it all out I freed myself the past.

“You do not forgive for the other person. You do it for your own freedom.” – Kute Blackson

It still took several years of therapy to sort through it all and find new ways of managing and healing some of the damage. But it was a crucial step in the process of listening to my feelings, trusting myself, and building my self-esteem.

Now on the other side of this, the simple truth of forgiveness is that it's about you and not about them.

Forgive yourself. You’re worth it.

How to be accepting & stop resisting what you don't like about your life

Do you get frustrated by the things you can’t change or control in your life?

Do you get angry when things don’t go the way you want?

Do you waste time and energy refusing to accept the ways things are?

 “Resistance is futile”- The Borg Collective - Star Trek: First Contact 😉

I am a not a Trekkie per se, but The Borg were correct. It will cause you more trouble than it’s worth to resist assimilation.

There are some things that you can’t change or control in life, but resisting them will cause you more pain in the long term and keep you stuck in a negative place for longer than necessary.

My best friend used to repeat to me on the phone, “Accept and allow, go with the flow of life.” It took me years to fully understand and embrace this concept. I could understand it in theory but it felt like an unachievable goal for me. I found everything difficult.

Even though I made decisions to do things – like moving to a foreign country and culture to be with my partner - I resisted them. Often it was because I didn’t really want to do them and I was doing them to please another, but I made it harder on myself by refusing to accept that it was a choice that I had made and not one that was forced upon me.

I was locked in the victim mindset.

In the instance of moving to a foreign country for love, this led me to reject what I found there: the friends, community, and the different culture. And rather than embrace the life on offer, I resisted it. I attempted a few things, but when they didn’t go the way I wanted or didn’t achieve the results I was looking for, I felt stuck and I fixated on feeling powerless.

I longed for the things I didn’t have and only focused on what was missing from my life. I became miserable, tense, stressed, frustrated and very angry. For me this manifested mentally in a breakdown in 2008, and physically in two slipped discs in my neck in 2014.

“Resisting what is happening is a major cause of suffering.” -  Pema Chodron 

But it was during the pain I experienced with the slipped disc in my neck (which trapped a nerve, putting my right shoulder and arm in excruciating pain for 8 weeks at a time – they slipped twice) that I learnt to surrender.

I learnt to accept that I couldn’t do anything. I let go of everything – all the expectations I had of myself and of others, all the things I thought I had to do, all the chores I did to try and feel that my life was worth living. I could do nothing, so I did nothing.

And what I found was that there were people to support me and my husband to pick up the slack. And when you aren’t able to lose your temper over something petty, you respond differently - quietly and calmly, and people respond differently.

Within the pain I found the calm I was seeking.

“You can't calm the storm, so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass.” - Timber Hawkeye

I had to surrender.

I don’t like to use the word surrender, because to me it means to give up – but I didn’t give up, I opened up.

I accepted that this was how things were going to be and to let go in that moment. I let others help me; I relinquished control; I stopped and observed the life around me.

In accepting that time (and fortunately recovering) I was able to understand that I needed to accept other aspects of my life too. I needed to look at what I did have in my life and appreciate it and embrace it. I started to take walks in nature and appreciate where I was living. I stopped thinking about my future and where my life was going, and started living in the present.

“If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.” – Lao Tzu

When the noise in my mind would start up about where I wanted to live, what I wanted to be doing with my life, and how I felt like I was stagnating and not growing, I would just let the noise go.

I would hear it, register it, but know that I could only get to where I wanted to step by step, day by day. I took the end goal, the one thing I wanted to do the most, and broke it down into small steps - things I could achieve on a daily basis.

This enabled me to feel like I was moving forward. I would still have moments of frustration, but rather than fight that frustration I would allow myself to feel it – journal it out, or express it to a trusted friend, but then I would let it go.

“Resisting your negative feelings just keeps you stuck.” - Kute Blackson

When I was learning to drive, my driving instructor told me I thought too much about what I was doing to make the learning process easy. He said he could always tell when I started thinking about what I was doing because I would stall the car or crunch the gears. He said, “If you just let go and let your body do what you have trained it to do, it will be much easier. When you think about it, you interrupt the flow.”

By thinking about what I was doing I was letting my brain take over and panic about what I was doing. If I had accepted that I did know and allowed the training to flow through me, I wouldn’t have had a problem.

Often resistance is built up from having too many expectations. If we drop expectation of how something will be, and of ourselves in that situation, and not focus on a desired outcome, we can accept whatever happens organically.

We can release ourselves from the need to control. We become open to whatever happens. And accepting how our life is, in that moment, brings freedom and peace.

“It takes radical acceptance to bring inner peace.”- Kute Blackson

It can be a struggle to accept where you are in life if it is not what you want or where you saw yourself being. You can be consumed with trying to change it. But while you are spending time looking at all the things that aren’t working, you are closed to what IS working.

But how do you stop, if you are truly unhappy with your situation?

Have you ever thought about taking a holiday from your thinking?

If there is something you know you can’t do anything about right now, such as: move house, move job, create more time for yourself, go traveling, then set a date in the future  - a month, 6 months, a year from now, when you can review it again.

And every time you find yourself thinking about it, say, “No, I'm not going to think about that until *insert date*.”

I found this worked to stop me constantly thinking about how to change my situation. I knew I wouldn’t be able to for more than a year, so I set a date to review it the following year. And every time I thought about it, I stopped myself. I said, no, I’m not going to think about that now. I took a holiday from thinking about it. And the more often I stopped myself from thinking about it, the easier it became, until I was thinking about it less and less.

And what also happened, during that holiday, was say to myself, okay, I’m here for the next year, so how can I enjoy and embrace the life I have right now?

It changed the entire perspective I had on the life I was actually living. I was able to engage more with the people in my life and create a better day to day existence.

It broke the habit of the negative frustrated thoughts I was experiencing and allowed me to concentrate on the things that I could change in my life at that moment, and give myself room to work on the things that would help me move forward to the change I did want to see.

By accepting my life as it was I'd freed myself from being a victim in my life, which enabled me to find my personal power over the things I could do something about. It gave me freedom and peace of mind.

“Accept – then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.” – Eckhart Tolle

Book Review: You Are The One, by Kute Blackson

You Are The One: A Bold Adventure in Finding Purpose, Discovering the Real You, and Loving Fully by Kute Blackson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've followed Kute Blackson for a few years now and always loved his style and delivery, and this book was no different. He delivers his message in a clear, succinct, direct way.

Each chapter focuses on a different aspect, from loving/accepting yourself and life, realising how much power you have and how you are able to break through conditioning, and that in fact you are limitless. It covers forgiveness and love, and how to rethink your potential. Each topic organically flows from one chapter to the next, each supporting the last. Kute talks about the people he has taken to India on his Liberation Experience and uses their experiences to support what he is saying and explaining, using gentle repetition within each chapter, his point - and it works.

I found it eye-opening, inspirational and uplifting. It is a book that I feel I could read every year and take something new from it each time - and I just might. This is coming from someone who doesn't often re-reads books.

This book might just be the one! ;-)


I love this, and would recommend it to anyone looking for a new perspective on how to approach life and get more out of it, or a new approach to healing themselves.

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