The Awakening Human Being: A Guide to the Power of Mind

Title: The Awakening Human Being: A Guide to the Power of Mind

Author: Barbara Berger (with Tim Ray)

Classification: Nonfiction

Genre: Self-Help

ISBN: 978-1846948350

Year Published: 2011

Pages: 205

Edition: First

Publisher: John Hunt Publishing

Reviewer: Joyce Shafer ~ http://Self-PublishedAuthorsBookReviews.weebly.com

The author Barbara Berger (with Tim Ray) asks some important questions, including: Do you live your life, or do you live your interpretation of it? Do you look for happiness in all the wrong places? Do you know the right places to look? If you do look in the wrong places, it’s because that’s what you were taught to do. You can learn a better way, author Barbara Berger promises—and delivers!

Have you ever wondered, What is the key to personal power and the freedom that it brings? Or ever asked yourself, “…why isn’t this working for me? I’ve been so good and I’ve tried so hard, why don’t I experience the happiness I seek? What am I doing wrong? What’s wrong with me?” What if it isn’t that there’s anything wrong with you…just your beliefs, and perhaps your beliefs don’t work for you because they aren’t aligned with reality; and, what is reality, anyway? 

What will help you to answer the questions above, and more you may have, is to know the Mental Laws (“…a law is an impersonal sequence of events that is not dependent on the person or people involved in that sequence of events”). This book includes these Laws, which are: Thoughts Arising (what can you do about your thoughts?), Witnessing (what is the difference between the content and context of thoughts?), Naming (what are your labels and how do they influence you?), Cause and Effect (what is the cause? what is the effect?), Emotion (what comes before an emotion?), Focus (what are you growing in your life?), Free Will (do you have a choice?), Underlying Beliefs (do they in fact determine your experience?), Substitution (what can you change?), Mental Equivalents (what do you really desire to experience?), and Truth (what is actually true?). These Laws speak volumes about us and how we experience ourselves and life, and how we can have a better experience.

Berger also offers Bonus Tracks, which are humorous and revealing dialogues between her and the voice in her head that she named Bollum. These are worth a read because we all have similar conversations in our heads, but instead of falling victim to the voice, Barbara grabs Bollum by the bollocks. I dare you not to laugh or at least chuckle when you read this section; and I’m sure you’ll resonate with these inner conversations as Bollum goes after Berger about being productive, staring at a blank wall, making an impression, meeting people, making a plan for her life and future, being single, the financial crisis, making more money, finding a new relationship, and improving this moment.

The book is written in three parts: Part 1 – the Mental Laws and understanding the way the mind works (the Laws are worth knowing!); Part 2 – using the power of mind wisely; and Part 3 – putting it all into practice in your life. Berger does not sugarcoat or make the wisdom of her message fluffy. She’s candid and real, just as life is; and she shows you how to appreciate and make the most of this fact about life. She speaks about what-is, as well as reminds you that though there are things you have no control over and never will, there are things you can do about this like develop wisdom, understand cause and effect, aim at and work for change, and drop unrealistic expectations that cause you to suffer needlessly, as well as understand what the underlying cause of emotional suffering is. She explains what your happiness depends on and what it doesn’t depend on, and that when you understand this, you’re free. Knowing this is “worth the price of admission.”

Are You Happy Now? 10 Ways to Live a Happy Life

Title: Are You Happy Now? 10 Ways to Live a Happy Life

Author: Barbara Berger

Classification: Nonfiction

Genre: Self-Help/Spirituality

ISBN: 978-1-78279-201-7

Year Published: 2013

Pages: 197

Edition: Reprint Edition (August 16, 2013)

Publisher: O-Books, imprint of John Hunt Publishing

Reviewer: Joyce Shafer ~ http://Self-PublishedAuthorsBookReviews.weebly.com

This is a book to read more than once!

I love and appreciate what the author did with this content. I could go on and on about the value and wisdom of this book. But I’ll start here, with a profound statement I heard years back: Sometimes the questions matter more to us than the answers. Though author, Barbara Berger, presents us with beneficial answers and information to consider and integrate, she also presents us with valuable questions (and all-important solutions), such as: Is the past controlling your present? Are you a people-pleaser with an aversion to conflict? Do the opinions of others influence or manipulate you? Do you have healthy boundaries? Do you fear your emotions? Do you know what the collective lie is that affects nearly all of us? What is the difference between consciousness and mind? Who are you beyond your thoughts that arise? What kind of life might you have if you stopped allowing other people to mind your business and if you stopped minding theirs? How many ways do you make or keep yourself unhappy, without realizing you’re doing this? How can you communicate honestly and clearly with others if you aren’t honest and clear with yourself? How can you have a fulfilling life if you’re afraid of making mistakes or fear others believing your choices are mistakes? How can you become mindful, especially when emotionally upset or afraid? These (and others she covers in the book) are questions many of us contend with but may not address, as this book does and does so well.

The ten chapter titles give a preview of what’s to come in the book, whether they build enthusiasm and eagerness to delve into them or, perhaps, make you quake a bit. It all depends on how ready you are to live a more authentic and fulfilling life. The titles are as follows: Accept what is; Want what you have; Be honest with yourself; Investigate your stories; Mind your own business; Follow your passion and accept the consequences; Do the right thing and accept the consequences; Deal with what is in front of you and forget the rest; Know what is what; and Learn to see beyond impermanence. There are worksheets at the back that help you address each chapter concept, as well as an Epilogue titled “Don’t Believe What You Think.” You’re either ready to see what the author has to offer about each of these or you’re telling yourself there’s laundry to fold or grass to cut (i.e., avoidance).

This is a book written by someone who who’s been through a lot, was facing a lot, including moving forward in years—and asked herself an important question: “...what do you need to remember to live a happy life? If you would sum it all up, what would it be? What do you need to know to get you through the rest of your life in a better way?” This is a question (what do you need to remember to live a happy life?) many of us contemplate, but likely do so in passing rather than addressing it head-on as the author did. Berger states in the Introduction that she recognized how much of her life she’d “spent worrying about stuff or being nervous and insecure about stuff or not really enjoying the fullness and richness of” her life. This is more of a common complaint than, I believe, most of us would like to admit, and one we truly desire to resolve. (I love the mountain example in Chapter 8, and find it highly beneficial!)

In her candid, straightforward manner, Berger discusses how we resist what-is, whatever the what-is is in a moment (weather, an event, pain, health, relationships, finances, etc.), and how we tend to fight the reality of what-is nearly all the time, as well as how this resistance affects not only us but how we experience life. However, she makes a keen point that accepting what-is is not saying “yes” to everything and doing nothing; that it is not about passivity, but the opposite. There were certainly additional brilliant points made beside these two I’m about to share, but I love these: We more often than not don’t live our lives, but live our interpretations of our lives; we’re dancing with illusions. And, we let other people manipulate us with their uninvestigated codes of behavior.

Berger proposes that all of us can lead happy lives regardless of our situation, and then demonstrates how to accomplish this throughout the book. She asks how well we know ourselves, or if we’re afraid to do this, asks why; discusses our responsibility to ourselves and our right to exist; and how we can deal with the fear of criticism and choice with integrity. She shares that we can remember the wonder of our own existence; discusses common worries and stories we tell ourselves and how to transform them; and shares what she discovered real happiness and success is, and how clear and simple it actually is.

Berger reminds us that life is always a process that we’re in; that it’s about awakening our awareness so that we make appropriate choices for ourselves, and not focus on perfection, which is unrealistic. I give this book an all-thumbs-up; and as I said earlier, it’s one to read more than once.

Self-Published Authors Book Reviews

Breaking the Chains to Freedom: Finding the Power within You

Esther Adler

Genre: Self-Help/Memoir

ISBN: 978-1-4664-2510-1

Reviewer: Joyce Shafer

http://Self-PublishedAuthorsBookReviews.weebly.com

Esther Adler’s book, Breaking the Chains to Freedom: Finding the Power within You, is part memoir, part self-help, which focuses on how to switch from victim mentality to a spiritual warrior mindset. Adler is a bright spirit born into a strict Orthodox Jewish family and culture filled with rules, restrictions, and guilt—and lots of each, which makes her more than the “black sheep” in the family. She was also born into a family with a father who has a genius I.Q. along with Borderline Paranoid Schizophrenia, and a mother who had a joyful spirit despite a physically incapacitated body and her own victim mentality, and whom Adler became primary caregiver of at age eight.

Adler describes growing up with a mother couldn’t take care of herself without assistance; a verbally and physically abusive father who tried to strangle her; a “religious” culture that refused to help her; the decline and death of her mother; being diagnosed with diabetes and the struggle to find a way to function with this disease; and a host of experiences that caused her to one day state to herself, “I don’t really want to die. I just don’t know how to live.” She reveals her transformation from practicing victim mentality to someone with a warrior mindset, which includes sharing how she was a wife at eighteen, with four children who arrived within a short few years; living with and eventually divorcing her verbally abusive husband (who, though Adler doesn’t state as such, at least seems to have Narcissistic Personality Disorder, based on her descriptions of his behaviors); and having to find love, peace, and wisdom in the decision to let her children live with their father as a result of his religious smear campaign against her. Adler also includes inspirational notes and theories about human needs that lead to victim behaviors, as well as exercises and ideas to help shift from emotional pain to happiness and spiritual awakening that lead to personal freedom. 

It’s pleasing to read something written by someone without degree letters after their name. That’s not a criticism: What I mean is that this book is a nice chance to relate to someone who is perceived as more like the man on the street than not, even if readers’ cultures are quite different. Adler demonstrates inner strength, character, and an indomitable, if not enviable, belief in herself, love, and life. I found that in the final sections, my yellow highlighter was used to note particular passages such as this one: “Showing no emotion is not an act of strength, but an act of fear. It’s a fear of being judged. Be judged. You will be judged in your life no matter what.”

Adler wrote this book for those who practice victim mentality or have experienced—or currently are experiencing—a major life transition (death of a loved one, loss of a significant relationship, loss of employment, loss of health, etc.), to help them move through and beyond the trauma such and similar experiences present. Although some pre-publishing polishing with editing tweaks would have been a good idea, such instances do not diminish how engaging her story is or how inspirational her message is. All in all, it’s a powerful read.