Customer Reviews

Embracing Uncertainty: Breakthrough Methods for Achieving Peace of Mind When Facing the Unknown

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By the time I had finished reading Chapter 1 of Susan's wonderful book, I had made a life-changing decision. The large house my husband and I loved had become a burden in this wretched economy, and we were agonizing over whether to downsize or struggle to hang on. "What if we'll never be able to own such a fabulous house again?" we thought. "Are we failures because we haven't been able to keep up with the Joneses?" "What will happen to us now?" The fear, longing, and possible disgrace were eating us alive. Then I found Susan's book. Stop hoping and start wondering, she counsels. Look at life not with fear, hope, and expectations, but with curiosity, she says. "I wonder how this will turn out" is the attitude to take. Turn your life into a story, one in which you can't wait to get to the next episode to see what will happen. Boom! Her advice knocked my socks off. I've never been able to resist seeing what's around the next corner. I decided to let the house go, and my husband agreed. Let the adventure begin!

I once knew a woman who claimed that she was so optimistic that she could even look on the bright side when someone was dying of cancer. I never understood what she meant, but I've kept her mysterious statement in the back of my mind all these years. Susan's book made my friend's statement clear at last. When you can infuse your life with meaning and purpose, find the positive in both good and bad experiences, and use everything you've been through as an opportunity for learning, you can be optimistic in the face of hardship. Susan tells of a holocaust survivor who found fulfillment in helping other concentration camp inmates; a stroke victim and a quadriplegic who lived full, meaningful lives by focusing on helping others. It can all be done by letting go of expectations and making the most of what we have here and now. After all, as John Lennon said, life is what happens while you're making other plans.

It takes courage and ingenuity to follow Susan's advice, but I promise that if you do, you will be transformed. I know this from my own experience, not just with the house, but from thinking back over my life. Think of it this way: You can continue to suffer, or you can embrace uncertainty and find golden nuggets all around you.

Embracing Uncertainty was one of the first self help books that I have ever read.

I found it so helpful that it motivated me to find and read more books that would help me as much at achieving peace and happiness in my life.

Jeffers provides 58 simple exercises that can be practised throughout your day to help you deal with the challenges of life.

I've yet to find another book that offers so many tools to help teach you to control your mind. I use two of the exercises so much that they are now second nature to me!

The first exercise helps me whenever I find myself worrying about something and I can't seem to stop.

I simply tell myself that I'll worry about it tomorrow every time the thought comes up. It's a great mind trick saying you'll worry about it tomorrow when really you'll never let yourself worry about it. This exercise has let me enjoy the present moment without wasting it on useless worrying.

The second exercise that I found very useful was to teach myself to stop `hoping' for things. Instead, I only let myself `wonder' about what might happen. Wondering instead of hoping stops me from feeling disappointment that can come when something I hope for doesn't happen. A `wondering' world is a much easier one to be in than a `hoping' world!

There are 56 other good techniques in Embracing Uncertainty so I'm sure if these two don't quite speak to you, you'll find at least a couple of others that will make your world a lot better.

I have read Embracing Uncertainty by Dr. Susan Jeffers a couple of times and I find it the most comforting self-help book that I have ever read. Seldom is one provided with so many wonderful tools to overcome the stress and anxiety caused by the troubled world around us. Against the background of the current world crisis, a lousy economy and the constant threat of terrorist attacks, we all need help to keep calm and balanced, and I found Dr. Jeffers's advice to be ideal in terms of leveling my personal equilibrium. Now, I can approach each day with much more confidence and handle the uncertainty in the world without feeling fearful and stressed. Further, the book is filled with such common sense advice that's so clearly stated, it is accessible to everyone. I can't recommend this highly enough! A great gift for loved ones...

Dr. Susan Jeffers suggests a methodology for people to attain mental equilibrium and serenity in an uncertain world that seems increasingly unpredictable since 9/11. The author feels that too many people waste time, energy, and money trying to control what the future will bring to them. Instead, Dr. Jeffers advocates acceptance of three prime "realities" before one can learn to live life to the fullest.

In other words, Dr. J encourages readers to "live for today and don't worry about tomorrow". Though nothing innovative (Grass Roots offered the same advice thirty-five years ago) to embrace in this self-help book, Dr. Jeffers provides a timely tranquil message in a world that seems as if stress is the solo measure.

Harriet Klausner

I'm 45 years now, and I've spent the most of my life this fare making every possible measure to make sure the unthinkable should never happen, and to be preppared for anything in any case, no mather how things would turn out.

Lately this caused me to worry myself to sleeping problems, and to be stressed (stress is not good for your health or remaining life time).

But for some reason (I don't know why) I bought this book via Amazon a while ago, and was reading small pices a couple of times per week during my half hour tube trips.

And I must say, this book has reduced my stress level significantly. And by significantly, I mean aprox 50% (at least) ...

The book is dead simple. But to somebody like me, this simple thinking was a previously unknown, and now new way of thinking and seeing life.

I do worry significantly less than before. And the book is also of good help if you find it hard to mingle with or get in touch with other people.

I don't have a clue as to who Susan is,..... But thanks Susan ! ,.......

I guess, to people who don't worry, and are at ease with anybody they mingle or get in touch with, this could be a one star book, but to people like me, it's 5 stars plus.

///Finn (Norway),...... It's also translated to Norwegian by the way.

Susan Jeffers is a national expert on fear and tools to move past fear. This book is a recent effort, and is in a sense the next stage past her best-seller "Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway." She takes what has to be one of the most unnerving topics for most people to even consider, embracing the uncertainty of life, and offers pragmatic, clear tools for doing exactly that. Just the discussion of letting go of outcomes should be required reading for anyone 10 years old and up. While the book has a spiritual leaning it is by no means necessary to be of any spiritual belief, or even spiritual at all, to find this book highly useful.

Excellent book. I would recommend it to anyone who is struggling with the pressures of life an its uncertainties.

That's why I mentioned it in my own book, Beyond the Secret. Why? Because I feel Embracing Uncertainty provides a vital understanding that sometimes we are not meant to think our whole lives through and manifest and attract whatever we think we want. Sometimes, we are meant to take a seat in the audience, as Jeffers so wisely reveals, and watch the play of our lives unfold. What happens when we do this? We learn to allow! We learn to live more comfortably within the space of not knowing. We no longer fear uncertainty, or the spaces in our lives where we can't figure it all out. This in turn allows us to make room for something more vital than our own limited perspective of the world. It makes room for Spirit, with it's larger and often more wiser point of view. - Dr. Lisa Love, Beyond the Secret

Human life has always involved much uncertainty, and our current circumstances are no exception (post 9/11 terrorism risk, financial crises, pathogen pandemics, political instability, intensified globalization, etc.). In this book, Susan Jeffers proposes that we can not only learn to live with uncertainty, but we can even embrace it by seeing the positive in it.

As I understand it, her main idea is that, rather than fearing the unknown future and rigidly expecting particular outcomes, we should instead focus on and appreciate the positive aspects of the present (remaining aware that death can come at any time), while approaching the future with an open-minded and flexible sense of wonder and adventure, guided by a uniquely individual and intuitively discerned "higher purpose" within a "grand design." And when the going sometimes gets really tough (as it surely will), we should try to maintain a degree of non-attachment, have confidence that we can cope, aim to learn and grow from these difficult experiences, and accept that perhaps things are happening the way they are for a meaningful reason.

These are fairly standard self-help ideas (with much borrowed from Eastern philosophy), but they're still solidly good ideas, and it's helpful to bring them together in the specific context of dealing with uncertainty. Moreover, Jeffers also suggests many practical exercises for people to try, which is vitally important since ideas need to be translated into action in order to make a real difference in people's lives.

Highly recommended for people who find value in (good) self-help books.

"Embracing Uncertainty" by Susan Jeffers

If you want a clear mental image of a beautiful human being, and particularly a beautiful human spirit, read this book and discover its author. Her delightfully simple, though enlightening and uplifting, style will seem as though you're in company with a warm, caring friend that is profoundly wise into the bargain. Learn the virtue of detachment blended with commitment, and find peace within; discover the incredible resources for achieving happiness that you possess. Do yourself a favor and read this book.

Laurent Grenier
Author of the book "A Reason for Living (the way to fulfillment against great odds)."