Customer Reviews

Waiting for Jack: Confessions of a Self-Help Junkie: How to Stop Waiting and Start Living Your Life

5 star:		(56)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Self Help books and seminars, groupies, internet chat programs, even expensive courses offered in every city across the country serve a good purpose. They encourage people to change their lives or approach to the world to make living more comfortable an fulfilling. But there are people whose book shelves bulge with book after book of 'authoritative resources' to guide the reader through changes that require a lot of time and commitment to programs, lists, charts to mark progress, etc. It all of that really necessary? Yes, for some people who cannot commit to professional help to make their lives workable these inexpensive and in many cases very well prepared programs provide assistance. Then along comes Kristen Moeller and in her very entertaining, very personal, and very well written little book WAITING FOR JACK and the concept of becoming a 'self-help junkie' puts it all into perspective.

Moeller's precis is straightforward: 'stop waiting for remedies for external change and simply start living your life'. Sound simplistic? Not in Moeller's witty and caring and warm hands. Sharing her own experiences and having the courage to expose her own vulnerabilities and expectations for someone to help her 'fix' her life, she shares how introspection and learning to love yourself is a viable path to getting off the john and just take on living inside your own body and life. It is easy to read and easy to absorb. And for people who constantly engage in self help programs, it is a blessing! Grady Harp, May 10

After hearing Kristen (she is an amazing speaker) speak at Author 101 University, I just HAD to get her book! "Waiting for Jack" is a page turner! Kristen grabs your attention from the beginning with her story about meeting Jack Canfield for the first time and how that meeting allows for a new path to unfold in her life. However, this book is about more than one "Jack" and you will be entertained and inspired as Kristen takes you on a journey of self discovery and the opportunity to ask yourself this question, "What am I waiting for?".

I highly recommend this book to anyone who feels stuck...or feels like they are waiting for something or someone to give them the next step in their lives. "Waiting for Jack" will change your life.

I'm not waiting anymore!

Waiting for Jack took me through Kristen Moeller's personal journey of overcoming her troubled young adulthood riddled with addiction and self doubt eventually reconnecting her to emotional, physical and spiritual well being. It is rich, intelligent and alive with humility and courage. In her ability to express the beauty of her humanity, Kristen shows us that self acceptance and a grateful life are available to us all, NOW. In seeing such a conscious and practical book from a first time published author, Kristen is sure to become an influential teacher and leader in the field of personal transformation.

To be honest, I didn't expect to love this book. I know kristen, I love her and who she is in the world, and so I read her book to be supportive, but figured it was just her first attempt and I figured I'd heard everything she had to say anyway.

Boy was I wrong.

I start a lot of books, but rarely finish them and even more rare is when I can't wait to keep reading. I read this book in less than 2 days and loved every page. I especially loved the way she weaves her own story into the advice without losing credibility or sounding like an authority. It is a very authentic book with powerful lessons. Given that's also how you'd describe the author, I guess it should not have been a surprise.

So, whether you're looking for inspiration, personal growth, or want to be a more powerful support for others. I highly, highly recommend this book. It's also a fun read. I've given away 3 copies already and my friends love it. Yours will too.

Many personal empowerment books can lead the reader forward with wonderful ideas and concepts in well organized fashion which are inspiring and informative, yet leave the reader at the end, still with a certain disconnect. In Waiting for Jack, Kristen Moeller takes a different approach; she leads by example and instantly connects with her reader through her vulnerability. In a most candid manner, Moeller bares her soul to the reader in order to gain their confidence and then proceeds to lead them through the real process of spiritual growth. Moeller manages to portray each step up the ladder to a better self as an act of awareness, courage, of intention, of focus, and vision, while coaching the weakened weary self to have faith through almost certain missteps upon each rung along the way to growth.
Moeller proves through her own experience that you too can rise to an extraordinary life from no matter where you have been in the spectrum of the human suffering condition. She also maintains the importance of constant vigilance and conscious awareness as a way to keep the extraordinary life that you too can create for yourself. Waiting for Jack is human and accessible, and the reader will not be disappointed.

I have to confess--I am so the perfect audience for Kristen Moeller's surprisingly unsettling and truly delightful little book.

I'm a former English teacher, a seeker, a philosopher, a business coach, and just like the eponymous narrator of Moeller's book, a (big sigh here) self-help junkie.

Just as Moeller describes, I have shelves bulging with all kinds of transformational, metaphysical, inspirational, educational literature--everything from the very latest in Past Life Regression to the more scientifically acceptable (for the moment, anyway)Redirecting Your Neural Nets of neuroscience. I love Transformation with a capital "T." The concept of transformation, at any rate. But not always the application.

And here's my dirty little secret. Often, instead of practicing and applying the principles my current How-To recommends, I am sneaking back to the book store to find "The Truth" somewhere else.

Which, as Moeller points out, is not necessarily all bad. I know that many, many things in my consciousness (and more helpfully, for those who love me, my behavior!)have changed radically as my mind opens wider and wider to many possibilities and choices I never even knew existed. Even with many of my best intentions to "think about that later," some of this stuff has a way of seeping in.

But Moeller's book really nailed something for me--in a very concrete way--that somehow no other self-help book (no matter how chock full of help)quite got through to me: the reminder to love, to ponder, and to look within. To stop Waiting for Jack and start Rendezvousing with Me.

I figured,hell, I'm just really really patient. I know I'm smart, but this is a new way of thinking for me. So it's probably going to take me a long time to get it. But when I do, oh boy! Look out! Eckhart Tolle and Byron Katie will be my best friends! Streaming hoardes people will come to my mountain top, and I will bless them and they will weep tears of bliss! You know, the Spiritualist's version of Megalomania.

Moeller's book made me take another look. And look again. It helps a lot that it's my absolute favorite kind of Self Help book--a funny, touching, poignant (and, as many reviewers have mentioned, brutally honest)memoir mixed with some very practical practices and principles. Moeller isn't afraid to share all her "failures," and in so doing reveal how they opened her mind to wonderful unexpected new levels of understanding. And as I read, I felt my own mind expanding to fresh appreciation for, yes, my patience. But even more significant: to deeper insight for all the ways I put my life and experience on an indefinite holding pattern. Otherwise known, in our clinical vernacular, as "Waiting."

Perhaps rather than waiting for Eckhart Tolle and Byron Katie (or Jack Canfield, Or Jesus) to come and validate my own Personal Ellen Ministry, I could fall in love with my Own Personal Jesus. My Own Personal Jack. Who has been waiting patiently, all along, for me to discover the incredible, vast, unlimited resources lurking within. Just hanging out. Occasionally nudging me, "Pssst. Yo. Ellen. Whenever you're ready, we're right here."

And so, with Moeller's book in hand (cause you couldn't expect me to go all by myself, I gotta have something to read) I am headed off to my mountaintop. Y'all come by, now, and I will bless you real good, I promise. But just in case there's no huge line right away, I'll go ahead and bless myself. Thank you, Kristen Moeller, for doing your part to remind us that it's okay to forget, and then to remember again.

And as Moeller says, in my favorite last line of any book I can remember, "I am returned to wonder."

At last, a book that is honest, direct and completely inspirational. The author taps into critical patterns and habits of "waiting" that we all encounter in life and she offers great ideas about how to change your individual story. I found myself highlighting and ear-marking many sections so I can easily find them again. Throughout the book I felt my own inner voice echoed in the words of the author and truly felt like she was speaking to (and from) my heart! Thank you for helping me stop waiting and start doing!!!

Stop waiting, start living. That's what author Kristen Moeller teaches readers to do in her wonderful book Waiting for Jack. It's easy to sit around planning, dreaming, complaining, adding to our lists of I want, I can't, I wish, I need. But it's quite a different thing to put the money where our mouths are and just do it. In the book, Kristen lays out concrete steps to take to achieve whatever we want. Easy to understand practices that make sense and that work. And she speaks from experience. She has crafted a life of beauty and abundance for herself from a past that includes pain, addiction and fear. Her honest description of the life challenges she has faced is on one hand heart wrenching, but on the other very inspiring. To be able to overcome such issues and lead a life that is truly happy and fulfilled shows us that anything is possible. If we just do it. If we stop waiting and start living. I've recommended this book to many friends. It's a keeper.

Kristen's authenticity, insight and ability to come up with meaningful questions to allow the reader to experience her journey and their own is amazing. As a counselor, I am using this book with my Womens' Group to help them explore what they may be waiting for and where and why they get stuck. Thanks, Kristen, for a great read and a wonderful tool. Linza

Very well written. Easy to read. Nice, neat and precise. Most of all...inspiring! Kristen Moeller shares some of her very private life experiences with her readers, which is a very brave thing to do, in order that you can understand how she was able to turn her life around, become successful, and stop waiting for Jack in her life. She's been able to stop waiting for her life to begin and start enjoying each NOW moment in her life. If you've been waiting and waiting for your life to begin then this is an excellent book for you to read so that you can begin to enjoy your life...right now...more joyfully. A+ Kristen! May the journey of your life continue to teach you, and everyone you meet, how truly wonderful life can be!