Customer Reviews

When Everything Changes, Change Everything: In a Time of Turmoil, a Pathway to Peace

5 star:		(49)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I have to say, I was pretty excited about this title. The Conversations series was very interesting. This book however, reads like one of those 'get rich quick' scams on the internet with the long web page that tells you over an over again how revolutionary their product is...all for the low low price of $[..]. The author pushes his revolutionary product, the website[...]. He urges readers to go there immediately to help them cope with their issues. I just went there. The website hasn't even launched yet. Pathetic. Even more pathetic is how he uses his wife's poor attempts at poetry in front of the different chapters and tells us how wonderful her poems are. He repeats himself over and over agian, and actually tells us that he's repeating himself. This book would be 7 pages long if he would get to the point and say things once. I understand that the book needs a certain amount of pages, but at least give us some real life examples instead of telling us how you're going to repeat yourself. I'm very disappointed, and I wanted very much to like this book. Instead of being helped, I've just wasted time. Don't waste yours.

I've just finished reading the book and am actually re-skimming it just to find one little nugget to prove I didn't just waste two days. Just like a bad movie with a 5 star rating, I kept on going: "Surely with all these great reviews and the devotion to CwG I just haven't gotten to the good stuff yet."

The author's conversational tone is nice, and I believe he understands the pain I'm in. His premise too is fine - he says we have to literally change everything - stop isolating, change your emotions / thoughts / truths, and "know" that all change is for the best and that you're its author.

I have two chief complaints. First, this is primarily a regurgitation of many others' ideas (law of attraction, change your thoughts change your life, etc.). I did learn some new things about meditation, but that too came from someone else. The few new things - or at least twists - were incredibly convoluted, and some of the biggest stretches came with the least persuasive arguments.

Second and most frustrating, if there's anything practical to be had (as in exercises to actually change your perception of change), apparently it will come from attending one of his workshops or purchasing the workbook (not yet released but you can read the TOC in this book!) or enrolling on his oft-promoted web site for a nine dollar monthly fee (still under construction; one of the three life coaches is his poet wife).

The author said we'd need tools not just philosophy to accomplish these shifts; I'm still waiting.

This book answered my question: How do I handle changes TODAY, that are overwhelming and coming way too fast for me to manage or comprehend. Compassionately, Neale Donald Walsch explains simply, the mechanics of why we feel the way we do, what we can do about it, and how to DEVELOP THE SKILL of embracing and thriving peacefully in change for the rest of our lives. Sound to good to be true? It isn't; I'm living it. The book helped me immediately welcome Change, as MY new friend.

A MUST HAVE, this book reads easily and doesn't throw "Shazam! You're healed!" rhetoric at you. (Thank God!) You will want to read it again and again, and share it with everyone you know who is struggling with change...which is all of us (at some point or another). Especially now.

I feel that I am a person who deeply, deeply understands the CwG material. So much so that it is very easy for me to apply the material in my day to day life. I had always felt that there was something more personal with God than the typical belief that I was raised with in my strict Baptist up-bringing. So once I read Neale's books, I was able to remember it again and make it work for my life.

So, imagine my surprise when I really came away with a new understanding of the message after hearing what Neale had to say. If we were all of the time in the realization of how the mind works, or even at what point the Ego is affecting our reality using the system with which Neale so very eloquently illustrates in this book, we could change every situation we encounter.

The information that is shared in this book, has really opened up some new doors for me, to improving behaviors and thought patterns that I had been waiting to fall away from me with just daily meditation. Daily meditation for me has made me a whole new person, but I still had some issues.

So thank you Neale for writing about Mechanics of the Mind and System of the Soul, I really think it will unblock some problem areas and I am very excited to tell others about it.

I bought this because I have had some major changes in my life. I thought that perhaps I'd glean some kernel of wisdom from it that all of my other reading hadn't given me, or shed some light on one I thought I knew already.

I have to say much to my chagrin, that I'm disappointed. For *me* this book is not good. It reads like a self promotion for his website, which charges for monthly services that he touts in his book as a means of connecting. I remember having the thought as I first read about all that you can do on his site "Yes, and how much does that cost...". I was shocked I thought that, but the more I read it (giving it a fair shake) the more those words came out from behind my thoughts to become the prominant thoughts.

It began to seem like every sentence was "go to my website, sign up for monthly subscription, learn how to connect and deal with change..." We already paid for the book! It continued to read like a carrot on a stick type book even to the middle of the book where I finally stopped reading.

I have a voracious appetite for books and normally even a book that might limp along I will still read. I actually put this down several times. I doggedly tried to continue, reading halfway through it before I put it down for the final time.

The positive of this book is that for someone who is not so well versed on the writers before this book, it may be an eye opener. I DO like how in some places it's worded as a conversation. I dislike how in some places he takes that conversation to a new low by saying HE needs a break too. I understand the concept of identifying with your audience but not everyone needs those kinds of breaks nor does it inspire confidence to read that the author needs them too.

I like his CwG books, I had wanted to like this one... but just wasn't able to get there with it. If you've never seen a book about this type of topic you may enjoy it. I however, did not.

I had high hopes from the title and the first few pages. Unfortunately, as I got into the book, it just got stupid. There are multiple references to a web site, when one would do, and just had stupid psychobabbly passages. Not a pathway to peace, a pathway to insanity. Here's a paragraph:
First we asked, where does reality come from? And the answer was: it emerges out of our experience. Then we asked, where does our experience come from? And the answer was: it emerges out of our emotion. Then we asked, where does our emotion come from? And the answer was: it emerges out of our thought. Then we asked, where does our thought come from? And the answer was: it emerges out of our truth. Now we ask, where does our truth come from? And the answer is: it emerges out of our data.

Made me want to ask, where is the book going? And the answer was: in the garbage, quick. Then the next page said:
Oh boy...this is doing more than breaking the Line of Causality. This is mind bending. Whew. Okay, I need a little break here. I really do. I mean, I'm writing this stuff and I need a little break. How must it be on your end?

Well, the answer to that is my mind wasn't bent, it was blown. I can't believe this actually got published. Stupid book in my opinion. I want a refund.

NEALE DONALD WALSCH teaches us about change. Change is good. Change is not the end. It's the beginning of something new that is to come. The work that I do in feng shui is totally aligned with what Neale says. I studied the I Ching, which stresses constant cyclical change and that a pattern of movement is constant. These changes or movements are used in the areas of philosophy, astrology, Chinese medicine, numerology, martial arts, mathermatics, and feng shui. Feng Shui is simply working with energies to get a good result.
I like his book because it addresses our 'raison d'etre', our reason for being, and or course 'don't panic'. This book will certainly reassure you that change is constant. It's a small price to pay for a book that helps you put your mind at ease...

Dr. Anna Maria Prezio
#1 Best Selling Author of Confessions of a Feng Shui Ghost-Buster

It is one thing to have to live through major, personal disasters, and then have no plan on how to deal with the aftermath. You may not be able to change all thats happened to you, but at least with this Book you will be able to deal with it more constructively. Ask yourself the question: 'Can I at least be at peace with myself and with others despite these changes?' When everything changes [ or has already changed] you want to handle it as best as you can. And this is what makes this Book such good reading material Reverend Ken Griffiths Author of Oh God,Change This Scene!

Those familiar with the Conversations-with-God material will find it particularly easy to acquaint themselves with Neale Donald Walsch's approach to personal change in a world of continual uncertainty, turmoil and change. This is highly recommended reading material and it puts the CWG-material into a change context in an ideal, effective and personalized way. What else is there to do to go beyond the CWG material, a challenge in its own right?

The book comes at the right time and provides a wealth of information and tools on how to become a master of one's own change instead of a victim hunted down by circumstances. The material is far superior and a great deal more tangible than many an academic book on Change Management in use today. Keep Neale's book on the shelf and in your heart and perhaps selectively add more (corporate) stuff from John P. Kotter and William Bridges (those two will pretty much do the trick), and you'll be ready for the troubled waters ahead.

After listening to and reading Dr. Wayne Dyer, this recommended book was not even close to being as in tune with the depth of change and looking at it from a spiritual and intellectual standpoint. There was definitely something lacking in the content of this book. It was almost like the author was trying to speak to a less intelligent audience. I only made it through the first couple chapters before I felt like it was not for me. I recommend reading a chapter at your local library rather than purchasing it to see if it speaks to your heart - I'm sure it is a good read for others, just not me.