Customer Reviews

Your Mind: An Owner's Manual for a Better Life

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We all want to be happy, but too often we set up obstacles without even being aware. We worry too much, we panic, we feel jealous, anxious and angry. These feelings and the endless unwanted thoughts that come with them hang over us like a dark cloud and make us miserable.
In Your Mind: An Owner's Manual for a Better Life, the authors identify these behaviors and explain where they come from, and more importantly, how we can change them to live more fulfilled lives. This book is extremely well-organized, easy to read, and the authors inject just the right dose of humor to make their points. Each chapter or Truth begins with a quote from the likes of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Roseanne Barr, or Don Henley of the Eagles, and ends with simple activities that are designed to help you learn how to pinpoint the behaviors you want to change. There's space to write on the pages, or you can write on a separate sheet of paper and pass the book along to your mother-in-law or your husband to help them become more fulfilled too. The Truths that the authors identify are really guidelines to achieve positive change and happiness. For instance, Truth #1 is "Emotions are not mysterious visitors; they can be identified and understood." The authors explain in simple terms where feelings like guilt, panic, anger and anxiety come from and they help us learn to identify them in the moment and to ultimately avoid letting them take over our lives. One of the exercises invokes the "Opposite George" approach from the TV show "Seinfeld." When George realizes that every decision he ever made was wrong, he decides to act opposite to his impulses. In the same way, we have to check our impulses at the door, think and then learn to interact with the world in new ways--resulting in personal satisfaction and enhanced quality of life.
Your Mind: An Owner's Manual is chock full of easily accessible, practical information that you can begin integrating into your life immediately.
Reading this book is just like having a therapist, but way cheaper.

I found this book to be an easy read that translated 'pysch' concepts to common english. It had everyday real world examples that made me understand the concepts. The exercises were simple but still gave me lots to think about. I now feel that I have some useful tools to think about my behaviors and how they relate to my feelings.

The authors struck the right note for me, I though they had a lighthearted, down-to-earth, encouraging style. The attitude was, "Your not alone, everybody has some 'stuff' to work on, here are some things to think about that work for our patients". This wasn't an academic text, or some doctors telling you what's wrong with you, it was more like getting some advice from a couple of smart friends.

I would recommend this book for a great overview of our common cognitive mistakes, laid out in layman's terms. Kudos to the authors.

This book is full of great psychological points and its written in a way that prompts you to simply spend a little time reflecting on your own situation(s) in life. And then...CHANGE your patterns for the better!!