The more we are, the richer everything we experience is. And those who want to have deep love in their lives must collect and save for it, and gather honey -Rainer Maria Rilke
Please disregard the schmoopy title. This self help book is actually good and it will help you find love. Not because it teaches you a bunch of silly rules or how to change yourself into what men want. No, this book focuses on self improvement for the sake of self improvement. It helps you identify values in life and personally it gave me more courage in all my relationships in life. It opened me up to my true self and it helped me identify how I actually wanted to live life.
Okay, so, but what does it actually do? The concept is to read one chapter a day for seven weeks. Each chapter is followed by one or two exercises varying from writing in a journal, to sculpting in clay and several guided meditations. Not all the exercises may benefit you, I for example am not the type of person to imagine my mother in front of me as a blue orb of light. But mostly it was about recognising patterns in your life and where you might want to change them. The purpose seemed to be doing them in the morning and then incorporate a small change during the day. I found however that, for me, it felt more natural to do it at night. I am too sensitive to scratch into fears and insecurities in the morning and then not be all weird about it during the day. Night time is more quiet and calm and I am more open after finishing my tasks for the day. But the course is pretty flexible, so really whatever floats your boat.
It is also recommended to do the book with a friend – and I can definitely see why. Talking these issues out helps a lot more than just thinking and writing. However, while I brought some of the issues up with friends I didn’t have anyone to support me through…and honestly that might have made me abandon it if it were not for this book review. Still, I could definitely see my self reading some of these chapters again and doing some of the same exercises a year from now.
I would, however, not recommend doing it while you’re dating someone. It’s super scary scary: a lot of time is dawned on me that for this exercise to work I would have to be completely honest, even it leads me to a conclusion that the man I am with is not the one. Not a nice feeling when your favourite boyfriend ever is on the couch next to you. (Spoiler: It didn’t. We are still together more in love than ever and I am actually better at communicating.)
Which leads me to this; the best part is – people stumble upon their one true loves all the time by just sheer dumb luck. That’s how I met my boyfriend and that’s how millions of people meet theirs. So when you’re doing all this self-improvement, you’re really just doing it for you. You are becoming happier just because that’s the way to live.