dianeseattle
Member
you don't need to be an alcoholic to get great wisdom from the Big Book, which holds a mirror up to your addictive behaviors and helps you surrender it.
even though i'd been in Al-Anon for years, this book knocked my socks off. It's easy and fun to read, and you will learn a lot about your reactive nature that sends you clinging to those things that are bad for your life, but you can't seem to let go.
this book is not what it sounds like. it's a diet from negative thinking. it is the best book i've ever read if you're looking for tools to change shame messages into affirmations.
this book is tiny and cathartic. you might not know that life is full of unexpected losses, including the loss of position when you are promoted to a new job, or coming into money when you've been poor all your life, or moving from a nasty apartment to a beautiful house. it also pointedly addresses the kind of loss we struggle with, and some of those include losing your old comfort foods, losing your bad eating habits, losing your identity as a fat person when you reach your weight loss goal.
THIS was the first "self-help" book I ever read. I think my therapist at the time must have told me about it. I think also it was Dyer's first book. I bought two copies so I could have one to refer to all the time, but have one I could lend to others. See, that's how codependent I was back then. I wanted other people to be as mentally healthy as I thought I was, so I had an ulterior motive for laying it on them. I learned pretty quickly that I had a long way to go, but the best thing Dyer taught me was the difference between "want" and "need." Before this book, I was a whiny, needy, clingy little baby of a woman who was so insecure she lived in a constant state of jealousy of what others had. That was a real culture shock for me, and not particularly pleasant. But over time, because of this book, I learned that jealous was not WHO i was, but was WHAT i was. I learned that I could change.
there's one more book, but it's really just a bonus. If you want to challenge your belief system, regardless of what that is, read "Magic and Mystery in Tibet." It was written by a woman who was the first female to be made a monk, who did groundbreaking research on the metaphysics of Buddhism, and who surprised herself when she found herself able to put mind over matter. The woman is Alexandra David-Neel, she's French, and the book is long out of print. But you can still buy it and borrow it from many libraries. If you decide to read this, you might develop a belief that anything is possible, including healing yourself.
