There’s something about self help books that I really like. There’s some magic in it, when you find the right one.
Don’t take me wrong, most of the time they are full shit. Just another (of millions) that is sold in commercial bookshops. Just another secret formula to achieve success or reach happiness.
You only need to read their titles to give you a million reasons not to sleep at night:
A super simple and not complicated formula to achieve this great thing X
- The 137 laws that you completely ignore of X
- How to unlock the secret power within X
- The science and art of another subject that I don’t care about X
- How to believe you are X and start living your best life yet
This is me going through the best seller list on Amazon. Ogh!
But, other times you stumble upon a book and find the greatest of jewels. It might just have snippets of wisdom, and that’s all you need if you are really paying attention…
I love books that make me think and rethink things about my own life, as you can see in my book club. Books give me different perspectives, or provide actual action plans to change things that don’t work well. Even better than a lot of psychology manuals that I read through university.
Not only the so-called self help books can do that, there’s hidden knowledge in literature books as well. Anything by Dostoevsky or Bukowski will do.
Books have given me the greatest aha moments. Helping connect dots, that remained lost for years, until one sentence, one explanation in a particular book, made a click, and everything started making sense.
Even if it was a book like ‘Easy Peasey: People Skills for Life’ by Allan and Barbara Pease.
Wait.
If you think a self help book will dramatically and forever change your life for the best and create out of the blue the life you always dreamt of, no matter what the marketing magicians try to sell you, it is not true. For a book will not change your life, if anything, YOU will change your life, with or without the help of a book.
And if you say, ‘Actually, Noemi, this X book changed my life upside down and now I’m a new person’.
Well.
Maybe you didn’t need much help to begin with.
The other day I came across a book by Louise Hay. She was, and still is, the queen of spirituality and self-help. We also know this because many new generations of professionals focused on the new age base most of their narrative on her work, specifically her masterpiece, the book ‘You Can Heal Your Life.’
The title is at the same time a cry for hope, a self-responsibility manifesto, the scariest thing you can think of, and a potential danger for excluding oneself from the medical system. All at the same time.
Over the years, I’ve seen this book on the coffee table in different people’s houses. And most of the time, it was either hiding behind another Taschen book that nobody needs, or full of dust and neglected.
People are desperate to believe.
Aren’t we?
Now, doing what it takes to materialise that thing that you want to believe is another matter.
(Btw, what is the point of coffee table books? Please, if you don’t like reading, don’t pretend you do. This reminds me of that Seinfeld episode in which Kramer creates the coffee table book. Brilliant.)
Mind you, this is not criticism of Louise Hay’s work. As I said before in previous episodes, I don’t have strong opinions about things that I still don’t know.
Was she a charlatan? If so, do charlatans have powers that actually work because they work with the mind, system of beliefs, and placebo effect? (Remember: the placebo effect is scientifically proven.)
Who knows.
I guess my advice would be to read with caution. And then take what is useful and appropriate, and not potentially dangerous. Please.
You have been warned.
Use your critical thinking, always.
At the beginning of ‘You Can Heal Your Life,’ she wrote what she considered the fundamental key points of her philosophy, which I found fascinating.
Some of them are as good as truth itself or even just plain common sense (for people that actually have common sense!) and other statements will definitely trigger some visceral reaction out of you. I will be covering them in the following newsletters. Don’t miss out!
Love,
Noemi
