I had the honour of choosing the book this month over at the Laughing Medusa Blog‘s Self-Love Book Club.
Colour me surprised but I wasn’t expecting to be moved by a book donning the title Spirit Junkie [Gabrielle Bernstein]. After all its cover is plastered with a bleach blond skinny woman flanked in a sequinned happy-face dress. I want to be at peace (or feel like I have some kind of inner-peace, ahem sanity), but not at the cost of being a putz. Does this resonate with you?
For some Bernstein’s anecdotes may come off as charming, but I didn’t find most of them relatable. What I did take notice of was her simple explanation of how fear takes charge of day-to-day life. Simply put, my cool, collected walk and contagious laughter is undermined by my fear of f–king up. A fear that I am nothing more than my past mistakes, that there is no way that I could have learned or grown or become stronger because of them. Have you felt this way too?
Fear is normal and at times even can be helpful. Bernstein asks you to choose love at every turn, but I can’t quite get on board with that. Conversely, I suggest that you grab the reins on your ego when the negative thoughts turn from exploratory to aggressive and you can’t quite decide what end your most recent meal is going to fly out of.
How, you ask? Start the inner-dialogue and deflate your ego. Bernstein contends that by just communicating your fears out loud or writing it on paper (for those fond of journaling) can release us from the madness that our fear of reliving the past plays in our daily life. If you are looking for a non-preachy, slightly bleach-y approach to reducing negative self-talk in your life, I suggest you pick up Spirit Junkie and go buffet style. Spirit Junkie provides meditations and journaling prompt to help guide you through the process, allowing you to choose whatever seems to make sense to you and for you at the time. We’ve all got to start somewhere.
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