Melanie
Some good exercises for *everyone* but a decent, very accessible read about hypermobility issues. They cover more than physical therapy/movement pieces, which I initially thought it was. I appreciate the tone, so much of what I read about hypermobility is a chore to get through dismal or very clinical text.
This one has some info I definitely need to go back and consume visually. Some things seems outside the reach of possibility but I appreciate the extra validation on Buy Nothing and the benefits of it. Definitely had me thinking differently at some points, in terms of not just a platform/tool, but a “project”. I'm curious how many things are actually true outside the Bainbridge community (some of the recycling possibilities). Some privilege is evident, but I didn't feel there was anything condescending in this book like I've experienced in some others. The bits about ecology and sustainability hadn't really occurred to me before the read, and that resonates highly with my values, so I appreciated the inclusion.
This definitely did not strike me as impactfully as 4 agreements did. I'm trying to decide how much it might be from taking it in audiobook format, but I struggled to be interested and get through this one. The idea of self government makes sense but definitely didn't help my enjoyment or taking in of the information since I don't like politics, hah.
Kinda painful. She starts out sounding like she's got some message, but ultimately it's at least half wordy CV. She comes across as quite pleased with herself without acknowledging privilege.
While she seemingly advocates for tech life balance, she also advocates for people to post more baby pictures so she can feel better about how many she posts. There's some interesting data drops, but despite her resume I'm not convinced she's the expert on the topic I'd want to take advice from. “I just started a production company! Time to post a baby photo!” What?
The only reason I finished reading it is because Goodreads doesn't handle DNF shelving well. She dreams of transparency on the internet, everyone going by real names with the hypothesis this would stop trolling. And oh by the way, I know this meme!
It spurred some conversation with my partner, at least, but overall I was disappointed. I think more point could be made. Some stats and info bits were interesting, but overall I'm just irked at his oversimplification of veganism. He picks one point of reason for it and tears it to pieces, glossing over legit reasons, and encourages dairy consumption because it doesn't kill... Which actually makes it one of the LEAST humane options. I would have liked to have seen this balanced by good reasoning and not just latching onto tropes. If one of his points is that life is complex, there's so much he could have done here.
I don't care that he ate a squirrel, I don't conceptually mind hunting. Factory farming is bad for the planet and for health. Sure, where is the cutoff for meat? Fine conversation. But he didn't even touch how comparable cannibalism might be, and I think most of us who have chosen this lifestyle have faced his line of questioning plenty of times. I was well aware of my hypocrisy as a vegetarian before going vegan. The conversation of values vs amount of sacrifice one is willing to make is relevant and interesting, why not go there?
Two things bother me most:
1) his big point is about how biased we are as humans, and yet on this topic he doesn't acknowledge his own bias. (Whether that is thinking veganism is stupid, or he just likes meat, I can't say).
2) I don't know how balanced he presented other topics, but this was the one place he seemed to be advocating for something, that I heard.. and it's a destructive thing for our planet, so I don't take kindly to that. And I'm so sick of the beaten to death a hundred times joke that vegetarians are plant slaughterers. You like numbers, Neil? It takes a third of the farmland to feed a vegetarian compared to an omnivore since we eat the plants directly and don't filter it through a cow. So we still kill fewer living things than you. See? It's not even “funny because it's true”.
I also question his conclusion about the LD ranking of glyphosate. Is salt more deadly per dose, maybe...but I'm pretty sure our bodies know how to process small doses of it, where maybe small doses of glyphosate build up in the body unprocessed, and then cause harm?
I didn't know what to expect picking this book up, other than “Ooh, NDT, this could be interesting”. But overall outside or being bugged by the oversimplifications, I just didn't find it that interesting. It won't be the Christmas gift for my parents I was hoping for.
Not my thing. Perhaps biased by the ironically perfect delivery of the audio book format, perhaps I've bought in to the sense that perfection is all bad.. I'm cynical that teaching perfectionists how to do perfectionism more perfectly is helpful. Healthy perfectionism I can call ambition or achievement-minded, so justifying that some of perfection is ok feels like a level of denial or something I'm skeptical of.
A lot of this referenced the PDF, which...as a library read, I haven't yet seen. Maybe they are useful. Some of the exercises sound like things I've done with clients.. Values oriented is always a good thing, not specific to perfection.
Overall I think any helpfulness was obscured by the proposal of healthy perfectionism and it ended up feeling too fuzzy on how to really address the narratives that play into perfectionism. I'd love to have heard more about getting out of decision paralysis. He touched on this at the end regarding fun, and I definitely want to seek out those pdfs, as I see it a lot... Perhaps could have been discussed more.
A lot of this was familiar but a nice amalgamation of some other books. As an audiobook, I can't now tell you what the 3 gears are, I'll be looking up a synopsis or worksheets online to truly grok it more fully, but I've already started referring clients to this book because frequently things land better when read than me just telling them.
I had to LOL at the part where he talked about staying home with the cats as a distraction-free. My cats would never give me that luxury!
Good primer for attachment for couples clients. I think it creates a magical sense to the work and I'd love more of the nitty gritty to getting to the level of depth for these discussions. I feel like a lot of the times they attachment issues come up, clients are in fight or flight mode, and stepping out of that to see the dance is not easy. I was hoping for more of that, but maybe that's what EFT training CEUs are for.
I picked this book up at random as available from the library. It claimed to be sci fi detective...ok. Not horribly engaging through the first half but I figured I'd finish it. Annoying they had to create sexual tension with the suspect but once it went rape porn I lost all interest and respect. A good story can withstand lack of sex, and good erotica can create sexual tension without a lack of consent. I don't normally rate a book I haven't finished, but our society could use more modeling for consent, not less.
When I heard about a book about the Great Smog I was intrigued and eager to read it. And yet I'm finding this book difficult to read. The smog is over...why am I supposed to care about a girl watching the coronation, how does it relate? Let's jump to politics and pretend that is a story... McLeod, Norman, Dodd... politicians, not characters fleshed out enough for me to care about or be able to differentiate who is who when it's reported fragmented between other bits. Debate across party lines...cut to the outcome. How any of this relates to the serial murders for these to be interspersed with each other, I don't get.
I've learned a bit, but it's not a grabbing read.
“Step one, step two.. LOOK AT MY MASTERPIECE!” The first few exercises of this, practicing technique without trying to actually make it look like something specific, we're alright. Then as it progressed, I could feel my perfectionism kicking in. “Paint this leaf you've never heard of...and at the end of the chapter you finally get some sense of what it should look like. “Draw two C curves...” yea I can follow the instruction and it will look NOTHING like what she says, until I turn the page and just follow the sketch she demonstrates. Not sure if author over-anticipates the clarity of her words or what. Then she has the gall to add, the “Isn't this easy and fun?” comments, and I'm still wondering how she got from here to there, because I'm following the steps and surely something is missing. I think more time could be spent on technique outside of replicating-life application, and I think it would be easier to follow if more numerical step-wise instruction rather than paragraphs. And a lot more specifics. Ok, toucan is facing left. Not until I see her finished piece do I notice her toucan is facing away and turning its head left, rather than...simply facing left. Kind of a difference there.
The instructions are such that I even managed to ‘screw up'. In that, with the dragonfruit whole and half, it was unclear that I wasn't supposed to do the wash on the inside of the half fruit, until it was too late.
She makes assumptions that reader has background in art to know what ‘envisioning your light source' would look like, and that you are right-handed. I'm almost done- day 22- and after washing both mountains read I was only supposed to do the first, and the second comes later (for what reason I don't know). She goes to final layer and “make any final marks on the piece” apparently means “add a **ton of little details”.
I plan to finish this book, if nothing else to have some ‘timestamps' of my ability development, but I decided I think in week two that I don't really like it, the instruction could be much clearer, and I look forward to finding new material that doesn't try to incorporate light source, color mixing, and life-replication all in one go. WOW is an interesting thing to really grasp well as to how it works, and I can spend a lot more time there. I did learn in this book, more about sketching than I expected, but I'm looking forward to different books moving forward. If you have any perfectionistic tendencies, I do NOT recommend this book. I did a web lesson on values that I felt came out much better; I don't feel like she really teaches how to get good gradient depth representation. And, even as a beginner, there could be more spent on color mixing. (It's one thing to follow her instructions, another to try following her instructions when you don't have her exact palette, and yet another when you're new and don't know how to get the paints from the pans to the palette for mixing, whether cross-contamination is ok, how much of each to use). I'm still really confused how you start with a light wash which is really dilute, and then suddenly have a more saturated version of the same color for the value.
It took a turn from talking about interesting mouse studies, to bouncing between generational trauma and ‘heal with your parents'. I missed the connection between those. Do most of us have issues with parents? Sure. Is that the same as the generational trauma examples he gave? No. Some of my friends are extremely skeptical of those aspects. I tend toward open mindedness on it. I raise a big eyebrow is skepticism and roll my eyes at some of the suggestions in the end. While ‘fake it till you make it' is a workable solution for some things, applying this to parental relationships feels inauthentic and potentially downright personally neglectful. Don't force yourself to accept a painful parental love unless you're ready. He says regular therapy often ‘blames the parents' and that is a gross misunderstanding of the work I do. So many of us are taught to ignore our own feelings to make others (including our parents) happy. I think it's important to acknowledge OUR perspective. It doesn't mean we have to be mean toward our parent, but we are allowed to have feelings, feel betrayed or let down or angry. And I think sometimes this is even imperative to letting go and forgiving. We can't forgive a parent while we take the blame, and we can't forgive ourselves without recognizing the factors in our own narrative. He's trying to skip that part of the process and force feelings that aren't ready. And I think it may work for a while, but then be met with another major injury.
All that said...I have yet to locate the pdf, and while I still don't see healing parent relationship affecting older trauma, the questions might have value.
I can't remember enjoying a book this much. The play with narrative reveal, witty, cynical humor, the commentary on life. I'm curious to see down the road how it holds for reread value, and I want to know what all my friends and family think of it. I'm definitely paying attention to other referrals from the person I heard about this from and will check out the author's other stuff as well.
This was an interesting read, vignettes of many different girls compared from 25 years prior. As a therapist and a former adolescent girl, there were definitely pieces that resonated with me and felt validating. My partner heard part of the book when I started reading and wanted to listen to the whole thing with me, and it inspired some good conversation. I think there's useful information here, although I would feel no more well prepared to be a parent to a teen girl than I was before. I would love to see a companion piece to this book for girls, around how to get the support they want and need.
This was an interesting read, vignettes of many different girls compared from 25 years prior. As a therapist and a former adolescent girl, there were definitely pieces that resonated with me and felt validating. My partner heard part of the book when I started reading and wanted to listen to the whole thing with me, and it inspired some good conversation. I think there's useful information here, although I would feel no more well prepared to be a parent to a teen girl than I was before. I would love to see a companion piece to this book for girls, around how to get the support they want and need.
Very engaging, easy to binge this one. While I can see how it ‘said what it needed to say' I could have also taken this one to be longer. I waited for the chapter with Dale becoming more ‘real' after he had been idealized for so long, and there was only snippet. I think I hoped for more evolution of Oona as well. It was there, but kind of subtle, a fairly partner-heavy focus of her life that seemed to maintain most of the book. The premise is interesting and I think the exploration could have gone a bit further. Definitely enjoyed it overall.
