An Intentional Life

Five Star. Do yourself a favor and read this book.

Full review to come.

There are books that you seek for and there are others which they find you, this book was among the latter for me. Dr. Lisa Kentgen addresses common biases from psychiatrist point of view within this book. Fallacies such as sunk cost fallacy, status quo bias, availability bias, confirmation bias have been described and how they could hold us back within day to day life and our relationships in large.

Awareness, reflection, choosing, acting and allowing are five pillars which Dr. Lisa focuses on. She believes these pillars are not mutually exclusive and in order to be able to bring authenticity and happiness to our life we need to practice all the elements as whole. She described every, and each of them in to details and provide practices to strength them.

Fear and how it could act as hedonic treadmill if not bring awareness to it have been illustrated within the book. Instructions how to identify your fear and treat them accordingly have been described as well.

Dr. Lisa pictured a persona for each story by amending names and characteristics of her patients to protect their anonymity and at a same time make the book more story type rather than only problem solution type of book; so reader could relate with the persona and get the most of each case. She also shared from her personal experiences to give better picture to the reader in some parts.

I have been through the audio book version and find it pretty helpful. Dr. Lisa covers a lot of ground within this book and shared decades of experience. I recommend going through the book multiple times to get the best of it.