The book opens with an inspiring story that sets the tone and provides motivation. Additional stories are provided at the start of every chapter, but I found the first story to be the most powerful and a great way to introduce the reader to the potential power of hypnosis.

In addition to the teaching stories, each chapter includes a script for self-hypnosis. I found these easy to use, and it doesn’t take long to learn the basic technique, at which point you can modify as needed for whatever issue you want to work on.

I particularly liked some of the exercises Ms. Smith suggested. For example, after explaining the triune brain model, she suggests writing down which areas of your life you’d like to improve, and then noting which of the three parts of the brain each area is associated with. She says that it is easiest to work on the issues associated with the reptilian brain first, then the limbic system, and then the neocortex last.

She also offers a lovely suggestion for your life’s purpose (be kind to everyone you meet and do what brings you joy), and a very effective explanation of why taking personal responsibility is so powerful. But perhaps my favorite suggestion in this book was to spend a day loving yourself as much as you love your pet (or whoever or whatever else you love unconditionally). What a powerful suggestion!

I found most of the topics quite interesting and helpful. I was a little put off reading the chapter on past life regression (PLR), but the author herself states that PLR can be quite powerful regardless of whether you believe in past lives, so I am trying to keep an open mind about it.

Certain parts of the text were quite repetitive, and after a while, I was a bit annoyed with the author constantly promoting her social media. Also, she refers to hypnosis audios, videos, and other bonus content available on her website, but as of the writing of this review, none of that content is available.

Despite these issues, I found this book to be informative and easy to understand and would recommend it to anyone interested in learning self-hypnosis.

I was provided an ARC through NetGalley that I volunteered to review. Because I have not seen the final published version, I cannot comment on the final editing and formatting. The issues I noticed in the ARC were minor and infrequent enough that I doubt they would interfere with most readers' enjoyment of the book.