Understanding Me, Understanding You

Excellent! Through,informative and easy to read.

This book seems to have come at the right time for me. I've read loads of self-help books over the years, tried CBT and talking therapies, and either I don't learn or it wasn't right for me. This book can be read in one go, can be picked up and put down, it's a great little source of information. It questions everything about us as humans and how we interact how we think and asks us questions to see if we understand who we are as individuals.

I read this on a kindle and have highlighted a lot of quotes and parts which I want to go back to later, lots of little things that made me question how I think and what I can do to move forward. I picked this book from the description on NetGalley not expecting something so absorbing.

'Learning about the whole process of habit formation requires a different kind of awareness. It does not involve judgement, the ‘I should’, or the ‘I should not’. We need a sense of curiosity that seeks to understand clearly what is going on in our inner spaces.'

One of the things I've noticed recently and friends and family point out to me a lot is that I can't sit still. I literally have to be doing something otherwise I feel like I'm failing or it could be I just don't want to face up to reality and I'm running away from actually concentrating on me. The book picks up on habit forming and how we have needs/addictions and how we can break these. Today we are bombarded with social media accounts where we need to have gratification from things we post when others like it. We are bombarded by news 24/7 even though when stories do break we are constantly on a repeat cycle of the same thing until further details emerge. We can't just let things be until we fully know the facts.

I try to break up my routine and do things differently to stop habits from forming. To overcome a habit is not easy. In observing the whole process that leads me to reach for my phone, but not give in to it, I experience a stillness, and the compulsion passes. I also spend time sitting quietly. This reduces the demand for the brain to be constantly occupied. When faced with an empty moment it is then easier to watch it and let it pass.

One of the parts I loved to read was about happiness and how we are conditioned to believe we need certain things to make us happy. For example we can only be happy if we are in a marriage/loving relationship, we can only be happy with the latest gadget. Again a prime example of this is this time of year leading to Christmas, the biggest day for retailers, we are bombarded with the latest gadgets which is a must have and guaranteed to improve our lives. I've worked in retail for 17 years and that along with other issues has made me dislike this time of year. people turn rude, because they are stressed, TV is constantly full of repeats and all this just for one day. Why can't we just all sit down and have a big meal together and it not cost the earth?

I have been conditioned to think that happiness lies in wanting something and then chasing it. I have repeated this cycle many times. Yes, I have been happy, but also frustrated when I did not get what I want, and the happiness was fleeting anyway.

The book explores so many areas that it needs to be dipped into again and again. It shows what a complex thing a human being is and how we take so much for granted. Like me, changing the way I think/act after so many years is a very scary thought but this book explains how if we think more on how we react to situations we can begin to explore a new sense of happiness and calm. We are conditioned by the surroundings we grow up in and choose to live in and lead to believe that is how things are done. That change is not possible. I myself feel that things need to change in my life but if that happens I am scared people won't like that and move away. However that is down to fear. And as long as we talk to one another, communicate how we feel it can lead to better things. We just need to fight that fear.

Fear: If we have been hurt, we become afraid of that event occurring again. We carry that fear with us and it changes our behaviour. If we have been hurt in a relationship, we may be afraid of being intimate with anyone. If someone we trust lets us down, we become fearful of trusting people again. Are we aware that our pain has made us fearful and changed our behaviour?

This book is great if you are feeling a bit lost. It picks up on Identity, on ours and the worlds expectations of us as humans and as individuals. It tells us that we can break free from the cycle. We are each unique but present to everyone a different version of ourselves, it's no wonder we get lost sometimes. Again this book helps guide you into breaking down this barriers and look at our different layers of identity and lets us know its ok to look for help and asks a very important question......

‘What are we protecting?’

Thank you for reading