The No-Self Help Book

By breaking free of your own self-limiting beliefs, you'll discover the unlimited potential of who you really are. It's time to get over your self!

There is an insidious, global identity theft occurring that has robbed people of their very recognition of their true selves. The culprit-indeed the mastermind of this crisis-has committed the inside job of creating and promoting the idea that we are all a separate self, which is the chief source of our daily distress and dissatisfaction.

No more than a narrative of personhood pieced together from disparate neural activations, the self we believe ourselves to be in our own minds-although quite capable of being affirming, inspiring, and constructive-often spews forth a distressing flow of worry and second-guessing, blaming and shaming, regret and guilt. This book offers an antidote to this epidemic of stolen identity, isolation, and self-deprecation: no-self (a concept known in Buddhist philosophy as anatta or anatman).

The No-Self Help Book turns the idea of self-improvement on its head, arguing that the key to well-being lies not in the relentless pursuit of bettering one's self but in the recognition of the self as a false identity born in the mind. Rather than identifying with a small, relative sense of self, this book encourages you to embrace a liberating alternative-an expansive awareness that is flexible and open to experiencing life as an ongoing and ever-changing process, without attachment to personal outcomes or storylines.

To help you make this leap from self to no-self, the book provides forty bite-sized chapters full of clever and inspiring insights based in positive psychology and non-duality-a philosophy that asserts there is no real separation between any of us.

So, if you're tired of "self-help" and you're ready to explore who you are beyond the self, let The No-Self Help Book be your guide.

“Drawing on psychological research and clinical experience, Kate Gustin offers a profound understanding of our truest identity underneath the mind’s story, helping us connect with the peaceful, interconnected consciousness at our core. The No-Self Help Book is a refreshing and timely antidote to the rampant loneliness of our times.”
—Marci Shimoff, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Happy for No Reason

“Kate Gustin’s The No-Self Help Book is a new approach to emotional healing, that provides simple, clear-minded lessons on getting away from the negative, bullying voice of the constructed self. As you learn to ignore the false narrative, you’ll see yourself through new eyes as you discover that you’re not who the voice inside you says you are, or who you pretend to be. Instead, you discover the authentic being within each of us who is capable of relaxed joy and awareness.”
—Anne Lamott, author of Almost Everything

“If you were to try to define yourself, how would you do that and what would your SELF look like? Treat yourself to the concept of NO SELF and discover how you are not just your mind’s stories.”
—Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness and Real Love

“Kate Gustin’s quirky and compelling book subtracts the self out of self-help! She communicates a powerful and ageless spiritual truth in a way that is accessible, humorous, and compassionate. Highly recommended!”
—Mariana Caplan, PhD, MFT, author of Yoga and Psyche and Eyes Wide Open

“Kate Gustin has written a book that is at once insightful, refreshing, playful, and truly wise. The No-Self Help Book goes to the very root of our unhappiness and insecurity: as long as we think we’re separate from the rest of life, we aren’t enough and will remain stuck in the prison of our minds. When we learn to see ourselves from the illuminating perspective presented in these pages, we can understand that from the beginning we were always enough just as we are. Then we can play at being who we truly are instead of taking ourselves so seriously. How liberating!”
—James Baraz, cofounder of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, CA; coauthor of Awakening Joy