Why has nobody told me this before?

This was a light read. I keep telling myself I want to dive into denser books, but my reading list is never-ending ahhhh! I’ve considered listening to audiobooks, but honestly, it feels like it defeats the purpose. I'm not reading just to cross titles off a list; I'm reading to fully engage my mind memory, comprehension, critical thinking and to nurture my imagination in all its whimsical glory.

So, am I done with it? Have I worked out my mental knots? I’m not sure. Lately, I feel like those people who get a bunch of tattoos when they’re young and then remove them in their mid-30s because they no longer feel like "them." That’s kind of how I feel about self-help books now—they just don’t hold the same value for me anymore.

Still, I won't let this read go to waste. The book offers useful tools many of which are similar to what you'd learn in therapy but the author made it clear: these aren't therapy skills. 

To summarize a book that touches on multiple subjects is kind of hard so I'll start with some vocabulary that will now be on rotation. 

Starting of with mindfulness, our attention is valuable and helps create our experience of life so learning to control where you direct it can have a powerful impact on our life and mood. The power of any thought is in how much we buy into it. How much we believe it to be true  and meaningful.

 Second, metacognition an academic name for thoughts about your thoughts. Metacognition is the process of stepping back from the thoughts and getting enough distance to allow us to see those thoughts for what they really are. When you do this, they lose some of their power over you and how you feel and behave. You get to choose how you respond to them rather than feeling controlled and driven by something. This made me think of one of my favorite movies,  Labyrinth it's about reclaiming personal power learning that we can't control everything around us, but we can choose how we face it. The Goblin King, Jareth, represents temptation, manipulation, and control but also Sarah’s own conflicting desires. He says: “I have reordered time, I have turned the world upside down, and I have done it all for you.” He’s the fantasy made real but he’s also trying to keep Sarah from growing up, by offering her a world where she has no responsibilities. The pivotal moment comes when Sarah tells him: “You have no power over me.” This is a declaration of independence. She’s rejecting the seductive idea of someone else taking control of her life, emotions, and choices.

Lastly my favorite reframing for example reframing anxiety to excitement! reframing the sensations of stress to the feeling of determination or threat into challenge it changes your mindset. This made me think of FEAR and how I can reframe this word it's such a crippling feeling. Fear of failure, rejection or making the wrong choice can lead to inaction. Fear, when left unchecked, can become a kind of internal jailer locking people into routines, mindsets, or identities that don’t serve them. It limits freedom, creativity, growth, and joy.

But courage isn't the absence of fear; it's moving forward in spite of it. That’s why facing fears, even in small steps, is often the beginning of transformation. 

This book talks about mood repeatedly and for good reason. We often let our mood dictate everything: how we think, what we do, and how we see ourselves. But one important reminder is that our mood is not fixed, and it does not define who we are. It’s a temporary state, a sensation we experience not a permanent reflection of our identity. I’ve learned that when I’m already struggling with my mood, expecting myself to perform, feel, or achieve everything I can when I’m at my best isn’t realistic. That kind of all-or-nothing thinking is deeply unhelpful. In fact, it sets us up for disappointment and makes us even more vulnerable to intense emotional reactions.

Bye, until the last sentence of my next book.