This is your year of self-discovery, a journey to create a life filled with grace, meaning, zest, peace, and joy. With warmth and wisdom from a lifetime of spiritual seeking, inspirational force Agapi Stassinopoulos guides you through fifty-two weeks of letting go of what doesn t work for you and finding what does. You ll cultivate the building blocks of self-care (meditation, health, making time for yourself) and confront the common roadblocks we all face, like pouring your energy into other people or living in denial. You ll explore your conflict areas, such as relationships, money, self-esteem, anxiety, and your childhood. And you ll learn to trust your creativity, keep your heart open, and connect to the bigger spirit that lives inside you.
Keep this book by your bedside. It is your loving companion. Be creative and have fun with it. Use it as a tool to unlock your goodness, and wake up to the joy of you! – Goodreads
This little book…I love it.
I requested it through Blogging for Books (in exchange for an honest review!) because nothing else even remotely piqued my interest. I figured, hey, I just took my first step into adult coloring which is said to be a form of meditation…maybe I should try legit meditation. So I requested it.
It took forever to appear on my doorstep, and I actually thought I’d provided the wrong address. But, in the nature of things, it came at the perfect time.
Disclaimer: this is a very spiritual book, and I’m about to throw down some spiritual stuff in this review. Usually my reviews are just about this book, but this is going to get personal.
I believe that the universe/God/whatever you want to call it sends the right message at the right time. Life is full of trials and triumphs, but sometimes those trials — those moments where your faith is tested — can be incredibly difficult.
This book showed up on my doorstep in a moment of self-doubt. Now, the book features 52 chapters — each one has a different theme or message and a guided meditation to ruminate on that message. Rather than go through in order, I decided to flip to a random one. “29. Find Your Confidence and Be Bold” was my chapter that I randomly landed on, and holy shit did I need to read it. It was literally a chapter on embarking on a new journey — whether it be a new project, relationship or -ahem- job, it talked about self-doubt, self-criticism, and using opportunities to grow, test your limits, and move forward. After skimming through the other chapters, it couldn’t have been more perfect in that moment.
Fast forward a few days, the morning of my snowy PT test. My anxiety was through the god damn roof. In the words of Eminem, “Success is my only option, failure’s not” because if you fail the test, you’re booted out. ANXIETY ANXIETY ANXIETY. While waiting for my ride (my two-wheel drive car has zero chill in the snow), I flipped to another random chapter. This one (“19. The Art of Letting Go”) was about breathing. Breathe in. Breathe out. Let go of anxiety. I breathed and I let go, and when they told us we would be doing the test indoors…well, it was awesome. I know I could have also gotten through it had we done it outside, too.
The chapters are two to four pages long and are quick, easy reads. The idea is to do one a week and ruminate on it that week. My only gripe is how long the actual guided meditations are — I found it extremely difficult to remember a page of guided meditation without reading it (because the idea is to meditate). I think they could have definitely been shorter. It’s a great addition to the nightstand, that’s for sure!
I rated this one a 4/5.
lifebetweenreads.com 