MalS Bookshelf

THIS BOOK WITHOUT A DOUBT CHANGED MY LIFE (MY WORLD). I wholeheartedly believe this book to be worthy of the number one spot here on the ‘What’s on Mal Steven’s Bookshelf’ page (and sometimes I LOVE a book so much, I have multiple copies so I can have a copy with me always no matter where I am x)

 

I believe books ‘write’ themselves, and I also believe that books come to you when they are meant to, at the ‘right’ time. I can’t exactly say when this book first came into my possession, other than it was ‘there’ when I needed it. It was during one of my ‘dark night of the soul’ moments (and yes, I have had a few), I was feeling particularly low and talking with my eldest daughter, and she informed me that she had just recently been reading this really good book. ‘Mum, you just have to read this book, it will change your life’, she declared. That book - Eckhart Tolle’s ‘The Power of Now’, and apparently, she had found it in amongst my handful of treasured books at home and had taken it with her to read during her time in London.

 

Reading the book, I found it quite difficult to get through the first half, but I persevered, and then the rest just seemed to flow like a dream, and I realised I was receiving a little gift (nudge) from the Universe. So much so, I had to immediately read it for a second time. For far too long I had been feeling like I didn’t belong anywhere, like I was a failure, never good enough, like there was something wrong with me, flitting between wallowing in the depths of tragedy and sadness from my past, to experiencing high anxiety of what the future might hold for me, while all the time allowing the simplicity and perfection of the present moment to completely pass me by. I just knew that if I could only change the way I was thinking, and fully grasp the meaning of ‘The Power of Now’ as Eckhart Tolle had suggested, my life would be changed forever.

 

Eckhart's message is simple: living in the moment is the truest, quickest, and simplest path to genuine happiness and enlightenment. This is not an entirely new or revolutionary concept, however his clear communication on the subject, and the way that he has written the book as a series of answers to pertinent questions about the how and the why of living in the present helps open the reader's eyes to a whole new way of living. Complicated concepts are broken down into simple, conversational language, and the pages are bursting with inspirational ideas, and dripping with the kind of knowledge that only a true spiritual master can impart.

 

"It's one of the best books to come along in years. Every sentence rings with truth and power” - Deepak Chopra

 

Leave your analytical mind and falsely created sense of self at the door and cosy in with this book, it will help you to become better-connected to the true and authentic essence of your being. This book isn't a quick read, or a light-hearted one, but it has the power to transform your world.

 

“You mean stop thinking altogether? No, I can’t, except maybe for a moment or two. Then the mind is using you. You are unconsciously identified with it, so you don’t even know that you are its slave. It’s almost as if you were possessed without knowing it, and so you take the possessing entity to be yourself. The beginning of freedom is the realisation that you are not the possessing entity - the thinker. Knowing this enables you to observe the entity. The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realise that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realise that all the things that truly matter - beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace - arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken.”

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This book found its way to me part way through 2021 via my youngest daughter (thank you deeply), and at first, I didn’t really like it, however, that did quickly change, and it fast became one of my daily morning rituals. Reading just one daily message each morning has become part of my routine in setting me up for a successful day. This is no ordinary book that you read ‘chapter by chapter’, but instead is a short daily read for each day of the year that allows one to recalibrate their perspectives on life, and can provide new ideas and alternatives on living a better life.

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The book is broken up into three parts - The Discipline of Perception, The Discipline of Action, and The Discipline of Will. The parts relate to the three areas the ancient Stoic philosophers Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius and others meditated upon and practiced. Each day contains a quote from an ancient philosopher, followed by Holiday’s explanation on how to apply the concepts to your daily life. So, in addition to being inspirational, it is also practical. While the book does contain spiritual and religious references, the book is applicable regardless of your religious faith (or lack thereof). It should be thought of, according to Holiday, and with which I whole-heartedly agree, “as a tool in the pursuit of self-mastery, perseverance, and wisdom, something one uses to live a great life, rather than some esoteric field of academic inquiry.” In other words, a guide to use in your pursuit of becoming a better version of yourself.

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‘Stoicism’ is an ancient Greek philosophy that focuses on living life with virtue, tolerance, and self-control, it doesn’t concern itself with complicated theories about the world, but instead with helping us to overcome destructive emotions and to act upon what we can. It sets out to remind us of how unpredictable the world can be, how brief our moment in life is, and how to be steadfast, and strong, and in control of ourselves. It teaches us that the source of our dissatisfaction lies in our impulsive dependency on our reflexive senses rather than in logic. Stoicism has made a modern-day comeback because of the many useful lessons you can apply to your life, focusing largely on what is in our control, and what is not in our control, and most importantly, knowing the difference. ‘Being stoic’ often refers negatively to someone who doesn’t care about anything, but this is not true, as stoicism teaches not detachment from the world, but rather a healthier version of attachment. It is built for action, not endless debate.

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This is the only source I know of that packages the wisdom of Stoicism into such a convenient manner, and because it is only one short reading per day, it should be easy for you to integrate the readings of the book into your habits and daily routines.

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Rather than enter my favourite quote at the bottom of this review, because I don't just have 'one' favourite quote from this book, every page I turn over is another little 'favourite quote' surprise, I am instead just going to enter today's meditation, 1 of 366 favourites...

 

"July 3rd - Turn Have To Into Get To -

The task of a philosopher: we should bring our will into harmony with whatever happens, so that nothing happens against our will and nothing that we wish for fails to happen - Epictetus, Discourses, 2.14.7.

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A long To-Do list seems intimidating and burdensome - all these things we 'have' to do in the course of a day or a week. But a Get To Do list sounds like a privilege - all the things we're excited about the opportunity to experience. This isn't just semantic playing. It is a central facet of the philosopher's worldview.

Today, don't try to impose your will on the world. Instead see yourself as fortunate to receive and respond to the will 'in' the world.

Stuck in traffic? A few wonderful minutes to relax and sit. Your car broke down after idling for so long? Ah, what a nice nudge to take a long walk the rest of the way. A swerving car driven by a distracted, cell-phone-weilding idiot nearly hit you as you were walking and soaked you head to toe with muddy water? What a reminder about how precarious our existence is and how silly it is to get upset about something as trivial as being late or having trouble with your commute!

Kidding aside, it might not seem like it makes a big difference to see life as something you 'have' to do versus 'get' to do, but there is. A huge, magnificent difference."

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WARNING: this book does contain stories about mental illness, sexual abuse, and suicide that may be triggering for some readers. Please always reach out for help and support if you are affected in any way.

 

Oh, this book made me cry lots, another book to cross my path via my youngest daughter, thank you again. What a beautiful introduction to positive psychology for those yet to discover it. However, if someone had of told me when I was at my deepest and darkest depths to use Gratitude, Empathy and Mindfulness I would have told that person to get absolutely f*cked!!! Now that I have done most of the healing of my own traumas, I can see the value and see the merit in this because I have the headspace and stability to engage with it. So, if you are in a place where you can engage with this, awesome. If you aren’t, that is also totally okay, and I hear you one hundred percent.

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This book is a beautiful collection of stories from the author’s life. Hugh Van Cuylenburg shares his narrative to demonstrate how pertinent life experiences revealed to him the value of gratitude, empathy, and mindfulness. He begins by reflecting on his childhood, explaining how his sister’s eating disorder profoundly impacted on his family and directed him on a journey of seeking happiness. He then describes how he chose to study teaching, with the goal of supporting children with their wellbeing and preventing the suffering that his sister endured. Hugh tells how he travels to India with his girlfriend, where he learns some of the most important lessons of his life that become the basis of his life’s work - The Resilience Project. This book is not a ‘how to’ instruction manual, but rather a powerful tale that will leave you feeling inspired to make a habit of the simple but transformational practices of gratitude, empathy, and mindfulness.

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Hugh is so honest and vulnerable, sharing intimate details of the suffering he and his family have endured, but always with a sense of humour and hope. This book really is for anyone who is seeking happiness. What a truly inspirational human being doing his ‘bit’ for the greater good of all.

 

Principle 1: Gratitude

 

“The ability to pay attention to what you have, instead of worrying about what you don’t have.”

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"A lot of the time we can unknowingly fall into a model of happiness called the ‘if and then’ model:

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“If I buy this car, then I will feel happy."

"If I get this promotion, then I will feel happy."

"If we buy and live in a house like this, then we will feel happy."

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But the ‘if and then’ approach doesn’t work; months after we buy a new car, we’ll see a better car and think that’s our key to happiness.”

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If we are constantly focussing on what we don’t have, we are on a pathway to continued dissatisfaction with our lives. We need to take a leaf from Stanzin’s book and exercise our gratitude muscle by pointing out to ourselves ‘Dis person and dis person. Dis pair of shoes. Dis bowl of rice.’

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What is one daily Gratitude practice that you can use that will radically improve your life?

If you spend just a few minutes at the end of the day doing this exercise, the positive benefits abound - Before you go to sleep, write down three things that went well for you today, and why they went well. That’s it, super simple and super easy. This exercise was originally conceived by Dr Martin Seligman, the founding father of Positive Psychology and the research shows that people who engage with this activity have more life satisfaction and less depression after one month and are even better again in both those markers at six months. This exercise also becomes easily addictive as well, as we start to look for those positive things even as we move through our day, excited to be able to list them for that evening as ‘something that went well’.

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What is Negativity Bias and how does it affect us day to day?

As human beings, we have a built in Negativity Bias - and for very good reason. As we have evolved, we needed to prioritise our attention towards threats in order to stay alive. There is after all no point in staying engaged in a pleasant conversation with a friend if the house is burning down around us. Of course, this is a useful situation. Where negativity bias stops serving us is by making us more inclined to dwell on negative events or criticisms of ourselves and others. This means that we have to actively work on and prioritise having positive thoughts and emotions, which is why the Three Good Things exercise serves us and our negatively geared brains so well.

 

Principle 2: Empathy (OMIT Empathy and Replace WITH) Acts of Kindness

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"Empathy is the ability to psychologically feel what another person is feeling. The more empathetic we are, the more likely we are to act in a kind way.

When you do something kind for someone else, your brain releases oxytocin, which is known as the ‘love hormone’, allowing us to feel joy, happiness and love."

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Now I have a slight issue with the framing of this category as 'Empathy', because having empathy for someone and performing acts of kindness (which to me, is much more what is meant by the entire category of 'Empathy') are two completely different things.

 

Brené Brown also touches on the concept that we might have all been leading ourselves astray on the concept of Empathy for many years, in her latest book Atlas Of The Heart - her recent take on it is that it is quite literally impossible for us to feel what someone else is feeling, and expecting ourselves to be able to do so is a farce. Acts of Kindness on the other hand, does have a large body of research behind it and the strategies outlined in the book have great merit, I just think they have been mislabelled.

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What is one Act of Kindness practice that we can implement?

Once a week, perform a kind act for someone else and you will both reap the rewards. Performing acts of kindness has been proven to release endorphins, which are our body’s natural pain killers and give us a heightened sense of wellbeing. Acts of kindness are a strategy for bio-hacking our wellbeing!

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Principle 3: Mindfulness

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"Mindfulness - taking time to focus solely on the present moment."

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This is a trait that was common among every single one of the villagers, and it was even embedded as a practice at the school in India where Hugh was volunteering:

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“Another thing I noticed the villagers did that we don’t really do back in Australia was meditation. I’m not talking about just now and then; as devout Buddhists, they meditated every single day.

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Between 8.30 and 9 am - before classes started - the students would assemble in the yard, where they would sit in silence and focus on being in the present moment. ‘So, they’re praying are they?’ I’d asked the English teacher when I’d first arrived in the village. ‘No,’ he said. ‘They’re doing meditation.’ 

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I scoffed inwardly and thought, ‘What a ridiculous waste of time. Surely the kids would rather be doing something more enjoyable than sitting still at the start of every day.’ 

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But then it was pointed out to me that meditation at the school was 100 percent optional. The kids didn’t have to attend if they didn’t want to, but every child turned up early because they didn’t want to miss out. There had to be something in that. Eventually I decided to join in.”

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The fact that these kids were VOLUNTARILY practising meditation absolutely blew Hugh’s mind, and it was one of the key things that made him really explore this as a key principle.

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What is one Mindfulness practice that we can implement? 

“Go for a walk and think about three things you can see, three things you can hear and three things you feel.”

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As someone who loves and practices meditation daily, the thing I really like about this exercise is that it is extremely accessible and doable. It isn’t asking me to sit down and meditate for thirty minutes non-stop, in silence like those kids were doing at school, nor do I think that should be the ultimate goal. Through this simple practise, we can become more calm, more centred and less anxious.

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So at the end of the day, how do we show up and actually DO THE WORK?

 

‘We can all say I have heard most of the strategies before, so what?’

 

The thing is though, that no matter how many books or newsletters about these concepts you read, they aren’t going to do you any good unless YOU actually do the work. You have to actually implement these things, try them, embed them into your routines to see if they actually help you or if it’s legitimately other strategies and other tools that you might need in a given moment.

 

There is no magic bullet, if you want to feel the benefits you need to ‘do’. Not just read.

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There are always two sides to every coin and the same is also true for our mental health and wellbeing.

 

If you think of your life as a garden, to reach human flourishing you need to do two things - you need to pull out the weeds, and you need to plant some beautiful flowers. There needs to be balance. If you do all of one and none of the other, you will never truly flourish. Sometimes it is time for pulling weeds and tackling the awful, hard things in our lives. Other times it is for planting the positive seeds for our future. The Resilience Project and its strategies sit wholly in the latter camp.

 

There is a season for everything, and wherever you are on your journey know that you are not alone.

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I happened upon this gorgeous little book purely from my time working as a Clinical Nurse at the Karnet Prison Farm in Serpentine, WA. Every day I travelled to and from work passing by the Bodinyana Monastery, in which Ajahn Brahmavamso Mahathera (lovingly known to most as Ajahn Brahm) was the Abbott.

 

This little book is the sequel to 'Opening the Door of Your Heart' and contains numerous life anecdotes, 108 to be exact.

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Although written by a monk, the stories are secular, and open readers’ eyes to the ways of living a compassionate, kinder and happier life. The titles of the stories are post scribed with moral description, fundamental to Buddhist teaching: wisdom, compassion, cultivation, equanimity, letting go, loving-kindness, non self, generosity, contemplation and forgiveness.

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Feeling so blessed and grateful with this beautiful book.

 

"Happy is he who has lofty and noble aspirations.
Happy is he who enriches the lives of others. 
Happy is he who allows others to live in peace. 
Happy is he who makes this world a better place to live in.
Happy is he whose work, chores and daily tasks are labours of love.
Happy is he who loves love."

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And my favourite share from the book...

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"11. Good? Bad? Who Knows? - contemplation.

A long time ago a King was out hunting when he cut his finger. He summoned his doctor, who was always with him on the hunt, and the doctor put a bandage over the wound.

"Is it going to be alright?" asked the King.

"Good? Bad? Who knows?" replied the doctor, and they carried on hunting.

By the time they had returned to the palace, the wound had become infected and so the King summoned his doctor again. The doctor cleaned the wound, carefully applied some ointment and then bandaged it.

"Are you sure it's going to be OK?" asked the King, becoming concerned.

"Good? Bad? Who knows?" replied the doctor again. The King became worried.

The King was right, because in a few days the finger was so badly infected that the doctor had to amputate it! The King was so angry with his incompetent doctor that he personally escorted him to the dungeon and threw him in a cell.

"Well, Doctor, how do you like it, being in jail?"

"Being in prison, Sire... Good? Bad? Who knows?" replied the doctor with a shrug of his shoulders.

"You are insane as well as incompetent!" declared the King and departed.

A few weeks later, when the wound had healed, the King was out hunting again. Chasing an animal, he became separated from the others and became lost in the forest. Wandering in the woods, he was captured by the indigenous forest people. It was their holy day and they had found a sacrifice for their jungle god! They tied the King to a large tree and their priest began chanting and dancing as the forest people sharpened the sacrificial knife. The priest took the blade and was about to cut the King's throat when he shouted, "Stop! This man has only got nine fingers. He is not a perfect enough specimen to sacrifice to our god. Set him free.

"In a few days, the King found his way back to his palace and went straight to the dungeon to say thank you to the wise doctor.

"I thought you were stupid saying all this 'Good? Bad? Who knows?' nonsense. Now I know you were right. Losing my finger was good. It saved my life. But it was bad of me to lock you in jail. I'm sorry."

"What do you mean, Sire, that it was bad to put me in jail? It was very good that you put me in jail! Otherwise I would have accompanied you on the hunt. I would have been captured too. And I have all my ten fingers!"

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Another book that undoubtedly changed my life, and my world, and also another that I have multiple copies of so that I can refer to them every, single day no matter where I am in this world x

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This is one of those books that has a lot of feedback, both really fantastically positive, and also quite drastically negative - eeeeeek!

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My book review of this book is really very quite simple...If you cannot feel your emotions, if you are cut off from them, you will eventually experience them on a purely physical level, as a physical problem or symptom. End of story!

 

If you understand this, then this book is for you, If you do not understand this, then this book is most absolutely for you too.

 

​Life is a journey we take alone, together alone, and was always meant to be, and we absolutely get it in our own time. We get it when we are meant to get it, not a moment sooner, and not a moment later.