How to Love Yourself, Be Happy with Your Life, and Heal Negative Thoughts: Positive Thinking to Change Your Mind About Your Problems: Self-Help and Personal Development Books, Book 2
This audiobook will usher you into a new phase of life where you ooze happiness and contentment without trying too hard!
The fact that you are here is evidence that you’ve come to this realization that you need to heal from inside to be truly happy but you have all manner of questions going through your mind on how to make it work.
Perhaps you are How exactly can I achieve authentic happiness that does not leave me feeling empty? Why do I always seem to go back to the negative ways I desperately want to overcome? Is it possible to alter my mind to deal with life better? How do I let go of negativity and embrace positivity? If these are some of the questions bogging down your mind, this book will answer them and more, so keep reading. In this audiobook, you will
Shutting off that inner critic that holds you back from being your best, authentic self Tips on moving out of your comfort zone regardless of what others may think How to go about assessing your relationships with the people around you and building mutually-nurturing relationships How to build a safe space in your mind and your environment where you can grow without any limits Practical tips on how to beat negativity, including temporary pleasure exercises And so much more!
Are you ready to change your inner dialogue and start thriving in life? If so, How to Love Yourself, Be Happy with Your Life and Heal Negative Thoughts is the book for you. Author Samuel C.A. comprehensibly explains the science behind why we struggle to deal with problems and gives some excellent advice about what we can do to change our mental habits.
The author touches upon subjects like the gut-brain axis, sleep, and support systems, showing us that the key to a positive mindset is deeper than merely our thoughts. Each topic is broken down into manageable chapters and interactive tasks, encouraging the reader to begin their own self-help journey from the beginning of the book. In addition, the book was structured in a way that promoted a change in the reader. Samuel C.A. uses checklists, bold headings, and direct instructions for an active learning experience.
After checking out Samuel C.A.’s music recommendations and following his instructions for meditation techniques, I was surprised at the positive effect I felt in such little time. I am convinced that, used over an extended period, this book could genuinely change the reader’s outlook on life.
At first, I felt like there was a lot of scientific information to digest, but Samuel reviews previously-mentioned vocabulary throughout the book, creating a more precise understanding as the book goes on. I would say that the book could have been organized better for greater fluidity, as it sometimes seems to jump from topic to topic. However, this was easy to overlook, as I learned much about myself and how the mind functions.
The book was highly relevant to present-day life, with references to the Covid pandemic and how this has affected our mental state. Samuel C.A. also explores how culture and assimilation affect our mental health. This was unique to other self-help books I had read in the past. I feel as if Samuel C.A. recognizes the difficulties we face in society and empathizes with our struggle to remain mentally healthy. He avoids sounding preachy and reminds the reader of the benefits they can receive by following his advice. He also makes each step easier for the reader, providing set time frames and routines. This is more than a book; it is a guide to improving your life from the core.
So I really loved the first half of the book but then it started talking about things I didn’t agree with or just bad choice of topics. That being said here r some things I took away from the first section of the book:
-When ur brain recognizes a habit, it doesn’t know if it’s a good one or a bad one
-Ur gut health can impact ur brain and mental state
-I didn’t know fake future scenarios with people in my head was anxiety 🥲
-Sleep is SO important for ur digestion, organs, mental health, and physical health
-Sleep is essential for a positive outlook on life
A great book with practical strategies to improve brain and gut health, change from negative to positive thoughts, and appreciate where you are in the moment. A nice audiobook!
This book seems to cover the usual tools a person could use in order to achieve happiness in life. Though, really, the term “happy” is subjective. There are people struggling with clinical depression, anxiety, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, etc., which prevents them from achieving “true happiness” in life. Still, using some of these tools mentioned in the book may offer a temporary form of relief, in addition to counseling. The reality is that we would really need to take drastic steps in our lives in order to achieve “true happiness,” such as unplugging from social media, not watching the news on TV, performing altruistic actions towards others, volunteering in the community and basically having sufficient alone time in order to practice a spiritual routine or meditation.
I like the author’s suggestion of using a gratitude journal. That is definitely good advice. I tried that for a while myself and it really didn’t affect my “happiness” but I know of some people who have benefited from it. Some days can be pretty rough and it’s absolutely a good idea to look for something to be grateful for at the end of such days (even if it’s gratitude that the bad or hard day is over).
I’m also glad the author put an emphasis on the morning routine. The morning routine can set you up for the whole day. What you choose to do with your mornings – get up early and enjoy your own routines or sleep in then have to rush around to get ready and off to work – can definitely affect one’s mood. I have gotten up early to do morning routines such as exercise, meditate and read for months, and it really got my days off to a satisfying start. The morning routine is a big deal, even though some people do not think so. But it can really affect what kind of day you end up having and your attitude when you go into the rest of the day.
Another good suggestion in this book is the author encouraging readers to use affirmations and meditation. Both of these rituals, which can be daily or every so often, can be very effective. When you do them daily, though, they have the power to transform your emotions and boost your self-esteem. These are also things I have used in the long-term and it definitely helped. When I was struggling during the early months of my recovery from alcoholism, I turned to using daily affirmations and this REALLY helped to change my mindset and feel stronger in fighting off the temptation to drink again. Some people do not benefit from using affirmations, claiming it made them feel worse, but reciting affirmations daily is definitely worth a try. As to meditation, it can really help to create a sense of inner peace. It’s a good thing the author addressed how some people struggle with meditating and the advice offered is good advice to follow. I had the same problem when I began meditating and taking that advice helped me as well. Even if you may feel that daily affirmations or meditation are not for you, give them a try at least. They have definitely helped a lot of people.
Of all the things that the author addresses in this book, I really appreciated the recognition of toxic friendships and toxic abuse. It is so important to notice these harmful patterns in a relationship, though unfortunately most people don’t – either as a result of low self-esteem or because all they have known are negative relationships, including abusive ones, so they think that kind of treatment is “normal.” The book also refers to conditional love as a form of “toxic abuse” and I say that is spot on! Loving yourself means accepting only healthy relationships with people. Dehumanizing, devaluing and demoting yourself in order to have someone’s affection, love, friendship or support will tear away at your happiness. Say no to such things!
The discussion of intergenerational trauma on page 58 is an interesting topic the author brings up. In addition to other issues affecting happiness, such as not freeing the inner child as well as thinking one “deserves” whatever bad situation they are in, intergenerational trauma is a huge factor that is often overlooked when it comes to healing. This may be because most people struggling with it do not recognize it. It’s so important to “break the chains” and stop the negative or violent cycles that repeat themselves from one generation to another. Some people take pride in their intergenerational trauma, saying that since they survived it and came out okay, it’s not harmful. This is a form of self-abuse. When you learn to love yourself and heal all of your wounds, then you come to understand that certain forms of trauma you inherited are not good or “healthy” and that you deserve better treatment from the people who are supposed to make you feel safe and loved unconditionally.
The talk about using beats in Chapter 5 is useless to me and any other Deaf reader. Up until then, I ignored the music and playlist suggestions, because I can’t listen to music. This chapter should have had more non-hearing suggestions for readers. Still, it was interesting information.
I liked the suggestion of keeping a journal, especially a daily journal. “ A daily journal is an excellent tool if you want to change your life.” (pg. 79) Having a daily journal provides us with a “safe space” to “talk” or explore about our feelings, thoughts and ideas. This can help us to get things out of our heads and onto paper. A daily journal can be a record of the day’s events or a more in-depth explanation of feelings and emotions (thus the designation between a diary and a journal in this book). It can also help us to track our progress, observe our growth, and have a more accurate picture of past events.
“How To Love Yourself, Be Happy With Your Life And Heal Negative Thoughts” is the kind of book listing a variety of tools and suggestions readers can use in order to achieve a greater sense of happiness and satisfaction in their lives. The tools listed may not be for everyone, but the suggestions and discussions about them may at least prompt some people to at least give them a try and hopefully have a good experience with them. Regardless of where you are in life and how you feel about yourself overall, Be Happy is a useful and helpful book which can get a reader onto the path of achieving greater life satisfaction.
I listened to this book and the reader was super boring and read too fast. Couldn't tell when it would go to different subjects, he would just go right into them as run on sentences. Pretty basic advice and nothing too profound.
This book doesn't deliver exactly what you'd expect from the title - basic wellness tips that sound familiar if you've ever taken a yoga class or talked to literally any mental health professional. It's not groundbreaking, but it's not a complete loss either. At least it was short.
What I genuinely appreciated was the coverage of how mental health impacts gut health and your body overall. As someone dealing with stress-related IBS, I was glad to see this connection acknowledged since way too many people still don't realize how intertwined these systems are. However, the constant gratitude journal evangelism got old fast. The author mentions it roughly every other page, apparently unaware that not everyone processes emotions through writing. We get it - gratitude is good. Moving on.
The minimalist mindset sections also rubbed me wrong. The author treats minimalism like universal wisdom without acknowledging that it's essentially a luxury position. When you've grown up with scarcity, letting go of possessions isn't zen - it's triggering. This deserved way more nuance.
My biggest frustration is that this feels like pandemic-era writing that hasn't aged well. The advice leans heavily toward "simplify your life and add support systems" rather than the internal cognitive work the title promises. I wanted tools for changing thought patterns, not environmental band-aids.
Decent for wellness beginners, but falls short of its ambitious subtitle. A regular yoga practice with a decent teacher would better serve you for learning how to love yourself and be happier with your life.
I am a fan of well-written nonfiction, but I'm a stickler in certain areas. One of my biggest pet peeves is nonfiction books that spend more time on tangential topics than what the title and subtitle promise the book will be about. Unfortunately, that happened in this book. For one thing, this is a very quick read, just 5 short chapters. When a nonfiction book is so brief, it really needs to stay on point. This one did not. It went back and forth talking about tangential topics like gut health, COVID, sleep, the need to drink water, a core 30-piece coordinating wardrobe(!), etc. It didn't really feel like it spent much time talking about self-love, being happy with your life, and how to heal negative thoughts. If you are indeed interested in these topics, I suggest finding one that is actually about those!
I received a free copy of this book, but that did not affect my review.
I am likely not the author’s intended target audience as I was not crippled by COVID in the way the author had described in the book. I also do not view myself to be a victim because I am a member of a specific group/community/demographic/minority/etc.
Because of that, I feel that the author at times was counter productive to the end result of improving people’s mental health by trying to focus on all the reasons that they are more likely anxious to begin with.
The author does mention decent points such as journaling, proper diet/water intake/sleep among a few other points, but does not explain them well. In one chapter alone, there can be multiple different topics that are all very unrelated to one another.
I am not the intended audience, that much is given. I believe that while it has its pitfalls, the intended audience would make okay use of this book.
Maybe I’m just a pretentious person person but a lot of the points made - I’ve already seen on Twitter. It felt very superficial and kind of like social media speak. I don’t feel like I grew from this at all and maybe that’s just a point for me. Maybe I’ve already developed the skills talked about in this book and this could help someone else, but it didn’t do much for me and I didn’t enjoy some of the song inclusions … They would say to listen to a recommended song and write about it in your journal. I personally don’t relate to that kind of thing.
Also, the audiobook itself wasn’t good. The narrator sounded like a robot and I wouldn’t be surprised if it really was a voice to text situation. There wasn’t any inflection in his tone no noticeable accent. It just didn’t feel like a real person was reading to me.
Great book! Even the chapter titles are written with positivity and energy, encouraging in themselves. The author covers various topics, including how to connect with your inner child, the role of the gut and colon in determining mood, and how to transform a negative perspective into a cheerful one. I love the examples of how what was seen as terrible can be seen in new light, with gratitude. The examples help. This book touches on basics that lead to a healthier, more mentally positive life. Highly recommended! This short book is totally worth the small amount of money and time to acquire and carefully read.
*Audiobook* Life has really disrupted my routine over the last few weeks and this made me feel optimistic about getting back into a solid routine. Not a comprehensive self help book and some situations are more complex to resolve than the author would describe. Although there are good ideas in here about how to begin your personal wellness journey. For instance, I tried beta wave audio for focus and it seems to work quite well. Building positive responses to negative situations by training/re-training your brain how to respond is also great thing to stride for.
A short self-help book that packs in a lot of concepts I’ve already seen in other reads—The Five Love Languages, gut-brain health, box breathing, inner child work, trauma bonding, flow, The Power of Now, and more. The author jumps right into the material and moves quickly from topic to topic. It doesn’t always flow smoothly, but I appreciated that there was no unnecessary fluff. This is a good choice for someone new to self-development who wants a condensed overview without committing to 20 different books. I especially liked the sound therapy recommendations—it added a unique touch.
Not really a fan of self help books but wanted something to read while at work. Not great, not terrible. It was an unexciting read due to most of the material being common sense / well-known. It also had a lot of information I disagreed with and thought was complete baloney. Couldn’t get myself to give it a star so 2 will do.
As far as self help goes, it wasn’t bad, just wasn’t for me. It’s a quick read with some basic tips and information on the subject. It just definitely wasn’t a “great read” or listen on the audiobook end, I felt myself tuning out halfway through the book and it was only a little over 2 hours of listening time.
Sorry to say I didn't care for this book at all. I thought it didn't offer anything new or insightful, just regurgitating well worn ideas from other areas. The typical line of thought runs about 2 sentences before going off on a tangent.
I liked some of it. I have always struggled with being happy with life, not necessarily with COVID as the focus as this book did but there were some good tips. Nice easy audiobook and I didn't feel like it was all the standard basic advice most self help books discuss
I like the connections between intersectionality and its guidance to self improvement and love. I’m critical of the scientific part, it threw me off a bit and maybe it was the audiobook version but it was very monotone and robotic.
If you have even a modicum of emotional intelligence or self awareness then this book is the equivalent of “it could be worse. Also here’s 30 brand new habits you’re probably not doing but you should as long you -insert really specific long winded anecdotal life position-.”