What do you think?
Rate this book
Don't Tell Me to Relax: Emotional Resilience in the Age of Rage, Feels, and Freak-Outs
A handbook for staying grounded, emotionally connected, and empowered regardless of what's in the headlines and who's in your face.
From politics, climate change, and the economy to racism, sexism, and a hundred other kinds of biases--things have never felt so urgent and uncertain. We want to take action, but so many of us struggle with overwhelm and burnout. And on top of it all, we get so many messages telling us to relax, to "let it go" and feel some other way about things. We'd like to think that emotional intelligence and mindfulness will help--but why do these approaches so often fall short in fever-pitch moments?
In his warm, funny, streetwise style, Ralph De La Rosa offers tools for coping in contentious times. Full of insights and practices addressing everything from trauma triggers to privilege guilt and the art of saying no, Don't Tell Me to Relax brings the welcome news that our thoughts and emotions are not the enemy. Rather, when met skillfully, they can light the way to self-empathy, social understanding, and an activism that has room for both inner and outer work.
From politics, climate change, and the economy to racism, sexism, and a hundred other kinds of biases--things have never felt so urgent and uncertain. We want to take action, but so many of us struggle with overwhelm and burnout. And on top of it all, we get so many messages telling us to relax, to "let it go" and feel some other way about things. We'd like to think that emotional intelligence and mindfulness will help--but why do these approaches so often fall short in fever-pitch moments?
In his warm, funny, streetwise style, Ralph De La Rosa offers tools for coping in contentious times. Full of insights and practices addressing everything from trauma triggers to privilege guilt and the art of saying no, Don't Tell Me to Relax brings the welcome news that our thoughts and emotions are not the enemy. Rather, when met skillfully, they can light the way to self-empathy, social understanding, and an activism that has room for both inner and outer work.
232 pages, Paperback
First published August 25, 2020
63 people are currently reading
1880 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
October 2, 2020
"Don't Tell Me to Relax" is highly accessible to the average reader, and generally conscious of potential reader diversity. I love the holistic approach, the overviews and discussions on things like intersectionality, expressing vs. communicating, and monolog vs. dialog. I liked to read each chapter, then pause for a few moments to absorb the contents before continuing.
The only real complaint (i.e., that doesn't stem from philosophical disagreement) is that attempts to include disability in the conversation fall flat. For example, you don't "live" in a wheelchair. It's a mobility aid, not a house. We don't "struggle with being differently abled"--(btw, disabled is the preferred term among the majority of the disabled community; "diffabled" is typically pushed by the parents of disabled people who don't share their experiences, etc.)--We *struggle with the barriers non-disabled people erect against the disabled.*
The only real complaint (i.e., that doesn't stem from philosophical disagreement) is that attempts to include disability in the conversation fall flat. For example, you don't "live" in a wheelchair. It's a mobility aid, not a house. We don't "struggle with being differently abled"--(btw, disabled is the preferred term among the majority of the disabled community; "diffabled" is typically pushed by the parents of disabled people who don't share their experiences, etc.)--We *struggle with the barriers non-disabled people erect against the disabled.*
September 18, 2020
2.5 stars
Where to start with this book… Perhaps the most appropriate place is at the very beginning: in the book’s introduction, De La Rosa writes, “[Bad/ineffective teachings] cannot corrupt the integrity of the practice itself (and, while we’re here, neither can any of the reprehensible scandals that have gone on with some of the more invisible spiritual teachers in recent years).” I wondered if this meant he was going to publicly wrestle with the legacy of his disgraced friend and mentor, Reggie Ray. As it happens, it did not mean that; the subject was not mentioned again, although I noticed that Ray was thanked in the acknowledgements page for “opportunities for healing and growth.” My personal feelings about Ray aside, it would have been nice to see a more specific reckoning, some kind of attempt to sort the wheat from the chaff in Ray’s teachings, given that he was given a glowing report in De La Rosa’s first book, The Monkey Is the Messenger: Meditation and What Your Busy Mind is Trying to Tell You. While I believe it is of course possible for predatory people to sometimes teach or promote genuinely good or helpful ideas, I cannot accept a blanket statement that a teacher’s character or implication in scandals is separate from their body of work when so often their teachings are a deliberate, if obscured, way to control people and create new victims. (For another example of how character informs teaching, see this well-sourced piece on John Howard Yoder, a Mennonite theologian who promoted Christian pacifism while serially sexually abusing women.)
I also had some problems with this book for more mundane reasons. When my therapist first introduced me to the concept of IFS (or Internal Family Systems therapy), it was incomprehensible and inaccessible to me. The explanation I received was full of jargon that felt somehow both overly-clinical and too cutesy. My experience trying to make it work was wildly frustrating. It was only upon stumbling across De La Rosa’s first book at my public library that these ideas suddenly clicked for me and became actionable. His explanation of the IFS process made much more sense for my brain and the way I process information. So it was strange to find that Don’t Tell Me to Relax was more of the same inaccessible, jargon-filled exposition I received in the first place. Almost the entire first half of the book felt long-winded and overly esoteric to me — I didn’t gain much new information here, but it wasn’t a huge issue for me as I feel like I have a strong enough handle on the concepts now to adapt the parts that work for me and disregard the rest. My suggestion to any readers new to Internal Family Systems: if you are struggling to understand the concepts behind IFS or how to put these ideas into practice, pick up The Monkey Is the Messenger: Meditation and What Your Busy Mind Is Trying to Tell You instead.
Among the things I most looked forward to in this book was the very first practice (“When You Encounter Horrible Headlines”), and I have to say, I was somewhat disappointed. I was expecting a serious deep-dive into the physiological implications of the 24-hour news cycle and the traumatic content of that news. For someone who feels constantly on the verge of nervous-system collapse, what strategies can help? Unfortunately, what I got instead was the generic parts-work meditation. This is a meditation you can use anytime, in any situation, to work with any challenging or uncomfortable emotions that arise. In that regard, it’s a very helpful tool; I don’t intend to disparage it. But I was hoping for something more specific and frankly, something stronger. Ultimately this book did not shake my belief that the mental health complex at present has little to offer those suffering existential crises.
Ironically, the practice De La Rosa suggests for readers who are struggling with parts work proper (“Summoning Inner Resources”) is the exact type of visualization exercise I find most inaccessible of all. It goes something like this (my paraphrase)… You see a glowing figure materialize in front of you. Who is it? Don’t think, just know. Whoever it is, they’ve come to be your mentor. They inhabit your body and you effortlessly begin acting like they do. Before they leave, they present you with a special gift. What’s in the box? Don’t think! Just experience! Whatever object you received is now a kind of powerful talisman for you. ??? I hate this. I realize that some people do find this type of exercise beneficial, and I think that’s great. If that’s you, I’m happy for you! It just doesn’t work that way for me. No one ever “appears” out of nowhere and reveals their face to me; there is no face, unless I deliberately conjure one. No glowing box has ever opened to reveal hidden wonders; the box is empty unless I think of something to put inside it myself.
The second half of the book held much more of interest for me; I particularly appreciated the author’s thoughts on cultural somatics and disordered cultural attachment (although he doesn’t mention these concepts by name). He discusses how cultural assimilation can bring privilege but also estrangement and loss. For white people, he offers this compassionate rebuke/advice: “Paradoxically, whiteness has become so taken for granted as what’s normal and what sets the standards in our culture that white people are largely unable to see themselves as having a racial identity even while they belong to by far the most powerful race in the country. This is why it’s so helpful for white people to look for ‘roots deeper than whiteness’ — a sense of ethnicity tied to one’s European ancestors, to the earth, to a spiritual tradition, or to whatever feels healthier and more holistic than whitewashed patriarchal capitalism.” (Apologies for the constant referrals back to De La Rosa’s first book, but I found some wonderful, healing ideas for connecting to the earth for emotional support in The Monkey Is the Messenger that have stayed with me and continued to inform how I view my identity.) I also greatly appreciated the “Rewiring Unconscious Bias” meditation and am looking forward to experimenting with it in my meditation practice.
There are a couple more practices (or more precisely, “protocols”) I want to mention: two exercises written by Aaron Rose. I am not familiar with Rose or his work — his bio says he is a “transformational coach” and his website includes links to a number of online courses you can choose to purchase, as well as a link to a (free) program where he says you will learn how to “ACTUALLY create a full-time income online from anywhere in the world and heal the planet at the same time.” This is not my favorite scene, but whatever. I mention it because both Rose and De La Rosa seem to have built strong identities around being “spiritual teachers” and this definitely comes across in the book. I wish this idea had been treated with more skepticism or self-interrogation, but it was not my book to write. Regarding Rose’s exercises in Don’t Tell Me to Relax (there’s “A Protocol for When Someone Calls You Out” and “A Protocol for When You Want to Call Out Someone Else”), I think they’re great…as part of a completebreakfast approach to call-out culture. Both exercises invite introspection, self-care, and meaningful change where necessary. However, my gut is cautioning me about accepting these practices as a be-all, end-all way to heal toxic call-outs. My values include a multiplicity of approaches and strategies.
Despite the value I see in both of Rose’s call-out protocols, there was something in this section of the book that bothered me about Aaron Rose: “[Rose] went on to share a recent experience of someone commenting on his Instagram feed that, given his views on forgiveness, he clearly hasn’t suffered trauma in his lifetime. ‘My first reaction was to give this person my trauma list,’ Aaron admitted. ‘But then I realized — that’s exhausting.’ He landed instead on a more helpful interpretation: ‘This is just information for me around how much people are suffering out there and are confused about the concept of forgiveness. It’s actually a reminder that it’s something I need to keep teaching about.'” What are Rose’s views on forgiveness? I can’t tell you, because the book only dances around them vaguely; De La Rosa leaves Rose’s statement here unanswered. The impression I received was that readers are meant to take Rose’s interpretation of this event at face value without knowing the content of his “teaching” about forgiveness. There is something disturbing in the implication that if you take issue with this mysterious “teaching,” you are only providing more evidence that the “teaching” is correct. You can’t be permitted to disagree; instead, you must just misunderstand or be “confused.” It’s unfalsifiable. And the concept of forgiveness in particular has a long history of being used in abusive ways. I suspect it’s likely that Rose and I would disagree about the nature and necessity of forgiveness — my personal view is that it is more often a result of healing than a way to heal, and that trying to force forgiveness (or having it forced upon you) is a fast-track to retraumatization. Reading Rose’s easy dismissal of a critic who caused him discomfort is one reason I am hesitant to accept his call-out protocols as gospel.
There were a couple other ideas presented in this book that I disagree with, or at least find controversial. One was, “When we start a conversation off with a neutral statement like ‘I need to open up a conversation with you,’ that person is going to get their guard up, but we’re much more likely to meet with someone’s ambassadors [the parts of this person that want to hear you and be heard] than we are if we start with ‘What you did yesterday really upset me.'” This idea is presented as a fact and then the author swiftly moves on, assuming that he doesn’t need to prove this point. What I have heard from many, many people who live with consistent anxiety, and what is true for me as well, is that hearing “We need to talk” or “There’s something I need to say to you” will send us running for the hills, emotionally speaking. There is no faster, more reliable way to convince us that you hate us and never want to see us again. A simple way to extend care to an anxious person (if indeed your desire is to repair the relationship!) is to give us a hint of what you want to talk with us about. “Hey, I’m feeling upset about something you said to me yesterday. I’d like to talk about it with you; is this a good time?” Give me that any day over a generic “neutral” opener.
Another idea bafflingly presented as uncontroversial was, “Anger is a secondary emotion [emphasis in original]. It’s always a response to pain (just as with compassion).” I don’t totally buy into this concept of primary and secondary emotions, or at least, not as it’s presented here. This idea feels as tired and outdated to me as right-brain/left-brain personality assessments, and I think it’s a very cookie-cutter approach to people’s unique emotional histories. While it makes sense to me that repressed or too-painful emotions may cause another feeling to spring to the surface, I don’t believe it’s so formulaic. For instance, in families that pathologize or punish anger, anger itself may become a repressed emotion that presents another way — as sadness, or guilt, or apathy, etc. It seems to me that any emotion can function as primary, secondary, or otherwise.
A final note: De La Rosa acknowledges the complexity of intersectional politics and the likelihood of making mistakes when having serious conversations about it; in one such mistake that stood out to me, the author fell into the ableist trap of using “differently-abled” language despite obvious efforts to be inclusive and accessible (e.g. suggesting accommodations for some somatic practices). I hope he will continue to research and seek out disabled perspectives on this issue.
Where to start with this book… Perhaps the most appropriate place is at the very beginning: in the book’s introduction, De La Rosa writes, “[Bad/ineffective teachings] cannot corrupt the integrity of the practice itself (and, while we’re here, neither can any of the reprehensible scandals that have gone on with some of the more invisible spiritual teachers in recent years).” I wondered if this meant he was going to publicly wrestle with the legacy of his disgraced friend and mentor, Reggie Ray. As it happens, it did not mean that; the subject was not mentioned again, although I noticed that Ray was thanked in the acknowledgements page for “opportunities for healing and growth.” My personal feelings about Ray aside, it would have been nice to see a more specific reckoning, some kind of attempt to sort the wheat from the chaff in Ray’s teachings, given that he was given a glowing report in De La Rosa’s first book, The Monkey Is the Messenger: Meditation and What Your Busy Mind is Trying to Tell You. While I believe it is of course possible for predatory people to sometimes teach or promote genuinely good or helpful ideas, I cannot accept a blanket statement that a teacher’s character or implication in scandals is separate from their body of work when so often their teachings are a deliberate, if obscured, way to control people and create new victims. (For another example of how character informs teaching, see this well-sourced piece on John Howard Yoder, a Mennonite theologian who promoted Christian pacifism while serially sexually abusing women.)
I also had some problems with this book for more mundane reasons. When my therapist first introduced me to the concept of IFS (or Internal Family Systems therapy), it was incomprehensible and inaccessible to me. The explanation I received was full of jargon that felt somehow both overly-clinical and too cutesy. My experience trying to make it work was wildly frustrating. It was only upon stumbling across De La Rosa’s first book at my public library that these ideas suddenly clicked for me and became actionable. His explanation of the IFS process made much more sense for my brain and the way I process information. So it was strange to find that Don’t Tell Me to Relax was more of the same inaccessible, jargon-filled exposition I received in the first place. Almost the entire first half of the book felt long-winded and overly esoteric to me — I didn’t gain much new information here, but it wasn’t a huge issue for me as I feel like I have a strong enough handle on the concepts now to adapt the parts that work for me and disregard the rest. My suggestion to any readers new to Internal Family Systems: if you are struggling to understand the concepts behind IFS or how to put these ideas into practice, pick up The Monkey Is the Messenger: Meditation and What Your Busy Mind Is Trying to Tell You instead.
Among the things I most looked forward to in this book was the very first practice (“When You Encounter Horrible Headlines”), and I have to say, I was somewhat disappointed. I was expecting a serious deep-dive into the physiological implications of the 24-hour news cycle and the traumatic content of that news. For someone who feels constantly on the verge of nervous-system collapse, what strategies can help? Unfortunately, what I got instead was the generic parts-work meditation. This is a meditation you can use anytime, in any situation, to work with any challenging or uncomfortable emotions that arise. In that regard, it’s a very helpful tool; I don’t intend to disparage it. But I was hoping for something more specific and frankly, something stronger. Ultimately this book did not shake my belief that the mental health complex at present has little to offer those suffering existential crises.
Ironically, the practice De La Rosa suggests for readers who are struggling with parts work proper (“Summoning Inner Resources”) is the exact type of visualization exercise I find most inaccessible of all. It goes something like this (my paraphrase)… You see a glowing figure materialize in front of you. Who is it? Don’t think, just know. Whoever it is, they’ve come to be your mentor. They inhabit your body and you effortlessly begin acting like they do. Before they leave, they present you with a special gift. What’s in the box? Don’t think! Just experience! Whatever object you received is now a kind of powerful talisman for you. ??? I hate this. I realize that some people do find this type of exercise beneficial, and I think that’s great. If that’s you, I’m happy for you! It just doesn’t work that way for me. No one ever “appears” out of nowhere and reveals their face to me; there is no face, unless I deliberately conjure one. No glowing box has ever opened to reveal hidden wonders; the box is empty unless I think of something to put inside it myself.
The second half of the book held much more of interest for me; I particularly appreciated the author’s thoughts on cultural somatics and disordered cultural attachment (although he doesn’t mention these concepts by name). He discusses how cultural assimilation can bring privilege but also estrangement and loss. For white people, he offers this compassionate rebuke/advice: “Paradoxically, whiteness has become so taken for granted as what’s normal and what sets the standards in our culture that white people are largely unable to see themselves as having a racial identity even while they belong to by far the most powerful race in the country. This is why it’s so helpful for white people to look for ‘roots deeper than whiteness’ — a sense of ethnicity tied to one’s European ancestors, to the earth, to a spiritual tradition, or to whatever feels healthier and more holistic than whitewashed patriarchal capitalism.” (Apologies for the constant referrals back to De La Rosa’s first book, but I found some wonderful, healing ideas for connecting to the earth for emotional support in The Monkey Is the Messenger that have stayed with me and continued to inform how I view my identity.) I also greatly appreciated the “Rewiring Unconscious Bias” meditation and am looking forward to experimenting with it in my meditation practice.
There are a couple more practices (or more precisely, “protocols”) I want to mention: two exercises written by Aaron Rose. I am not familiar with Rose or his work — his bio says he is a “transformational coach” and his website includes links to a number of online courses you can choose to purchase, as well as a link to a (free) program where he says you will learn how to “ACTUALLY create a full-time income online from anywhere in the world and heal the planet at the same time.” This is not my favorite scene, but whatever. I mention it because both Rose and De La Rosa seem to have built strong identities around being “spiritual teachers” and this definitely comes across in the book. I wish this idea had been treated with more skepticism or self-interrogation, but it was not my book to write. Regarding Rose’s exercises in Don’t Tell Me to Relax (there’s “A Protocol for When Someone Calls You Out” and “A Protocol for When You Want to Call Out Someone Else”), I think they’re great…as part of a complete
Despite the value I see in both of Rose’s call-out protocols, there was something in this section of the book that bothered me about Aaron Rose: “[Rose] went on to share a recent experience of someone commenting on his Instagram feed that, given his views on forgiveness, he clearly hasn’t suffered trauma in his lifetime. ‘My first reaction was to give this person my trauma list,’ Aaron admitted. ‘But then I realized — that’s exhausting.’ He landed instead on a more helpful interpretation: ‘This is just information for me around how much people are suffering out there and are confused about the concept of forgiveness. It’s actually a reminder that it’s something I need to keep teaching about.'” What are Rose’s views on forgiveness? I can’t tell you, because the book only dances around them vaguely; De La Rosa leaves Rose’s statement here unanswered. The impression I received was that readers are meant to take Rose’s interpretation of this event at face value without knowing the content of his “teaching” about forgiveness. There is something disturbing in the implication that if you take issue with this mysterious “teaching,” you are only providing more evidence that the “teaching” is correct. You can’t be permitted to disagree; instead, you must just misunderstand or be “confused.” It’s unfalsifiable. And the concept of forgiveness in particular has a long history of being used in abusive ways. I suspect it’s likely that Rose and I would disagree about the nature and necessity of forgiveness — my personal view is that it is more often a result of healing than a way to heal, and that trying to force forgiveness (or having it forced upon you) is a fast-track to retraumatization. Reading Rose’s easy dismissal of a critic who caused him discomfort is one reason I am hesitant to accept his call-out protocols as gospel.
There were a couple other ideas presented in this book that I disagree with, or at least find controversial. One was, “When we start a conversation off with a neutral statement like ‘I need to open up a conversation with you,’ that person is going to get their guard up, but we’re much more likely to meet with someone’s ambassadors [the parts of this person that want to hear you and be heard] than we are if we start with ‘What you did yesterday really upset me.'” This idea is presented as a fact and then the author swiftly moves on, assuming that he doesn’t need to prove this point. What I have heard from many, many people who live with consistent anxiety, and what is true for me as well, is that hearing “We need to talk” or “There’s something I need to say to you” will send us running for the hills, emotionally speaking. There is no faster, more reliable way to convince us that you hate us and never want to see us again. A simple way to extend care to an anxious person (if indeed your desire is to repair the relationship!) is to give us a hint of what you want to talk with us about. “Hey, I’m feeling upset about something you said to me yesterday. I’d like to talk about it with you; is this a good time?” Give me that any day over a generic “neutral” opener.
Another idea bafflingly presented as uncontroversial was, “Anger is a secondary emotion [emphasis in original]. It’s always a response to pain (just as with compassion).” I don’t totally buy into this concept of primary and secondary emotions, or at least, not as it’s presented here. This idea feels as tired and outdated to me as right-brain/left-brain personality assessments, and I think it’s a very cookie-cutter approach to people’s unique emotional histories. While it makes sense to me that repressed or too-painful emotions may cause another feeling to spring to the surface, I don’t believe it’s so formulaic. For instance, in families that pathologize or punish anger, anger itself may become a repressed emotion that presents another way — as sadness, or guilt, or apathy, etc. It seems to me that any emotion can function as primary, secondary, or otherwise.
A final note: De La Rosa acknowledges the complexity of intersectional politics and the likelihood of making mistakes when having serious conversations about it; in one such mistake that stood out to me, the author fell into the ableist trap of using “differently-abled” language despite obvious efforts to be inclusive and accessible (e.g. suggesting accommodations for some somatic practices). I hope he will continue to research and seek out disabled perspectives on this issue.
March 15, 2021
Helpful advice, here are a few passages that stood out to me:
"We all hurt and we all heal. It is what we were born to do. Resilience is intrinsic to all living organisms. We can look to the experience of physical exercise as a direct corollary. We exercise with the intention of getting stronger and more flexible, but exercise doesn't do either of those things - not directly. Working out actually injures you. It creates tiny tears in your muscles. We strengthen in the rest and recovery after the workout. Thus, the intention behind a really god workout is to injure you manageably, just enough so that you'll emerge from your recovery stronger and more flexible than you were before. Same with life. Same with our hearts. Except we don't need to go looking for emotional workouts. They arrive at our doorstep without us even asking. We have endless opportunities to get bruised by life and then to strengthen in our recovery from it all. And from that kind of activity comes something most precious: confidence. As we repeatedly witness ourselves getting hurt and dealing with it skillfully - and thus consistently find ourselves stronger and more emotionally agile than before - our fear of life decreases. Our defensive parts start to get the message that we are stronger and more capable than we were in childhood - which is when our core defenses were conditioned and wired into us. We become indefatigable. Ever more courageous. Outrageously courageous, even. And this is but a glimpse of what's possible for us all."
"Consider this: Pushing our own pain and historical trauma down doesn't mean it goes away. All we accomplish with this attitude is submerging that pain into our nervous system - where it is bound to come out in other, more insidious ways through negative core beliefs and compulsive behaviors. It will eventually harm others for us to continue down this road. Directly or indirectly, we are always dealing with our woundings and reactive defense patterns. When we do the courageous work of meeting our subjective difficulties directly, it is a service to everyone."
"Consider this: Loss of empathy is a primary symptom of burnout. A lack of compassion and consideration for yourself will only lead to a lack of compassion and consideration for others."
"We all hurt and we all heal. It is what we were born to do. Resilience is intrinsic to all living organisms. We can look to the experience of physical exercise as a direct corollary. We exercise with the intention of getting stronger and more flexible, but exercise doesn't do either of those things - not directly. Working out actually injures you. It creates tiny tears in your muscles. We strengthen in the rest and recovery after the workout. Thus, the intention behind a really god workout is to injure you manageably, just enough so that you'll emerge from your recovery stronger and more flexible than you were before. Same with life. Same with our hearts. Except we don't need to go looking for emotional workouts. They arrive at our doorstep without us even asking. We have endless opportunities to get bruised by life and then to strengthen in our recovery from it all. And from that kind of activity comes something most precious: confidence. As we repeatedly witness ourselves getting hurt and dealing with it skillfully - and thus consistently find ourselves stronger and more emotionally agile than before - our fear of life decreases. Our defensive parts start to get the message that we are stronger and more capable than we were in childhood - which is when our core defenses were conditioned and wired into us. We become indefatigable. Ever more courageous. Outrageously courageous, even. And this is but a glimpse of what's possible for us all."
"Consider this: Pushing our own pain and historical trauma down doesn't mean it goes away. All we accomplish with this attitude is submerging that pain into our nervous system - where it is bound to come out in other, more insidious ways through negative core beliefs and compulsive behaviors. It will eventually harm others for us to continue down this road. Directly or indirectly, we are always dealing with our woundings and reactive defense patterns. When we do the courageous work of meeting our subjective difficulties directly, it is a service to everyone."
"Consider this: Loss of empathy is a primary symptom of burnout. A lack of compassion and consideration for yourself will only lead to a lack of compassion and consideration for others."
December 27, 2024
In a time of constant outrage and anxiety, it offers a refreshing approach to staying engaged and emotionally balanced. Blending his expertise as a therapist and meditation teacher, author introduces "parts work," a framework for building a healthier relationship with emotions—neither suppressing them nor being controlled by them.
The book goes beyond surface-level self-care, showing how anger can hold wisdom and how personal growth connects to social change. With practical tools (i.e. sensory interrupts, reframing questioning, self-regulation checklist, etc.) for navigating burnout, privilege guilt, and tough conversations, he empowers readers to transform emotional heat into meaningful action.
The book goes beyond surface-level self-care, showing how anger can hold wisdom and how personal growth connects to social change. With practical tools (i.e. sensory interrupts, reframing questioning, self-regulation checklist, etc.) for navigating burnout, privilege guilt, and tough conversations, he empowers readers to transform emotional heat into meaningful action.
September 15, 2021
An interesting read on emotional resilience and empowering yourself. I am a huge fan of emotional intelligence as a model for basically how to deal with being human, especially with emotions. Add in exercise and a healthy diet and I think that forms a solid mental foundation. Will that formula prevent you from feeling anxious, angry, or sad? No. And that is one of the points in this book. Having feelings is important, but exploring them and understanding them is of great importance too. The author uses many examples from their own experiences of trauma in their life. The author also shares several tools and exercises to help dive deeper. This is a good book for those struggling with how to deal with all kinds of life coming at you. While the World has to deal with the social issues of today, every human also needs to work to deal with themselves.
July 29, 2021
Absolutely life changing. I could read it 100x. I just might. Mandatory reading for anyone who is trying to make the world a better place without completely burning out. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
January 9, 2021
An almost personal narrative on how the author suggests we move to form emotional resilience with compassion, curiosity and a re shifting of our outage to move through uncertainly and change. Good tips on how to take a moment, shift your inner conversation and practice self love by acknowledging pain and fear. Explains the differences between nice and kind and offer a why who and when for confrontations.
September 21, 2020
This is the book I'm going to encourage everyone to read. I'll tell them if, once they've read this, they want a deeper dive into Ralph's synthesis between IFS and Buddhist meditation practice by all means read the first book. That being said, now it feels like The Monkey Is the Messenger: Meditation and What Your Busy Mind Is Trying to Tell You was what needed to be written so that this book was possible.
This is the most accessible read on how to avoid spiritual bypass and to live one's life as if you mattered while not forgetting that other people also exist and matter that I've come across ever. And I search for such things.
It has enough political content to be a door into self-care practice for cadre and enough spiritual content to work as a required read for every well-intentional white crystal-wearing new age person who BLM has recently convinced that other people might exist and matter in ways the Law of Attraction doesn't quite respond well to.
What I'm trying to say is that if you really love someone, a great birthday gift would be a bundle of books that went well together like this one, Parable of the Sower and Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good.
The thinking is profound. The stories are entertaining. The compassion and irreverence are sweet.
This is the most accessible read on how to avoid spiritual bypass and to live one's life as if you mattered while not forgetting that other people also exist and matter that I've come across ever. And I search for such things.
It has enough political content to be a door into self-care practice for cadre and enough spiritual content to work as a required read for every well-intentional white crystal-wearing new age person who BLM has recently convinced that other people might exist and matter in ways the Law of Attraction doesn't quite respond well to.
What I'm trying to say is that if you really love someone, a great birthday gift would be a bundle of books that went well together like this one, Parable of the Sower and Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good.
The thinking is profound. The stories are entertaining. The compassion and irreverence are sweet.
February 25, 2021
Goodreads tempted me to pull this #book because of the following description: In his warm, funny, streetwise style, Ralph De La Rosa offers tools for coping in contentious times. Full of insights and practices addressing everything from trauma triggers to privilege guilt and the art of saying no, Don’t Tell Me to Relax brings the welcome news that our thoughts and emotions are not the enemies. Instead, when met skilfully, they can light the way to self-empathy, social understanding, and activism with room for inner and outer work.
However, after the read, I felt the book is almost a personal narrative. The author shares a good focus on emotional resilience and self-care by acknowledging pain and fear, but nothing is new to offer #notgreat
However, after the read, I felt the book is almost a personal narrative. The author shares a good focus on emotional resilience and self-care by acknowledging pain and fear, but nothing is new to offer #notgreat
November 12, 2020
An easy-to-digest, well structured, practical book that shows you how to tackle the disparity between emotion and logic while also talking about intersectionality, communication and spirituality.
I do feel that at times, De La Rosa could have talked a bit more about dealing with repressed emotions, having tough conversations and dealing with anxiety instead of brushing them aside.
In all, a great book to read during this pandemic as it really helps you understand what is in your control and what is not.
I do feel that at times, De La Rosa could have talked a bit more about dealing with repressed emotions, having tough conversations and dealing with anxiety instead of brushing them aside.
In all, a great book to read during this pandemic as it really helps you understand what is in your control and what is not.
November 16, 2022
I, your meditation teacher, officially give you permission to not meditate, to just let your thoughts and emotions run free like the wild horses that they are, and to let whatever's happening in your environment just go on. Give up. Surrender the self-improvement project. You're not a fixer-upper. I invite you to nourish your nervous system at the cellular level and simply be curious about wherever that takes you instead.
July 17, 2022
Overall, I’d give this book a 3 - it was a little long winded at times. The nuggets I found, particularly in the second half, however, were a 4. I found myself tabbing lots of sentences, examples, and ideas that I found helpful and think my clients, training participants, and colleagues would too.
October 19, 2022
Terrific book that blends Internal Family Systems theory (IFS) with Buddhism, showing how to recognize our inner conflicts and transcend them with a new sense of compassion and wholeness. Highly recommended.
January 25, 2024
Whoa. Perhaps one of my new favorite books. I feel like EVERYONE should take some time with this book. It has a wonderful balance of science, philosophy, personal stories, and suggested action that makes it easy to gobble it up.
February 12, 2024
The book provides opportunities to learn about unblending and how it looks in various settings. The author shares many personal stories, some help to strengthen the book’s ideas while others are distracting.
March 3, 2021
recommended by my therapist, good for managing anxiety
March 20, 2021
I really like the way Ralph connects emotions, trauma, oppression and compassion. Im excited to see authors who see and draw the line between spiritual growth and social justice.
October 23, 2021
Handy, accessible, honest book that combines self-help with buddhist thought & practice.
August 2, 2024
full of great information, and a balm to this Ennegram 8.
He dances with Spirituality, but I don't feel that he is sure what he is looking for.
And that is a very 8-ish way to communicate.
He dances with Spirituality, but I don't feel that he is sure what he is looking for.
And that is a very 8-ish way to communicate.
February 15, 2025
I love this book so much.
April 24, 2025
I’m convinced that Ralph is in my head translating the rants and feelings and tangents into articulate sentences that teach us how to sit with ourselves in a world that is on fire. Here he writes a book about how to start putting out the flames - first the ones inside ourselves, and then in our communities. And *spoiler alert: the answer is not to try to relax.
For years, I have been patiently repeating myself that meditation isn’t a vehicle for bliss or relaxation or that glazed over look the one guy at yoga always has in his eyes. I have sat in halls and listened to fellow meditators discuss how relaxed they feel after sitting for 40 minutes while internally rolling my eyes. I have sat in yoga studios with holistic practitioners rambling on about how to “be zen” in unnatural tones of voice. Do they even know what zen really is? Does anyone who declares “I’m so zen right now” know what zen is? I have sat in my office for 500 hours with 500 clients who finally agreed to try practicing mindfulness only to come back the next week and exclaim “I did it wrong. It made me feel anxious.” My dudes…we are SUPPOSED to be feeling anxious. Have y’all looked out there into the great big world spinning on its great big axis, heating up too rapidly while the humans who call it home continue to destroy it and each other?
End rant. But hear me when I say: We can use that anxiety for compassionate action. In fact, anxiety is really our nervous systems begging us to take action. We aren’t broken. We can do what is needed to heal ourselves and our communities and our planet. We can read Ralph’s book.
I recommend this book to everyone everywhere.
“What was designed as a means for getting all sentient beings out of the fires has, in many spheres, been reduced to a strategy for the optimization of privilege. Meditation can and has been co-opted by our overarching tendency to numb and distract ourselves in the face of difficulty; it can and has been used to quell our sense of urgency about our current and impending global crises. That which could summon an ocean of mercy is being reduced to a sophisticated form of naptime.”
For years, I have been patiently repeating myself that meditation isn’t a vehicle for bliss or relaxation or that glazed over look the one guy at yoga always has in his eyes. I have sat in halls and listened to fellow meditators discuss how relaxed they feel after sitting for 40 minutes while internally rolling my eyes. I have sat in yoga studios with holistic practitioners rambling on about how to “be zen” in unnatural tones of voice. Do they even know what zen really is? Does anyone who declares “I’m so zen right now” know what zen is? I have sat in my office for 500 hours with 500 clients who finally agreed to try practicing mindfulness only to come back the next week and exclaim “I did it wrong. It made me feel anxious.” My dudes…we are SUPPOSED to be feeling anxious. Have y’all looked out there into the great big world spinning on its great big axis, heating up too rapidly while the humans who call it home continue to destroy it and each other?
End rant. But hear me when I say: We can use that anxiety for compassionate action. In fact, anxiety is really our nervous systems begging us to take action. We aren’t broken. We can do what is needed to heal ourselves and our communities and our planet. We can read Ralph’s book.
I recommend this book to everyone everywhere.
“What was designed as a means for getting all sentient beings out of the fires has, in many spheres, been reduced to a strategy for the optimization of privilege. Meditation can and has been co-opted by our overarching tendency to numb and distract ourselves in the face of difficulty; it can and has been used to quell our sense of urgency about our current and impending global crises. That which could summon an ocean of mercy is being reduced to a sophisticated form of naptime.”
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews