The Wealthy Spirit: Daily Affirmations for Financial Stress Reduction

June 29th, 2010 . Posted in money, spirituality | No Comments »

It’s time to talk about money.  This month’s book, The Wealthy Spirit:  Daily Affirmations for Financial Stress Reduction by Chellie Campbell, is a delightful, inspiring and practical read.  After a short introduction, the book follows a page-a-day format – one page for every day of the year.  The top of each page starts out with a quote, followed by the day’s lesson (often a little story or anecdote) and then an affirmation, meant to be repeated mentally many times throughout the day.  I never page-a-dayed it, though, because like a potato chip, I couldn’t stop at one!

The affirmation idea is based on the Law of Attraction, essentially “like attracts like”.  In other words, you attract what you’re thinking about.  But wait, you might say, I think about money plenty, but can barely make ends meet!  Well, if your thoughts are constant worries about how you are going to pay your bills, then they are more about NOT having money than having it, and they only perpetuate your state of lacking funds. To paraphrase a quote from the book (off a sign at the Pig ‘N Whistle Coffee Shop), “As you go through life, whatever your goal, keep your eye on the doughnut and not on the hole”.  Positive thinking.

Chellie Campbell started out as an actress, then ran a book keeping business, and then in 1990 married her financial experience with her performance abilities, creating a workshop for financial stress-reduction.  The once-a-week eight-session workshop became so successful it became her full-time business.  It was so popular that her students’ word-of-mouth created demand for the program all over the country, which led her to write The Wealthy Spirit to help those who couldn’t come to LA for the workshop.  (Or those, like me, who’d be reluctant to fork over the big bucks for it!)

Campbell excels at teaching with a story, and many of the day’s lessons illustrate points by telling stories about what she does in her workshops, about amazing things that happen to clients using the affirmations, and stories from her own life experience.  It has helped Campbell’s knowledge and credibility that her life has not been one success after another.  She’s had to come back from addiction, abuse and bankruptcy, and shares with us the valuable lessons she learned.

I first read this book about 5 years ago, the first year that I was teaching only part-time and tutoring on the side.  I chose a few affirmations to say daily, a practice that absolutely helped me ask for and receive more money for tutoring.  Also, at the end of the year when I received a full-time job offer, it gave me the confidence to ask for more money (which I received, 10% more), though I did not have a full-time job at the time and was therefore seemingly not in a great place to negotiate.

The teachings are based on the law of attraction, but it’s not about saying affirmations and having money magically appear (though in some of her stories that happens too!)  You have to “send out ships”, in other words do the legwork to get you where you want to be financially, or career-wise, or anything-wise.  The metaphor refers to the days when English businessmen built big ships and loaded them up with goods to trade in the east.  The ships might not come back in with the money for months or even a year or two (or sometimes never), but what is sure is that ships only come in when you send them out!  The affirmations put you in the right frame of mind to attract the wealth; they raise your energy so you put it towards sending out ships.

The wisdom in “The Wealthy Spirit” goes beyond the financial.  For example, as Campell says, “We are only in charge of sending out ships.  God is in charge of which ones come in.”  In other words, let go of results.  Your focus must be on sending the ships out, which is exactly the main lesson of the Bhagavad Gita.  Just keep sending them out.  Another example I like is the “Glad Game”, taught to Campell by her mother.  When you’re feeling down, if you have a setback, you can allow a little time for self pity, but then turn it around by making a game of thinking up things about the situation to be glad and thankful about.  It will lift your mood!  The book also includes lessons for having a well-balanced life, and having fun.  Some are about taking time off, and how it makes you more, rather than less, productive.

Campbell also talks about budgeting (in a way that actually makes it appealing) and other practical strategies for managing your money, such as a plan for paying off credit cards.  Not everything in the book is applicable to everyone’s financial life.  For example, she talks a lot about drumming up business by phone, and there are obviously professions in which that sort of activity is unnecessary.  However, if you are in sales or in business for yourself (or would like to be), buying this book is money well spent.

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The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

May 31st, 2010 . Posted in happiness | No Comments »

Gretchen Rubin, the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling The Happiness Project, already was happy. Generally satisfied with the overall structure of her life, her marriage, children, career and residence were all exactly as she would have chosen. Still, she was frequently impatient and irritable with her husband and children, and it often felt like life was just passing by, and that maybe she wasn’t making the absolute most out of it. Knowing she could be happier, Rubin decided to embark on a “happiness project” that was, as she puts it, a quest to “change my life without changing my life”. The resulting book, The Happiness Project, is a memoir of self-help detailing the year she systematically tested a variety of resolutions designed to increase her happiness.

While there are more dramatic quest-for-happiness memoirs such as the blockbuster Eat Pray Love, The Happiness Project stands out for its relatability. Most of us, like Rubin, are working within the confines of our ordinary lives. No matter how little your life resembles Gretchen Rubin’s or how likely that you’ll actually undertake a happiness project in as comprehensive and dogged a manner as she, you will probably find it easy to relate as she shares her shortcomings and attempts to improve herself.

For the one-year project, each month Rubin chose an area of her life to work on and made four or five resolutions. She kept track on a calendar, at the end of each day giving herself a check or an X for each resolution, depending on her success that day. Each month she took on a new set of resolutions, adding them to the others, and so by December she was grading herself daily on eleven months of resolutions!

Her first month, January, was about boosting energy, an excellent place to start because it definitely takes energy to improve yourself. To increase her energy, Rubin decided to go to sleep earlier, exercise, clear out clutter and organize, and take on tasks that had been nagging her in the back of her mind. At this point I was hooked and already inspired to join in. Although February’s topic of marriage wouldn’t seem to apply to me (being unmarried myself), the specificity of her resolutions (quit nagging, don’t expect praise, fight right, etc.) and the effects of her actions held universal truths applicable to roommate situations and in relating to people in general. I enjoyed reading about “the week of extreme nice”, in which Rubin did her best to go above and beyond in the nice department and found it excruciating but with positive effects. March, “work month”, was when Rubin launched her blog, www.happiness-project.com, that became popular almost overnight.

Rubin’s book is not merely her experiences in a bubble. She did copious amounts of research on happiness, and the book is peppered with results of scientific studies that we can apply to our own lives. Some examples: People who have fun are twenty times as likely to feel happy. Even introverts are happier in the company of others. Hugs increase happiness. Faking a smile or acting energetic when you don’t feel either happy or energetic leads to feeling happier and more energetic. It is also full of other random tidbits. Did you know that Benjamin Franklin and twelve friends met weekly for 40 years with the goal of mutual improvement? I ended up making notes of books I wanted to read, a pen she insisted was the smoothest, most enjoyable write (got some and I agree), and even jotted down the particular name and scent of a candle she loves. Why did I do this? Is she my self-help hero? Am I going to follow everything she does?

Well, not everything. Some of Rubin’s resolutions I dismiss immediately as things that are not going to work for me. For example – start a collection of something. I don’t see that happening. She also discarded possibilities for her own happiness project (including my favorite mood-enhancer, meditation), continually reminding herself to “be Gretchen”. In other words, just because others prefer museum-going to staying home reading doesn’t mean that she should too. Along these lines, Rubin emphasizes that, while we can all have a happiness project, each of our happiness projects will be different.

As a person who both loves to read and tends to be hard on myself, I related to Rubin squashing her interest in children’s literature and then, during her happiness project, realizing she shouldn’t feel guilty for indulging it. One of the most inspiring lessons of the book is that, whatever your passion(s), making them a real priority in your life contributes greatly to happiness.

Reading this book really boosted my motivation. Last year I sat in my writer’s group listening to people talk about writing a novel in a month and thinking I couldn’t possibly. But something clicked when I was reading Rubin’s book. She did the same challenge on top of everything else in her life and, even though she is a way more experienced and successful writer than I, it still inspired me to do it too.

“The Happiness Project” offers plenty of inspiration and the reminder that “it is not goal attainment but the process of striving after the goals that brings happiness”.

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Bhagavad Gita

April 12th, 2010 . Posted in spirituality, yoga | No Comments »
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Though not usually thought of as a self-help book, if you are patient and persist at its lessons the Bhagavad Gita could really be the only self-help book you’ll ever need. This compact little book of verse contains everything you need to know to end all your suffering forever!

What is it? The Bhagavad Gita is the scripture containing the central teachings of yoga; it itself is a small part of an epic Hindu historical poem, the Mahabarata. It is said that any situation that exists in real life can be found in the Mahabarata, and to this I’d add, “and then some,” because when does it happen in real life (or even soap operas) that one woman is married to five brothers simultaneously? However, here I digress, as our true concern is the Bhagavad Gita and its kernels of wisdom. The Gita takes place in the midst of a big war, during an instant on the battlefield in which Krishna (a human incarnation of God (kinda like Jesus, we can just think of him as God)) stops time to counsel the warrior Arjuna (who represents us). Arjuna is understandably an emotional mess because he is expected to fight against his dear cousins. He breaks down, telling Krishna he can’t fight.

Krishna explains that it is his duty to fight, but that it is not as tragic as it seems; he cannot really kill anyone because we are all immortal souls. The rest of the book is a dialogue between Krishna and Arguna in which Krishna patiently explains to Arguna (and us) all about our immortal God-like nature and the paths to attain its direct knowledge.

The Bhagavad Gita has been translated from Sanskrit to English many times. Most editions contain long commentaries, as the literal translation is often unpoetic and confusing to us Westerners. However, Steven Mitchell’s 2000 translation is not one of those. It is soothing and beautiful to read even as a total beginner, and although you may not at first be getting all of its wisdom, it is no doubt sinking in a little at a time. It is poetic and also encouraging, as is apparent in this stanza near the beginning:

“On this path no effort is wasted,
no gain is ever reversed;
even a little of this practice
will shelter you from great sorrow.”

The Bhagavad Gita contains instruction in all the paths of yoga (control of the mind, devotion to God, knowledge of the Self, and selfless service to others), but its main lesson is that of karma yoga, to act without being attached to the fruits of your actions. In other words, though you may take an action with some purpose in mind (aiming for a particular outcome), you must relinquish the desire for that outcome, or fruit. Your focus must be only on the action itself, without anticipation or worry regarding its possible fruits.

This may be easier to understand if we think about it in the extreme case of an Olympic athlete. Competing in her sport likely takes complete focus on the action itself. If she were thinking instead about how great it will feel when she wins and gets a medal, she would not be fully focused on the action and the action would suffer. As it says in the Gita:

“You have a right to your actions,
but never to your actions’ fruits.
Act for the action’s sake.
And do not be attached to inaction.

Self-possessed, resolute, act
without any thought of results,
open to success or failure.
This equanimity is yoga.”

Of course, this is much easier in principle than in practice, but at least for me, consciously learning that this is the ideal to hold in mind was tremendously helpful. For example, I used to agonize about teaching. So much stress about whether I would give a good lecture, whether I would make mistakes or be able to explain something well or poorly. Then I’d feel good or bad, depending on my perceived performance. So much energy wasted on all those unproductive (and actually counterproductive) thoughts. So much thinking about me, rather than serving my students. Now I simply see my duty as doing my best preparing and teaching and that is all. Success or failure is irrelevant; the fruits are relinquished, offered to God. How much easier, freer, more joyful and, paradoxically, more successful you can be when you don’t fear so much failure or care so much about success. As we learn from the Bhagavad Gita, the fruits are not the point of this whole life thing at all.

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Getting to “I do”

March 7th, 2010 . Posted in love, relationships | 2 Comments »
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A friend of mine recently lent me Getting to “I Do”: The Secret to Doing Relationships Right! by Dr. Patricia Allen and Sandra Harmon, as she had found the book enormously helpful and enlightening. Patricia Allen is a relationship therapist and the book, published in 1994, is based on twenty years of her research with clients. (She has also written what is presumably a sequel, Staying Married and Loving It!) The book has some very interesting ideas, the basic one being that, in every relationship, one person plays a masculine role and behaves accordingly, and the other plays a feminine role. Harmony in the relationship exists when the participants act in line with the role they’ve signed up to play. At first glance it sounds terribly sexist and confining. However, Allen at least recognizes that in some heterosexual relationships (and this presumably applies to homosexual ones too, though it is not discussed) the woman actually plays the masculine role and the man the feminine role and that there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, provided that both parties are comfortable and that these are their preferred roles. What does not work is if both are taking the masculine role, or both the feminine.

The authors stress the importance of knowing up front which role you want to be in, before you meet the person. Because if you don’t consciously know, you may start out in a role you are not comfortable in. Relationship problems will start later when you try to switch roles. So, do you want to lead, make decisions, give more and be respected (masculine) or do you want to be given to, cared for and have your “feelings cherished” (a phrase she uses many times in describing the feminine role). Perhaps you’d like it both ways? Sorry, you are out of luck; it doesn’t work like that. If that is your desire, then you are narcissistic!

Personally, it makes me uncomfortable to think of not leading and making decisions, but a masculine man who is truly cherishing your feelings considers them carefully when making decisions, so it is not like the feminine role has no power. It almost seems like the decision is being made together, but in a very particular dynamic.

The feminine role has great power, but not the power to demand that the masculine person change. The feminine can tell the masculine how she feels about something, and that she respects his right to do or not do this “something”, and she may inform him that if he does do this “something” she will need to leave the relationship. Then it is the masculine’s decision to change in order to keep her, or to not change and lose her.

The woman (in the feminine role) also has a lot of power initially BEFORE she sleeps with a man if she is looking for a lasting relationship. Because women get much more attached (even addicted, Allen contends) to men after sex due to greater amounts of the hormone oxytocin, a woman would be smart to wait three months, and then ask for three things before commencing a sexual relationship. These are 1) continuity in the relationship, 2) longevity (does he imagine himself with the same long-term goals for a relationship, for example marriage and children) and 3) monogamy (that he not have a sexual relationship with anyone else while he’s having one with you).

The problem for most women these days, says Allen, lies in that they really want to be the feminine in the relationship, but don’t quite know how because they are used to being successful career women, and at work everyone plays a masculine role. But a problem for other women is that they initially take the feminine role, because that is the most typical way that relationships initiate (we wait for the phone call, wait for the man to ask for a date), but they really want to be the one in charge of the relationship, the masculine role, and so that comes out later. These women would best serve themselves by knowing they want this role in a relationship and then find a man more comfortable with the feminine role and ask him out. (Or ask out any man; if he doesn’t want the feminine role he probably won’t be interested; nothing lost either way.) If one suppresses her natural preference at first, it will surely emerge later, creating a power struggle with two people in the masculine role.

So you have to decide. Upon reading Allen’s descriptions of the roles, I was leaning towards wanting to play the masculine role. I want to be deciding what to do and want to be respected, and I like to give and cherish and care about my guy’s feelings. However, the book also includes a multiple-choice quiz (!) to help you figure it out, and based on that I came out feminine! Though not by a lot; I had plenty of “masculine” answers too. Maybe that’s my source of difficulties in the love department…

This one is definitely a thought-provoking book. Indeed, I’ll have to keep thinking about it…


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Smart Moves

February 9th, 2010 . Posted in education, movement | No Comments »
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Smart Moves: Why Learning Is Not All In Your Head by Carla Hannaford should be required reading for every parent and teacher. And it may help you personally as well.

The main idea of this comprehensive book is that it is our body movements that create and strengthen the neural networks necessary for skills like reading, writing and higher order thinking. In order for this to happen properly, children need time and unstructured play, and also love and support, which engender positive emotions. That emotion affects learning is the other important point in the book. Positive emotions are associated with the neurotransmitters that encourage, rather than inhibit, learning, while stress is associated with the opposite. A student’s interest in learning is actually necessary to the learning itself. Hannaford backs these assertions up with science, citing numerous studies. In one example, rats running on a wheel grow double the number of nerve cells, but not if they are forced to run.

Luckily, if someone has difficulties learning, even severe ones, movement can help at any time. Sometimes a few simple movements are all that is needed to integrate knowledge that has been acquired but is somehow all jumbled up or separated in different parts of the brain. Hannaford explains the benefits of, and how to do, a number of simple Brain Gym® movements. I learned the basics of Brain Gym® two years ago, and since then I have noticed the positive effects in me and also in some of my friends and tutoring students with whom I have used it. However, these effects are nothing compared to the cases of children with severe difficulties that Hannaford includes in the book. She shows how Brain Gym® can dramatically benefit children in reading, writing and communicating, including children with autism, ADHD, post-traumatic stress, and even a girl who lost an entire hemisphere of her brain. In one instance, Hannaford did only a fifteen-minute Brain Gym® activity with a boy with Down’s syndrome who had been unsuccessfully trying to learn his numbers from one to ten. Although he had been working with his teacher on it for three months, the movements were the missing piece – he was able to correctly distinguish the numbers from that day on.

Hannaford explains the detailed anatomy of the nervous system and how it develops in stages, and how movements play specific and important roles in the developmental stages. Children NEED to move. She also illustrates how some educational systems honor and work with natural development (the Danish, where children spend their first seven years in unstructured outdoor play and then soon after attain 100% literacy) and how some don’t, for example ours.

What is wrong with the way we are bringing up and educating children? For one thing, we have them NOT moving, sitting at desks at an early age and forcing them to read and write before their eyes are sufficiently developed. Eyes develop in time and with movement. We’re not giving most children enough time, and if they’re watching TV at such a young age they’re probably not getting enough movement. Then children that have difficulties reading or sitting still, both unnatural and unhealthy activities for their age, are labeled as having learning disabilities and are often drugged.

The educational system was even more wrong in Singapore, where they once taught children reading at age three and four. As a result, 85% became nearsighted and needed glasses by age five, and nearly 100% needed glasses by age 10. Singapore then changed their system, taking a cue from the Danish.

When children have difficulty reading because their bodies and brains are not sufficiently developed, they experience stress and other negative emotions that only make it MORE difficult to learn. What is the value in getting kids to read at such a young age? I don’t think there is any. Hannaford herself was unable to read until age ten, but it did not adversely affect her future: she went on to earn a Ph.D. in biology and become a world-renowned author and educator.

Hannaford touches on other aspects of our lives that affect our learning, such as nutrition. She also makes a convincing case against ANY television watching for children below a certain age. TV inhibits learning in many ways other than that we are not moving; for example, we respond to the light flicker of changing scenes with our fight-or-flight stress response.

She also touches on learning profiles, something she has since written an entire book about: The Dominance Factor: How Knowing Your Dominant Eye, Ear, Brain, Hand and Foot Can Improve Your Learning. When you are stressed, you may be limited in a particular way due to your dominance profile. For example, you may not efficiently receive information visually, but you may be able to learn through hearing it. I discovered from my profile that when I am stressed I do not communicate well, which I have experienced during my teaching career!

The only thing missing from this book is the work of an editor. It is a shame for a book with such great content to be, even in its second edition, this rife with grammatical and typographical errors. Yet although the writing could be cleaned up and it could be more readable in some parts, it is still highly recommended reading.

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The Technique of the Love Affair

January 5th, 2010 . Posted in love, relationships | 2 Comments »
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The Technique of the Love Affair by A Gentlewoman is a modern (and by modern I mean 1928!) guidebook on love, with all the techniques to employ and pitfalls to avoid throughout the “love affair” up to and including marriage. Before reading this book, I might have said that love does not need tricks and techniques or rules. Now I say this book is a gem, because in reading it I see clearly all the mistakes I have made repeatedly in my many years of naïve singledom. Dorothy Parker said it better in her 1928 review in The New Yorker, “The Technique of the Love Affair makes, I am bitterly afraid, considerable sense. If only it had been placed in my hands years ago, maybe I could have been successful instead of just successive.”

Sure, there are more contemporary books of the sort. The Rules, Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus, He’s Just Not That Into You, etc. However, until recently I had largely dismissed this entire sub-genre of self-help books, holding on at length to idealistic feminist notions that “The Rules” couldn’t possibly be the rules, that men and women are really not all that different, and that while it may not seem like he’s that into me, I’m so into him that he’s bound to come around! I probably just need to try harder!

The Technique of the Love Affair, originally written anonymously by Doris Langley Moore, came back into print in 1999 in a new edition including notes and commentary by Norrie Epstein that add historical perspective and relate literary, psychology and pop culture examples from our contemporary times back to the Victorian era preceding the book.

The book is written in a delightful faux Platonic dialogue in which expert Cypria counsels naïve Saccharissa on how to be successful in love. It is entertaining as well as informative, and convincing in its truth and relevance even today. Cypria continually reminds us why we need this book; because men are the natural pursuers, they are at so much of an advantage in the whole courtship game that we women need all the technique we can muster.

So what are some of these magic techniques? One example of Cypria’s advice is to be generous with words, but not actions, meaning that when you are with a man, you should be delightful and flattering, so he will feel that you like him, but in your actions you should not be so available that he thinks you want him badly. You can never seem more interested than he is, because it is your slight elusiveness that will make him chase. He must always have some doubt in his mind as to your interest. Therefore, never ever ask when you will see him again! Tell him you had a lovely time, but act completely unconcerned whether you will ever see him again.

Cultivating the attention of other men also helps because, as Cypria says, a man wants someone whom he sees other men want. Such attention (whether perceived or real) always increases your “prestige”, a term meaning general desirability. Cypria discusses prestige in detail, including what qualities most influence it (ex. physical beauty, no surprise there) and which are nearly irrelevant (domestic abilities, virtuous character – while he may appreciate these qualities further into your relationship, they play almost no role in your initial success).

Relating to physical beauty, a man likes when you look different from him, so you will be more successful if you wear feminine clothes and make-up. However, a man also doesn’t want to think he is shallow, so he’ll deny that these matter. Cypria’s sage advice: “All through a love affair you are in danger of believing what the average man tells you about his taste in women, and modeling yourself upon it, when it is really the very reverse of what he feels. Because he thinks he ought to like this and dislike that, he will frequently convince himself that he positively does so. But you must not believe him simply because he believes himself.

“For example, his code of ethics keeps reminding him that he ought not to fall in love with a woman merely because she is pretty, and soft, and scented, and exquisitely attired, and flattering; and that it would be nobler of him to succumb only to goodness, and common-sense, and domesticity. So he tells you that looks are nothing to him, and that what he likes is character. ‘You needn’t bother to dress up for me’ he says.”

But allowing yourself to believe him would be a tactical error, says Cypria. Epstein’s note adds evidence: “A prominent marriage counselor, writing in the late 1940s, echoed this sentiment, citing – of all things – a survey of potential car buyers taken by Chrysler Corporation after World War II. Most of them said they wanted a car that was economical, practical, and easy to park, and that appearance was inconsequential. Chrysler produced a modest-looking, smaller Plymouth. The model bombed. At the same time General Motors introduced a powerful, flashy, gas-guzzling Buick. It sold well. The conclusion of car manufacturers (and marriage counselors): People will tell you what they think they should like, not what they really want.”

Well, how about that. It reminds me of the old saying, surely applicable when it comes to men and in knowing where you stand with one, “Actions speak louder than words.” For no nonsense love advice that is historically interesting and fun to read, this book is a winner.



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Woman Heal Thyself

December 7th, 2009 . Posted in healing, health | No Comments »
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Woman Heal Thyself: An Ancient Healing System for Contemporary Women by Jeanne Elizabeth Blum is the topic for my first book review because of its great potential to help women and because I have found it so helpful that I use the system each month.

The ancient healing system referred to in the subtitle is traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), and specifically a set of acupressure/acupuncture points known as the Forbidden Pregnancy Points. Pressing these points on a pregnant woman can disturb or even terminate the pregnancy. However, Blum discovered that if a woman massages them during her menstrual period, she can bring her energy system into balance and, in the following month, enjoy the elimination of a whole gamut of PMS and menstrual symptoms.

I first read this book almost two years ago. For several months, in addition to the menstrual cramps I have always had, I was also suffering from angry moods and breast soreness in the week or two before my period. After following the instructions in the book and working my acupressure points for about twenty minutes a day, the very next month I had no breast soreness at all and very little negative emotion. The cramps were also less severe.

Blum cured herself of much more severe symptoms, including a very heavy menstrual flow and endometriosis. Her clients have also employed the system to ease menopause symptoms, reverse early menopause, and to promote fertility.

Blum presents different options: you can massage three different sets of acupressure points (27 points total), one set per day for the length of your period, or you can do one simpler set of ten points and repeat it each day of your period. While I originally began with the more complex program, hoping for maximum benefits, I have recently achieved similar success with the simpler set. I switched in order to memorize the simpler set, thus eliminating the need to lug the book with me if I am travelling. I admit that, from the beginning, I have almost never had the patience to work each point for the recommended 2-5 minutes, which is probably why I have not completely eliminated the cramps, although they are less severe.

Besides the practical “how-to” of the Forbidden Pregnancy Points, much of the book is devoted to the theory of TCM and how to apply it to thinking about your particular health issues. The basic idea is that the acupressure points are located along twelve main channels of energy, called meridians, each governing a corresponding organ. Organs are classified as (and occur paired together as) yin or yang, and the organ pairs are each associated with one of the five elements: earth, metal, water, wood, and fire. For example, kidney and bladder are both organs of the water element, kidney the yin and bladder the yang. Energy flows from one meridian to the next according to a cycle of the elements. Blum says, “If you want to grow a tree, water it; if you need to burn a fire, put wood on it; for good soil, add ashes; from rich earth comes metal; to carry water, use a metal container.” In other words, from water you get wood, from wood, fire; from fire, earth; from earth, metal; from metal, water, thus completing the cycle. This is the “birthing cycle,” the direction energy should flow in the body. If instead you have an energy imbalance, you enter the reverse “destructive cycle” where earth destroys fire, fire destroys wood, wood soaks up water (“destroying” it) etc. It is fascinating reading, but it gets more complicated and is, I think, too difficult for the amateur to apply. The important thing to remember is that energy imbalances, in time, manifest as physical health problems.

But where do these energy imbalances come from? Blum emphasizes that negative emotional experiences and thought patterns create energy imbalances, especially if we experienced them from a young age. If we were abused, or even simply discouraged from expressing emotions, those emotions lodge in our bodies, disturbing the healthy energy flow, eventually creating physical disease or addictions. The chapter “emotions and the body” is full of stories of people’s emotional experiences, how each affects organ energy flows, and what characteristics result from the corresponding incorrect energy flow.

The strongest parts of the book (in addition to the “how-to”) were Blum’s discussions of discovering how to use the Forbidden Pregnancy Points, of healing her own serious physical problems stemming from her traumatic childhood, and of healing clients with various issues. Also interesting were discussions of common problems such as depression, anxiety, and compulsive behavior. There is a theoretically useful section on “Diagnostic Reference for Ailments A-Z”, listing the acupressure points to work for a large variety of physical, emotional and mental problems. The problem is that, when referring to points not along the same energy meridian as, and nearby, Forbidden Pregnancy Points, the diagrams in the book are insufficient; one would have to look elsewhere to be able to accurately locate the points on their body. The final section of the book presents additional tools for healing, which I believe vary in their utility. For example, in the chapter on diet and fasting, Blum relays diet recommendations she was given for her kidney problems; I am skeptical that this would be a healthy diet for everyone.

Overall, Woman Heal Thyself gives us a concrete monthly practice for balance and relief from menstrual problems, as well as a way to address and heal deeper issues that plague us.

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