Too boxed in, no room for personal experience
591985
This book has a few good sections (such as the tools for a shamanic druid), but I found it to be very inside-the-box with how Danu Forest says your experiences should be.

In most of the chapters, she describes how to go to the Otherworld (for different purposes, such as to find your animal ally, ancestral ally, meet the Lord of the Hunt, etc.), and she describes to you exactly what you should see. "Imagine a forest path with oak trees on either side, at the end of the path you will see a door. Open the door and you will see a grove of trees..... inside the grove is your ancestor ally.... commune with them, give them a gift..." etc.

I do not like to be boxed in like this with my Otherworldly travels.... what if my ancestor ally is to be found in my dreams, or in the flames of a scrying fire? I felt like I had to memorize her descriptive detailed "meeting spaces" in order to imagine it for my travels.... If I travel to the Otherworld, who says I am going to land in a forest? I could land on a hilltop, or find myself at the shore of a lake.... What if the Lord of the Hunt meets me in a cave? I was not pleased with her very particular description of how my Otherworld experience is going to be. As for meeting the Lord of the Hunt, she even describes what his reactions will be when I meet him.... how does she know how he will act?
She says he will offer me a challenge or a test to receive an animal ally... but does not mention it once she jumps into the Otherworld experience. I would mention that we earthly beings cannot possibly know how a millenia-old nonhuman creature is going to behave... I thought it was very presumptuous of her.

She describes herself as a Celtic Shaman, Witch, and Druid Priestess.... each of which contradict the other. They have similar belief systems, but that's like saying you're a Christian, Jew, and Mormon. Therefore, I do not find her credentials at all believable.

All in all, I think this book is not worth the $10, as it has very little personal advice. It seems more like Danu Forest had her experiences in the Otherworld, and expects your experience (as to location, who will be waiting for you, etc) to be exactly like hers.... I did not like being restrained like this.
4876864
For me far too much mind-numbing detail about recordings, tour dates and business. Would have much preferred greater insight into the man himself. I wanted to know how Jones interprets his experience and looks at life. Maybe the absence of self-revealing writing and deeper philosophical musing is itself the insight.
3806946
I started out prepared to engage and enjoy this book, and I got bored along the way.  I felt like I was being lectured to; that there wasn't a whole lot of room for my own, different, understanding, and that the author had the answer.

Based on the title, I was expecting something a little closer to Geek Logic:  50 Foolproof Equations for Everyday Life, which contains equations you can really solve with guidance for deciding how to quantify the variables.  Not so with Conley's book.  The "equations" present rough equivalents, but no guidance for figuring out how far you are on the scale, whether you are in a position to "calculate" your way out of an emotional landmine.

Perhaps if the book hadn't started with some of the traditionally "negative" emotions that simply aren't a big part of my life, I might have found more to relate to.  In addition, I was turned off by the Lisa Novak reference, because by the time I came to Emotional Equations, there was much more information available.  I hate "analyzing" a situation through superficial news data, when it would (one expects?) be more useful to tell personal stories about which one has all the data.  (In other words, why is it ok to use a stranger's story, but when you talk about the stress of a family member being wrongfully convicted of a crime, you protect that family member's details?)

Not bad, and well-written.  Orderly--chapters flowed through a similar outline.  I simply didn't feel like I was getting anything helpful here.
4117401
This is one of these books which it could be a gift for a  young bride. It is not a book for a mature wife, who has read many books on the subject and who desires something deeper. The book tired me and left me empty,  because I don't like the style of fiction, or a cute little story and example in every paragraph. I appreciate the honesty and heart of the writer, and she obviously has passion for the subject, and this is her own creativity and I respect that, but it was not enough for me. I also found it not deep enough. She hardly touched the issues: too many words, without saying much. A much, much better book is the "Surrendered Wife" : deep, real, heavy duty guide,  without the fluff.
3889393
I absolutely hated this book.

First the positives:
- There were some good tools for setting up alone time with your romantic partner. It can be very difficult for people to express that particular need because of a tendency for others to react poorly. I felt that the book addressed that fairly well.
- There was a suggestion for professionals in a caring profession to protect themselves by coming up with three distinct features that distinguish you from a person whose feelings you are taking on as a quick and easy way to throw up a barrier by simply recognizing that you are not the same and that their emotions are theirs. I think that is potentially helpful in any situation.
- The suggestions were all detailed in the back in an easily comprehended format which I think is a virtue in any book of this type (sort of a consolation prize here).

The negatives:
-Virtually every other aspect.
- The book is grotesquely formulaic and suffers for it. It tries to cover a wide span of info identifying an empath without giving comprehensive information on what that means or really how to interpret it on a day to day basis. And as a person that used to do copywriting and copy editing for exactly these types of books, it reeked of a specific breed of formulaic writing that is geared toward making money (now that you have purchased my book, here buy my audio program and then also my platform) while starting from a place of good intention. I have no doubt that this person feels genuinely like she is helping people, but I also feel that impact is greater than intent and this type of corporate structuring is a conflict of interest.
- This is a repackaging of The Power of Positive Thinking but the You're Special Because You're Highly Sensitive version. I am a highly sensitive person. I found this approach to be insulting.
- It is vastly appropriate that the ties to spirituality that the author makes are present with typical positive thinking practice as the origin of Positive thinking is spiritualism of the late Victorian era.
- She advocates 12 step programs which are notoriously ineffective.
- The sources listed in this book are things such as HeartMath. These are NOT credible sources. Her use of sources like this sets my teeth on edge.
- There was some gendered nonsense in this book that was entirely unnecessary, especially because research in HSP or SPS shows that there is no difference in men or women (except for how they respond to the diagnostic which is most likely a result of conditioning, not inherent gender trait).
- There is a heavy focus on new age spiritualism, and this books brings with it a lot of the flaws--namely wishy-washy appropriative practice.
- Along with the aforementioned heavy-handed spirituality, there is also a hefty presence of pseudoscience.

Ultimately, I found this book to be a very negative experience. I think that positive thinking is an insidious practice that was backed by a lot of junk science that has since been shown to have been junk. I find this type of practice to be really insulting when addressing my other mental health issues and trauma bonds. I felt like this book excuses and encourages behavior that I don't think is excusable (even being highly sensitive, there are limits to the expectations you can place on other people in regards to checking your own behavior) and attempts to elevate being highly sensitive in a way that implies that it is better than being "normal", despite perhaps being slightly difficult to live with.

The language was grating, not detail oriented, and lacked citation. The text itself was very repetitive (ironic considering how many times she mentioned that being repetitive was negative when trying to communicate as an empath or with an empath). The meditation practice is fairly standard body awareness but is detailed much better in MANY other sources. There is nothing original here. I am very disappointed that my library did not have this book in stock so that I purchased it. Although, now that I think of it, perhaps I should be glad.
946089
The idea is an excellent one, but I did not feel it was well excecuted.  Here are the major problems I perceived with this book.

Where was the book editor?  I was not impressed with the writing.  The content  seemed very run-on and unfocused.  An editor would have caught problems with some of these things.

There was no index, notes, sources nor bibliography.  The author has a Ph. D. in sociology and should have known better.  An editor should have insisted on.

The author ignores one major area of shadow work:  operating a small business.  That is a chapter in itself, even a whole book on that subject.  It was a personal deal breaker for me when I considered a small business post-retirement.  When I did the evaluation, the operational overhead needs sabotaged any income potential for my idea.

There is really a bigger picture here that the author overlooks as well.  It is really about time management and being pro-active.  Treat time as a budget and work within it; shadow work is a part of that.  I would not want to turn the clock back on information --  I like having the ability to be empowered to have access to managing stuff on the internet and make informed decisions.  I do set boundaries with the amount of time I spend on social media  and try to manage that time.

I would really encourage the author to re-write this book with an editor.  I think there are great opportunities to address this topic.
2047764
I was looking forward to this edition of Gopi Krishna's autobiography. As an autobiography it is a let down. He writes a fair amount about his childhood, but gives few details about his adult life. You don't get inside his life to see what he was like as a person. Maybe he was too spaced out with his kundalini experiences to worry about everyday matters. The book says very little on his techniques to get kundalini. He just says he meditated , for hours at a time, from age seventeen to thirty four. Then, when meditating on a lotus at crown of his head, he had his first kundalini experience. He doesn't paint a very good picture of his experiences. He had severe mood swings, from high elation to deep depression. Perhaps he was not properly prepared for the experiences. A physical experience in itself does not constitute spiritual development. Much of the book consists of very basic New Age ramblings. I am currently reading two other books on kundalini. They are 'Theories of the Chakras' by Hiroshi Motoyama, and 'Layayoga, an Advanced Method of Concentration' by Shyam Sundar Goswami. Unlike Gopi Krishna, they both give very detailed instructions on opening the chakras.
4459420
This book gets off to a great start and presents a great concept that I feel a deep connection to. So, I had high hopes that this might be my favourite book of the year so maybe I started with unfair expectations.

Unfortunately, the two most important aspects of this book (to me, anyway) - how to choose what's essential and how to say no to everything else - were glossed over in a few pages. I can't work out what more focus wasn't paid on these areas.

Instead, lots of dubious personal anecdotes that pad the narrative, sometimes three in a row just to make one point - not very essentialist.

The last 1/3 of the book borrows heavily from the hot topics of the moment - mindfulness, cognitive biases, mastery, flow - these are all relevant but are only presented in very loose association with essentialism.

I would have loves to see more depth around essentialism rather than breadth of subject matter from other areas.
3553285
It is rare for me to feel almost completely negative about a publication.

If this is your first survival book and you are looking to learn the basics of survival then I feel this is not the book.  Honestly if I had not been so busy I would have returned the book.

It is clear that Mr. McPherson is experienced but one has to translate that experience in a well written, well illustrated, manner in order to convey that experience to the unfledged.  The  horrible and I mean horrible black and white photos and the writing which too often assumes that one knows the definitions of may of the terms used in providing an explanation makes for a quick turn-off to the novice.

In fairness this book might be great for someone who has some experience.  However, in this day and age of DVDs and well illustrated colored photos and diagrams this book sorely fails to make learning easy for the novice.  For me, this book was a terrible first purchase.

I wish I could trade this book in for a DVD by Mr. Pherson, perhaps in that media he could convey his experience well.
1340121
I started listening to this as an audio book on loan from my library. I couldn't get past the first 10 minutes, which detailed the author's first sexual experience, complete with women on all fours, latex gloves, and winking vaginas. I'm not a prude, but it was nasty. I never got far enough into it to determine if there was actually any relevant info about anxiety, and I'm not interested in trying again.
1562628
After reading the great customer reviews and the description of the book, I was really looking forward to getting my hands on it.  I soon saw that there's not much content (it only took a few hours for me to get through) and the place she comes from does not resonate with me.  She sees the birth process as inherently painful; I do not.  This made it difficult for me to get through the book because she mentions pain many times.  That was not inspiring (or even simply nice to read to it) in the least.  She also comes from the place of labor being inherently hard or difficult; I do not.  I see it as an ecstatic, rewarding, and a possibly pleasurable experience.

I was hoping for more of an objective point of view, or, at the very least, a positive point of view about labor and birth.  This book is basically about her own experiences.  She does give the basics of waterbirth, of course, and why it's appealing.  It isn't necessarily a means for pain relief if the woman isn't experiencing pain, though, which she doesn't mention at all.  Her birth stories were filled with a lot of difficulty and pain, for the most part, and I finished the book trying to figure out what I learned.  Not much; just a little bit about the basics of waterbirth.

The yoga chapter and baby massage chapter are awesome, and I can also see how this would be a great book for the average, mainstream mom.  However, I wouldn't recommend it because with the small amount of content and the subjective point of view, I'm inclined to suggest that other people simply look up information online or spend their money elsewhere.
1420259
The vibe I get reading through the self-reflective question-prompts inside the book is that the author of the journal expects you not to like yourself (or have a huge all-consuming problem), to want to change yourself in substantial ways, and that you have a family.  Half the set-up was not relevant to my personal circumstances.  I was expecting more 'what if' and less emotional dwelling and self-criticizing.  I don't have an anger problem, or a broken heart, or have many regrets.  I am interested in 'being all I can be' so to speak, which is why I was given this book.

This type of journal is great for a retail worker or house-parent, but terrible for a soldier or business person.  Both authors are women, (alert for males!).  As a relatively well-adjusted guy who doesn't keep journals, I wasn't the targeted audience.  Assumptions, like fearing the unknown instead of relishing new experiences, turned me off.  While the author encourages you to rip out pages you don't like, they unfortunately wrote on both sides of pages, meaning if I did that I'd have like four pages left in the actual journal.

If you don't need therapy or have no issues, you can find a better journal than this.  Any blank book will do.
3066610
This is a very handsome book, but it's virtually useless for learning to build a box. Perhaps trying to write a complete guide to box making in 160 pages (many with a lot of white space) was a bad idea. The author can't decide whether this is a guide for beginners or experts.

On the one hand, the book devotes 30 pages to descriptions of tools and materials, which is hardly needed for anyone who has done woodworking. But then it tries to describe complicated techniques on a single page with more space devoted to pictures than words. Another chapter is devoted to shaped and turned boxes, subjects that whole books have been written about.

Incredibly, nowhere in the book can I find a description of how the bottom of a box is attached to a box. The word "bottom" is not even in the index. There is not a single instance of showing the assembly of a box from beginning to end.

The book would be much better by concentrating on a describing the construction of a few box types rather than giving superficial descriptions of many box types and techniques. To do an adequate job of what the book is trying to be, it would have to be at least twice as long.

There are some nice pictures of finished boxes, but you would be much better off borrowing this book from the library.
3051613
I have been in a wonderful marriage for over 3 years now, and while I thought maybe this book would help us to dig deeper into our personalties and marriage. It did not. I got the feeling I was filling out one of those annoyingly cute online surveys. I had to answer many times N/A, no opinion, etc., because almost all of this book only applies to relationships that are dramatic, new, dysfunctional or completely clueless about their partner. Also there are questions that are not modern enough. Like growing up in a single parent home (I.E., only the mother/father around during your childhood) I did go through the book somewhat before I bought it and was please with the few pages I did look at. But, after filling out half of this book I am feeling like I wasted my money and time. Personally, I feel I could have done a better job. I am a novice writer, and I actually may publish a book along these lines. Hopefully, I won't leave my readers feeling empty wallet-wise, and longing for better content. Really you would be better off finding a free survey (most likely online) and filling that out instead of wasting your money.
939360
Sorry, I have to disagree with the rest of the reviews above. A serious student of systems thinking will find this book almost childlike. It looks  like it was written based on the experiences of someone in a controlled lab  instead of the real world. Some concepts are valid and worthwhile, such as  the way in which position in the organization determine how people see the  system affecting them. But most of the rest of the book is a struggle to  get through, due to it's simplistic nature. The font used is almost  cartoonish in nature, and the entire book probably could have taken up 40  pages if written in normal font type-spacing.
Someone seriously  interesting in systems thinking should read. Ackoff, Senge' or  Gharajedaghi. Not this book.
My favorite systems book is "Systems  Thinking managing chaos and complexity" by Jamshid Gharajedaghi. That  is a brilliant piece of work which deserves serious study.
Regards,
3903867
I really wanted to like this book! Bliss is a term I've used for years after attending a Joseph Campbell mythology class and "Follow your bliss" has been one of my guiding principles ever since.

I think the main reason I was disappointed is because the author has a strong Yogananda background and the main gist of this book is meditation based. While I understand this is a great path for many, I do not believe it is exclusively the path for all and there are a great deal of folks who do better with other means of grounding, centering and getting in touch with their true essence or spiritual selves (whichever wording you relate to best to describe such things).

The author states in the preface that the book is based on classes he teaches in Los Angeles (where he is the director of Ananda LA, check their website) and a few pages further in he states "My spiritual teacher Paramhansa Yogananda". I wish the Amazon page description would have detailed this information, as I wouldn't have ordered it had I known.

The minute I realized it was meditation & Yogananda based I knew it wasn't the right book for me. I tried to shift around and consider other concepts and ideas he presents, but to me, none of the other concepts were that original (practice compassion, for example, or music soothes the soul...) and much of it was all so tied into his overall yogananda philosophy that I just couldn't finish it.

In general, each chapter has 4 sections: The story (an anecdote about someone), The science (where he supports the idea for that chapter, but which is minimally referenced and there is no reference section in the back),  The spirit (where he further elucidates his beliefs around the idea for the chapter and how it ties into or supports the spirit) then The experiment (where the reader is encouraged to take an action related to the subject at hand (such as visualization exercises, etc.). I skimmed each chapter seeking something new or useful and for me, I just couldn't find anything that I haven't read elsewhere or that wasn't an element of his overall Yogananda philosophy.

I'm sure many folks will hold objections to my commentary & think this is the greatest book ever. I won't be too surprised if I receive negative comments about my review. However, as open minded beings, hopefully we can all hold acceptance for folks for whom a different path is the better way. The meditation and/or Yogananda path may be perfect for you, but it isn't the one for me.

If you're interested or into meditation or are a student of yogananda philosophy then you will likely love this book. If different methods than those described are better for you, than you might want to look for something else.
4918968
I've been following Andy's blog for some time, and finally decided to read the book.  While there was value in seeing the approach each of these people take to their own lives (which can all pretty much all be boiled down to "Live very cheaply, so that you don't have to work unless you want to, and if you grow and prepare most of your own food, you're likely to enjoy life more"), I was constantly put off by the Author's terrible writing.

Instead of objectively collecting each person's viewpoint, and observing their lifestyle in a way that the reader can clearly understand, he feels the need to constantly inject his own flowery prose, which reminds me of the kind of writing you'd see in a high-schooler's short story.  Let me give you an example from the first chapter:

"He lets out his short phrases, one after the other, as a fisherman might let out a thick rope slowly into the water over the side of a boat - advancing, waiting, pulling back - but slowly building a logical point or an insight about the world that comes upon you with unforeseen force at the very minute he chuckles to himself at the unexpected conclusion."

These indulgent descriptions didn't really start to annoy me until around chapter 6, and from there it was a struggle to finish.  Apparently he teaches creative writing.  It's not a class I'm interested in attending.

There's a lesson here for those living consumer-driven lifestyles, but the lesson is much better learned by reading Walden, rather than this piece of absolute garbage.

Sidenote: If the author wanted to make more of an impact, he would have interviewed some of the many everyday Japanese people who recycle, commute by train, and generally live much lower-impact lifestyles compared to the developed Western world, rather than a single group of people who have all travelled to India and all introduced to the author by the same person.