Good primer for attachment for couples clients. I think it creates a magical sense to the work and I'd love more of the nitty gritty to getting to the level of depth for these discussions. I feel like a lot of the times they attachment issues come up, clients are in fight or flight mode, and stepping out of that to see the dance is not easy. I was hoping for more of that, but maybe that's what EFT training CEUs are for.
I appreciate Foer's ability to cross genres and his presentation of information. It's a lot to take in, a lot of it unpleasant (the point) and he manages to create the desire to do so. I love his posing questions and thought points, owns the ambivalence and struggle. I as vegetarian listened with my omnivorous partner and it inspired a ton of conversation between us.. In addition, I think, to convincing partner to give up meat, or at least some forms. (Other documentaries etc haven't convinced him). I only wish Foer had addressed the dairy industry as well.
I got a few chuckles about it and it started some conversation with my husband. Some of it makes sense, and I get the importance of different language, although I don't think I can recommend this to a lot of clients. I liked his line of “Who you are is what you're willing to struggle for” and the idea of choosing our problems, not our goals. Some of the latter of the book didn't seem as impactful to me, and I think I got a little hung up about his loose or lack of definition of values (I see values and priorities a little different, defining ‘values' is sometimes important).
This definitely did not strike me as impactfully as 4 agreements did. I'm trying to decide how much it might be from taking it in audiobook format, but I struggled to be interested and get through this one. The idea of self government makes sense but definitely didn't help my enjoyment or taking in of the information since I don't like politics, hah.
Extremely thorough! Appreciated the dual approach and level of detail. Clients initially resisted the title, but one cited recommending it to friends as a book ‘all couples should read' regardless of Affair. A bit heteronormative.
This has been on my shelf for a while, I've known I'm an HSP for at least as long. I expected to like this book, start using it as a resource for clients, and maybe get some useful personal tips as well. Instead I found myself eager to be done.
I'm almost amused how much I disliked the book considering how much I agree with things she said, but “thorough” felt like “TMI”. Books are totally open to be taken at one's own pace, but it felt almost ironic that she packed so much in as stimulation/information overload into what starts out as an introduction to a concept. And by the end, things felt almost tangential (How Hitler persuaded people? what? We should all be priests among the world? Is suggesting asking your doctor to read the book in order to help you, realistic?)
She makes a point to differentiate shyness, which she says has a negative connotation, with HSP, of which she says she tries to highlight the useful qualities. Somehow I left more confused about the differentiation than I started, and I felt the overall theme through the book actually DID create a link of HSP as a diagnosis and something that likely needs hand-holding and ‘treating' with therapy and possibly drugs.
I absolutely believe the concept of HSP is useful, however I felt there were too many things conflated here; HSP, shyness, introversion, attachment styles, codependence. The relationship coaching suggestions for relationship she offered? Useful- FOR ANY couple, not just relationships involving HSPs. I guess this can be validating for some, but I think I would prefer stopping at “yes there's often a link between HSP and attachment styles, you might want to look more into that.”
This was an interesting read, vignettes of many different girls compared from 25 years prior. As a therapist and a former adolescent girl, there were definitely pieces that resonated with me and felt validating. My partner heard part of the book when I started reading and wanted to listen to the whole thing with me, and it inspired some good conversation. I think there's useful information here, although I would feel no more well prepared to be a parent to a teen girl than I was before. I would love to see a companion piece to this book for girls, around how to get the support they want and need.
“Step one, step two.. LOOK AT MY MASTERPIECE!” The first few exercises of this, practicing technique without trying to actually make it look like something specific, we're alright. Then as it progressed, I could feel my perfectionism kicking in. “Paint this leaf you've never heard of...and at the end of the chapter you finally get some sense of what it should look like. “Draw two C curves...” yea I can follow the instruction and it will look NOTHING like what she says, until I turn the page and just follow the sketch she demonstrates. Not sure if author over-anticipates the clarity of her words or what. Then she has the gall to add, the “Isn't this easy and fun?” comments, and I'm still wondering how she got from here to there, because I'm following the steps and surely something is missing. I think more time could be spent on technique outside of replicating-life application, and I think it would be easier to follow if more numerical step-wise instruction rather than paragraphs. And a lot more specifics. Ok, toucan is facing left. Not until I see her finished piece do I notice her toucan is facing away and turning its head left, rather than...simply facing left. Kind of a difference there.
The instructions are such that I even managed to ‘screw up'. In that, with the dragonfruit whole and half, it was unclear that I wasn't supposed to do the wash on the inside of the half fruit, until it was too late.
She makes assumptions that reader has background in art to know what ‘envisioning your light source' would look like, and that you are right-handed. I'm almost done- day 22- and after washing both mountains read I was only supposed to do the first, and the second comes later (for what reason I don't know). She goes to final layer and “make any final marks on the piece” apparently means “add a **ton of little details”.
I plan to finish this book, if nothing else to have some ‘timestamps' of my ability development, but I decided I think in week two that I don't really like it, the instruction could be much clearer, and I look forward to finding new material that doesn't try to incorporate light source, color mixing, and life-replication all in one go. WOW is an interesting thing to really grasp well as to how it works, and I can spend a lot more time there. I did learn in this book, more about sketching than I expected, but I'm looking forward to different books moving forward. If you have any perfectionistic tendencies, I do NOT recommend this book. I did a web lesson on values that I felt came out much better; I don't feel like she really teaches how to get good gradient depth representation. And, even as a beginner, there could be more spent on color mixing. (It's one thing to follow her instructions, another to try following her instructions when you don't have her exact palette, and yet another when you're new and don't know how to get the paints from the pans to the palette for mixing, whether cross-contamination is ok, how much of each to use). I'm still really confused how you start with a light wash which is really dilute, and then suddenly have a more saturated version of the same color for the value.