Boundaries for you Soul by Alison Cook and Kimberly Miller

How to turn your overwhelming thoughts and feelings into your greatest allies.

I want to preface this whole book review by saying I am not a psychologist or a psychiatrist or a counselor or even that great of a listener, though I'm trying to learn to be a listener, so I am not necessarily a good one to comment on some of the aspects of this book. So just keep that in mind as you read my thoughts.

I am a little divided about this book. Some of it seemed strangely weird to me and some of it made sense. And some of those things were the same things. I think I could come across here as being very confused and there would be some truth there as well.

The big focus of the book is taking a You-turn when anger or shame or fear or anxiety or any other unhealthy attribute raises its head. There are five parts of this process: focus, befriend, invite Jesus, unburden and integrate. I can definitely see the value of this process. While reading the book, when things would come up that I would get disgruntled about, it was helpful for me to stop and think, Why? Why is this bothering me? Why am I upset by this? And I could often point to an insecurity or a fear that was making  me want to lash out.  So that was helpful for me and something I want to continue doing.

I talk to myself a lot in the form of pep talks, etc. but the idea of sitting down and asking parts of my soul how I feel about this and asking other parts to chime in or to be quiet can make me a little nervous.  Now I give this book huge credit for bringing Jesus very actively into this exercise. One quote from early on in the book really helped me, "The best way to care for the overwhelming parts of your soul involves inviting God's Holy Spirit to be with them."  And "God responds to human brokenness by transforming our souls from the inside out." "Paying attention to the state of your soul opens you up to receive the gifts God wants to give to the parts of you most in need of grace."

So, while I think this book has some very helpful things in it, it also made me nervous. That is not to say that what they had to say wasn't true, it's just a concept I'm not used to and therefore it feels uncomfortable to me. The other thing that I noticed and I think this likely has to do with keeping the book flowing is that the stories they told seem to have instantaneous results. They seemed to go through the five step process in about five minutes and then the client was good to go. I know that was likely not the case, but it did feel like that.

Before I would recommend this book to somebody, I would want a little further input on it from people I trust, but I do think that this book has some really helpful tips and tools in it either way. And like I already said, it has been good for me to look beyond my reaction to see the root of the problem.

I received this book from Book Look Bloggers and was not required to write a positive review.