Hi Janny – Just feel like I need to express a few thoughts on your book.  Sincerely, it is perhaps the best self-help book I have ever seen, and is helping me quite a bit.  The reason it is so good is also the reason it will help few people.  I will explain both of these points I just made.

I took the book with me on our two week vacation to Illinois.  The first 4 days we stayed at a relaxing resort with a lake and golf course, and plenty of time to delve into the book in more depth.  I knew from my first read that this book is a work in process for the person reading it, as it guides you to strip away the defense mechanisms we all have encumbered ourselves with, and examine who or more importantly why we are the way we are.  That’s pretty scary for most people because we are afraid what we might find.  Perhaps flaws we were genetically born with and other flaws that were the result of things we were exposed to throughout our lives.  All the flaws that we feel so guilty and ashamed about having.

I started to practice the exercise with putting the tongue between the teeth and breathing / humming through the nose.  As I did this several, no many times, I was able to see things in my brain (character) that had never occurred to me before.  When I was young I had a processing problem with the correct sounds of speech.  What sounded correct and totally coherent to me came across to other kids and adults as not very understandable.  By luck I had a “great” kindergarten teacher, who at every opportunity humiliated me in front of the other 30 five year olds.  “Richard, when are you going to talk right?  We can’t understand you at all.”  I was basically defenseless against this witch because my parents wouldn’t understand me even if I had the nerve to complain to them.  Instead I was inflicted with a huge inferiority complex which I fought by being the most athletic, fastest kid in the sports we played.  In first grade at recess, I played with my 3rd grade brother’s classmates rather than my peers who were no challenge for me.

For most of my life I have never fully taken all the opportunities that came my way, as I lacked the confidence to do so.  Some of the things I did, when I look back over it, were not successful because I didn’t try hard enough.  That was my excuse:  I really didn’t commit to doing it, that’s why I was unsuccessful with it.  What a handy little defensive mechanism my brain and subconscious had come up with.  It covers pretty much everything, and it leads to me regretting and despising what I didn’t do in the past.  All my fault.  Once I did the humming tactic, it cleared my subconscious defensive armor out of the way, and I was able to see that back in time I could do no better because my confidence was lacking.

How is that helping me now?  While on vacation, we stopped to get gas.  While I was fueling the car, my wife opened the back door to get a bag, and it spilled to the ground with some items coming out.  She quickly picked them up and put them back in the bag into the car.  As we pulled away I heard and felt the car run over what ended up being a pill case and also a case that had my wife’s $4,000 hearing aid.  Totally destroyed into smithereens.  And then she told me she had forgotten to insure them.  Prior to reading your book I would have been mad about her putting the hearing aid in a bag.  I would have been real mad about not insuring them.  I would be fuming inside and not sleep for a week.  But instead I calmed my wife and said to myself:  She didn’t mean to do that.  She’s had some medical issues causing a lot of stress, and sometimes important details may be overlooked.  We will not let an accident ruin our lives and well being.  It’s not the worse thing that could happen while driving cross country on vacation.

Now for the 2nd point.  We arrived in the Chicago area to visit family and friends.  Many were in their low 70’s like us, with a range from 65 to 81.  We had not seen them in two years, but to me it seemed like I had never seen them like this.  Most suffered from anxiety or depression and were taking the prescribed meds for it.  Most were well overweight and had various medical conditions from cancer, thyroid conditions, high blood pressure, heart problems, joint problems, you name it.  Their stress levels were high and many of these meds were just covering up the anxiety that was a common denominator.  Their cognitive reasoning was impaired, and these were all college educated successful people.  A few examples of this, although I could give a dozen:

Cousin Dennis walks in on two crutches.  Seems he fell in the garage 3 weeks ago and hurt his leg.  I asked, “have you had it x-rayed?”  “Oh no, it still hurts real bad, maybe I should see a doctor.”  This type of reasoning from a retired school teacher with health insurance.

Cousin Cathy comes in with a walker.  She had a stroke about 5 years ago but was previously able to walk ok.  Says her doctor took her off one of the meds and her sodium levels dropped so low a month ago that she almost died and was in the hospital for 4 days.  I asked if she was going to find a new doctor.  “Oh no.  I like his bedside manner and he’s a real nice man.”  Cathy’s deceased mother left her several million dollars but she continues living in a house she can’t maintain on her own.

I believe that all these defensive mechanisms that the subconscious has erected in our brains causes a lot of physical ailments from the anxiety of never addressing or identifying the underlying problems we all have.  And even the ones with no current ailments, seem to be saddled with a lot of anxiety.  The cognitive decline appears to make them incapable of reading a book such as yours, let alone acting on it.  So the people who would benefit the most from your book, don’t have a strong enough willpower to take it on.

I don’t know what the answer is, but these are my thoughts.  And now I have to bite my tongue and hum.

– Rich M.