Frustrating.

One Simple Refrain by Nancy Ann Healy

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I stopped reading this at 43%.

You see, there was a time I was counselling people about how the mind has two sides:
1) The analytical side. This side of the mind takes things apart and then makes a list of the parts. In astrology that is called the Gemini side or by others, house III.
2) The comprehensive side. Here the analytical mind has to state the found facts and the heart has to state its desires and impulses. Then the comprehensive side has to temper the hearts desire to ensure the life of the person is not threatened by following the impulse; for example look right and left before crossing a street with traffic. The job is not to tell the heart roads cannot be crossed.

A lot of people do exactly that, because they never learned to trust life, they stay where they are. This gets very, very tiresome for the counsellor, because most minds are terribly stubborn and keep creating horrible scenarios and paralyse the person with fear. I on the other side learned to trust my life, as it one way or another always took care of me, even if I sometimes took years to understand, why life had had to kick my butt to get me moving in the right direction. But by the age of forty at the latest I had understood, perhaps because my sun sign is Virgo, the sign associated with the comprehensive mind, or house VI.

Any way, reading about a character who does keep herself time and again from moving forward through fear caused by not trusting life after 48 years of being a doctor, even if everybody else, who is more experienced (because older and having gone through similar problems) tells her to follow her heart, is not even remotely entertaining for me, but rather frustrating.

So, if you are keen on reading about characters making themselves repeatedly unhappy because their comprehensive mind doesn’t work properly, even if there is a happy end (sort of) promised, go right ahead and enjoy this. I certainly can’t.



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