ปัญญาที่ติดตัวเรามาตั้งแต่เกิด

by Daniel Gottlieb, อัฐพงศ์ เพลินพฤกษา (Translator)

ชีวิต บาดแผล ความเปราะบาง และหนทางสู่การเยียวยา

ชีวิตอาจทิ้งบาดแผลที่ไม่มีวันลบเลือนไว้ในตัวเรา ทำลายความฝันอันไร้เดียงสาถึงชีวิตที่เราปรารถนา จนอาจพาให้จิตใจเราเสียศูนย์ และสูญเสียตัวเองไปในระหว่างการใช้ชีวิต ใน ปัญญาที่ติดตัวเรามาตั้งแต่เกิด ดร.แดเนียล ก็อตต์ลีบ นักจิตบำบัดผู้ละเอียดอ่อน ชวนให้เรากลับมาตั้งหลักแล้วค้นพบบางสิ่งในตัวเองอีกครั้ง ผ่านการโอบรับด้านที่เปราะบางรานร้าวในตัวเรา เพื่อใช้เป็นประตูสู่การเยียวยาและความเข้าใจลึกซึ้งเกี่ยวกับตัวเอง ให้เราสัมผัสถึงความงามและความหมายของชีวิตแม้ท่ามกลางหัวใจที่บอบช้ำ แตกสลาย

Genres: Self Help, Psychology, Nonfiction, Spirituality, Inspirational, Personal Development, Philosophy

287 pages, Paperback

First published March 4, 2014

About the author

Daniel Gottlieb, Ph.D.
Dan began his practice in 1969 after receiving undergraduate and graduate degrees at Temple University. As a young psychologist, his early career specialized in addictions where he ultimately was the director of a community based treatment program in Philadelphia. He enjoyed early successes and loved spending time with his two young daughters. The first decade of his career felt perfect.

In 1979 Dan was in a near fatal automobile accident which left him paralyzed from the chest down. As expected, there were years of despair and depression. He experienced loss on top of loss as his wife left the marriage and passed away several years later. And in the ensuing years he mourned the loss of his sister and his parents. And for the last three decades, he has been observing life with passion and discussion and learning valuable lessons about what it means to be human and how to find peace in the wake of suffering.

Since 1985, Daniel Gottlieb has been hosting "Voices in the Family," an award-winning mental health call-in radio show aired on WHYY 90.9 FM, Philadelphia's local public radio station. From 1993 until 2008, he wrote a highly regarded column for the Philadelphia Inquirer titled: "Inside Out," reflecting his perspective on the events in the world around us and the many ways we experience those events. He has also previously published a total of four books. His most recent, "The Wisdom of Sam: Observations on Life from an Uncommon Child,". In it, Dan tells of some of the remarkable insights shared by his grandson Sam who is on the autism spectrum. All of his royalties are donated to children's charities.

In addition to his writing and radio show, he lectures locally and nationally on a variety of topics affecting the well-being of people, families and the larger community.

The essence of his philosophy can be found on his business card. After his name there are no degrees and no fancy titles. His card simply says "Gottlieb. Human."

Through personal and professional experience, Dan has learned that our greatest suffering is alienation and loneliness. That is these powerful emotions can produce prejudice, hatred, violence, withdrawal and depression. He has learned that all humans long for human contact, compassion and understanding. And without compassion, our spirits wither.

Dan is the proud father of two daughters who contribute to making the world a better place. He is the blissfully happy grandfather of Sam and he deeply grateful for the life he has.

Reviews

[Nuttawat Kalapat · Rating 5 out of 5]

ชอบการยกตัวอย่างเคสเรื่องราวชีวิตคนไข้
(จริงๆเขาไม่ได้เรียกว่าคนไข้ แต่เรียกว่าผู้ร่วมงาน)
แบบสั้นๆง่ายๆ กระชับ

และวิธีคิดที่สอนให้รับมือ รู้ทันบาดแผลในชีวิต และปมปัญหาต่างๆ

มันดีเพราะว่า เป็นหนังสือที่เขียนจากใจของนักจิตบำบัดมากประสบการณ์
และตัวเขาเองก็เจอเรื่องเลวร้ายถึงขั้นตัวเขาก็พิการหนักและผ่านความทุกข์เศร้ามาพอสมควร

[Izzy · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are someone who has experienced pain in your life, inflicted upon you through illness, loss or trauma, or in any other way, then I presume you would desire healing over those wounds. I believe that this book is one passage towards healing.

Dan’s words were like a balm over my wounds, wounds that often gave the appearance that new skin was growing to close over it, but would in reality at the slightest stress break open to show that it was still raw and inflamed, and deeper than was perceived. Dan’s words were the soothing balm that I had long craved to hear and just be enveloped in.

One of my biggest takeaways was his message on alone-ness. It is often so easy to succumb to the tempting and indulgent idea that “No one gets me” that is the resounding complaint of so many, if not all of us. But how many of us have looked past ourselves as individual sufferers of this plight and have had the capacity, generosity of heart, and indeed, the wisdom, to see that we are all in that same wretched boat. Dan could not have articulated our condition more beautifully:

"What she wanted, what I have learned that I want - what we all want, I believe - is for people to "get" our humanity. My story is a poorly designed vehicle, as is yours, because we can tell our own stories in so many different ways... However we tell our stories, the message about our humanity is the same: I want people to know my heart. That I am a kind person who always tries to do the right thing in life and often fails. That I am, furthermore, insecure and vulnerable and dependent and comfortable and independent. Yes, all these things. Just like you.
Sometimes I get into bed and I feel so vulnerable and alone that all I can do is put my hand on my heart and quietly weep. And sometimes my heart is so filled with love that all I want to do is nurture the world and rejoice in what's around me. My heart loves and fears. My heart aches and breaks and rebuilds and rejoices. My heart opens and closed and nurtures my body and my spirit and it contains the wisdom of my life.
This is the essence of my story. And Dariya's. And yours."

My heart swelled with so much resonance and amazement while I was reading these two paragraphs. And of course I cried. Because that was it. That was the essence of my story.

Dan’s book also discusses relationships, the road to wisdom, belief in oneself and perspective, among other things, but those are the things I remember. The authenticity of his voice, and his undeniable life story make his book utterly compelling. ‘The Wisdom that We’re Born With’ is an unpretentious book that truly longs to lend a hand to the rest of humanity.

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful. I knew of Dan Gottleib because of Letters to Sam. My mom gave it to me one day and it really resonated with me when I read it. This was back in high school, but I had determined him a very useful source in so many of these life topics he covered.

He speaks so honestly about his vulnerability, and his practice of vulnerability. He acknowledges how so much of what he does is a practice. Because we aren’t perfect, and these things take time.

The way he wrote about how he can feel so isolated and alienated at times really struck a cord. It was one of those moments when you’re ready to receive a message and this person writes it in the exact way you needed to hear it. It’s comforting to hear someone else experience isolation in the same way.

But while this book speaks to heavy emotions and moments so burdensome it seems as if there is no hope left, it also speaks to how much love exists in life. And how much he is grateful for, and how he doesn’t want a single thing to go unappreciated.

It’s funny to me to think about how much more you notice when you slow down. Because we’re taught to consume consume consume, the little moments often start to go unnoticed. But Gottleib has one thing down: this life is about the people we love and moments we get to share with them. AND cultivating a relationship with yourself. His use of “how does it feel to be in your body in this moment?” During his therapy sessions is a beautiful approach to bringing mindfulness back into people’s daily lives.

[Kimberly Simpson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written book about emotional/spiritual wellbeing. I love the quote, “When life is in balance, we tend to be better off. Taking care of oneself to the exclusion of others leads to misery. Taking care of others to the exclusion of oneself is always a path to emotional malnourishment.”.... I also like “all buried feelings are buried alive”. Can’t wait to read his other books.

[Hana Bilqisthi · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5
membaca buku ini mengingatkan hana ttg penyucian hati ibnu jauziah tapi versi barat
karena banyak membahas ttg hati tapi tentu saja buku ini kesimpulannya berbeda..
Somehow we acquire that precious docket of wisdom we knew when we were children, that love will nurture our selves and give our lives meaning. Not money, looks, power, or even achievements. All of those things bring temporary happiness.

tapi gue senang baca buku ini karena mengingatkan gue akan serunya psikologi :)
trus ada banyak quotes yang gue suka


You know, the kidney filters out the fluids that your body needs, and the rest of it is, well … piss. And most of it winds up in the bladder. The mind, on the other hand, is not so efficient. We have all of these thoughts, and we believe each one of them is important, so we chase them around inside our heads. But what we don’t know is that ninety-five percent of these thoughts are really cognitive piss!

The dictionary defines forgiveness as letting go of resentment—and to an extent, all of them have let go of some of their resentment. But the hardest type of forgiveness is the kind that Abraham has to deal with—and that’s forgiving himself.
The whole story of Abraham and Sarah is heartbreaking. Here are two very good people who have tried to do the right thing. But they are still struggling—they always will. Like all of us, they have been cast out of the garden of earthly delights. For them and us there are no three or ten or twelve steps to happiness. They have lived with the knowledge of good and evil inside them, and that knowledge will be with them forever.

Beyond the racing mind, beyond the intense emotions, we know. Beyond what we fear or fantasize or wish for—inside, where it’s quiet, we know.

So much of parenting, so much of life, is like that meditation class. When there is conflict, we don’t always need to fix it. First we need to be able to tolerate the distress associated with conflict. We need to be awake to our own experience rather than living in our heads, automatically trying to make repairs. When we fully experience our lives, we will be able to tolerate conflict more and be able to do less and experience more. You see, not fixing things requires a great deal of faith—that voices will be heard, feelings will be aired, and the mountain lion will not appear. Faith is really about releasing our grasp on what we have been doing automatically for so many years.

Our job as parents is to hold the child who’s in pain, who’s angry, who’s confused, who rails against injustice, who has been reprimanded by a teacher, bullied, failed a test. To hold that child who needs our help, our care, our compassion—and who also needs our faith. Children need our understanding that, no matter what happens, they are simply doing life. They need to know there’s wise, loving companionship in their parents—that there’s a bottom they’ll never fall through. They need our guidance, but if we act out of our own anxiety, we will raise theirs. If we can hold their pain, we can teach them to tolerate their own painful emotions. And then we can make decisions together about what is best in a particular situation.

Faith cures fear. Fear silences faith. Too often we raise our children based on fear. Being a parent of a vulnerable and spiritual being means being on the middle road between fear and faith.
Many of us start with an agenda: (1) to steer our children on the right path; (2) to keep them out of harm’s way; (3) to make sure they learn what they are supposed to learn, get the education they are supposed to have, develop self-esteem, and live up to their potential. But what if our agenda could start with something else? What if our agenda was being curious? Asking ourselves … Who is this child? How does he explore the world? What are her thoughts and feelings? How does his imagination work? What are her dreams? How will he unfold and blossom?

So much of our parenting originates from fear—which really comes from our own anxiety. But anxiety is simply a piece of information. Sometimes that information is valid; it helps us recall our child’s doctor’s appointment or prompts us to remember to call the teacher about an issue our child might be having. But the vast majority of the time, anxiety brings us no valuable information. It’s just fear of a mountain lion you’re probably never going to encounter—fear that’s either created by the news or by our own fertile minds. And whenever we feel anxiety, we suffer.

When we pretend we are stronger than we feel, we distance ourselves from each other. It’s only through vulnerability that we can see another’s tender heart. Our lives are intertwined, and that is what gives us strength. We need each other.

Why do some people feel that they belong—while others feel that no one understands them? What is that unnamed thing, she asked, that nurtures or interferes with our connections to each other?
In time, she discovered her research leading her to an unexpected conclusion. What constantly got in the way of connectedness, she found, was shame—the repeated incantation in our brains, so common to us all, of “I’m not good enough, I’m not worthy enough, I’m not competent enough, I’m not smart enough.… ”
So we live our lives feeling not quite worthy of what we most long for, and we devote our lives to fixing or hiding what we feel is broken. Shame causes us to hide—assuming that if anyone saw us for who we really were, we would be rejected.

If we don’t feel known for who we are, in the deepest sense, love cannot penetrate. If someone says they love us but does not know our darkest side, our fears, our fragility, our areas of shame and hostility, all they can love is what we show. If we don’t communicate to them that we are sometimes “full of shit,” then we live in fear that we will be rejected if they see this side of us.

But vulnerability is not weakness. Actually, acknowledging and owning our vulnerability takes great strength. How courageous it is when we look someone in the eye and say, “Please help me.”

Slowly I grew into becoming more comfortable as a vulnerable therapist. Today I experience myself as both vulnerable and comfortable; my patients feel the same about themselves. We begin as kindred spirits—two vulnerable human beings sharing openhearted space, something I consider sacred space.

Whether or not other people can handle our vulnerability with understanding, most of us are not ready to do that for ourselves. As a matter fact, most of us find vulnerability intolerable. That fear probably originates in our primordial brains: we feel we are at risk of being destroyed if we are vulnerable. So when we are afraid of that, we work hard to appear strong or independent. We say things like, “I’m fine, thank you,” or, “I don’t need your help right now, but I’ll keep you posted.”
There’s something about sadness that opens our hearts. And when our hearts are open, our lives become more open. We can accept the companionship and love of others. We can fathom a future. And then we can go on. We go on with scar tissue in our hearts, carrying memories of yesterday and the sadness of what was. But after all the tears, we are more awake to what is and what could be.

That’s what happens in our hearts. The holes do not disappear, but scar tissue grows and becomes part of who we are. The same takes place in nature. As the famous Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi observed, “There are no straight lines or sharp corners in nature.” The most stable structures in nature—like trees or spiderwebs—have angular and curved lines. As our hearts grow larger, and we learn that scar tissue is not so ugly after all, we accommodate what we had thought would be unendurable. And we realize that the wisdom we have gained would not have been possible without the losses we have known, even those that seemed impossible to bear.

But there is another aspect of trauma that psychologists call “posttraumatic growth.” Richard G. Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun, two psychologists at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, discovered that many people who struggled with the most severe kinds of trauma experienced many positive changes. “These changes include improved relationships, new possibilities for one’s life, a greater appreciation for life, a greater sense of personal strength and spiritual development.… There appears to be a basic paradox apprehended by trauma survivors who report these aspects of posttraumatic growth: their losses have produced valuable gains.”* Many people, myself included, experience both the chaos and suffering that go with trauma and the growth that can occur in its wake.
It opens us up to unanswerable questions: Why did this happen to me? What is the point to my life, now that this trauma has occurred? Why should I continue to struggle? What can I believe in now? And it often confronts us with difficult truths—that some goals are no longer attainable, that we do not hold the place in the world that we thought we did.
But if we can make our way through that tunnel, we may grow in ways that we never could have anticipated.
The question is—where and when does that growth begin?

FAITH. I have learned that some things are not controllable. And now know I will be cared for regardless of where life’s circumstances place me.
LIFE IS PRECIOUS. I say “I love you” much more frequently than before my accident.
KINDNESS OF OTHERS. My family and friends were treated with unbelievable care and kindness by total strangers.
PATIENCE. Waiting has become a way of life for me—learning new ways to do things for my changed and often uncooperative body.
COMPASSION. For others and myself, along with a deeper understanding of how disabilities impact those who have them.
FORGIVENESS. I don’t believe most people awaken with an intention to kill or injure other human beings. Bad things happen in every human life.

I believe we have all had out-of-nowhere experiences, and, though the details may differ for each of us, we know what it feels like when all of a sudden the ground collapses beneath our feet and we are in freefall.

I tell people that all of the wisdom I’ve acquired in life has begun with two words: “HOLY SHIT!”
Then there are the other words that inevitably follow: “This is a nightmare. It’s awful. And it’s not going to go away.”
The first time it happened, I told myself, “I can’t live with this. I’ll never be happy until I have what I had yesterday.” And after a while, the “holy shit” was followed by, “Okay, what am I going to do now?”


It turns out that the vast majority of people say they feel better after they’ve cried. Researchers have examined the chemistry of tears and have found that when we cry, our tears actually contain cortisol—the stress hormone. So crying actually diminishes stress. The deeper the wound, the deeper the pain, the greater the grief.

There is, in all of us—in every human and in every living creature—the inborn desire to avoid what’s painful. And when we experience pain, it usually gets resolved fairly quickly and we move on. But when we experience something this powerful and we try to turn our face away from our experience, it fails. The body remembers. Unfortunately, we remember our traumas, but we tend not to remember the fact that we have bounced back from every one of those traumas. When the body holds the suffering, we can’t wake up to the fact that we are resilient, we are safe, and there is nothing to fear today. This is something we cannot know if we turn our backs on our somatic experience

When teaching an introductory course, he used a wonderful metaphor, reminding me of what a child does when splashing in the ocean for the first time. As the waves come rolling in, one impulse is to run away. But if you do that, the waves will knock you down. Another impulse is to stand there, be strong, and brace against the full force of the incoming wave. But if you do that, the waves will still knock you down.
The only way to maintain your stability is to dive into the wave. That’s counterintuitive. The impulse to run and the impulse to stand firm are far stronger. But in order to get through trauma and get on with our lives, with our relationships, we have to do that counterintuitive thing. We need to take a deep breath and dive into the wave. And maybe, beneath the roaring foam and hurtling water, we will find the calm that lies beneath the surface.
And when we have our out-of-nowhere experience, we say things like, “Why me?”

Shantideva got it right when he said:
Whatever joy there is in the world
Arises from wishing for others’ happiness.
Whatever suffering there is in the world
Arises from wishing for your own happiness.
My formula is a fairly simple one: If you want more love in your life, love more people more fully. If you want more well-being in your life, reach out to others and offer them kindness.

What if we could be lucky enough to look at our lives from a place of grace? What if we could see the things we anguish over, the things we are stuck on, and the things we think we desperately need that we are not getting? Suppose we could look down on our lives from that place of grace—where we are filled with love and gratitude. What if we could see our needs, our anguish, and our disappointments with a much wider and more loving lens?

What does the mind do with shame? It can go in a number of directions. One alternative is to withdraw and isolate ourselves.
When that happens, the shame can turn to anger. At its extremes, we can act out aggressively and humiliate others.
On a lesser scale, shame can turn into anger, where we blame everyone else for our suffering.
And there’s one more thing we can do with our shame. We can hide it and pretend it’s not there. We can put on a mask of competence, put on our armor, and proceed into the world. Of course, some of this is natural and healthy, because we cannot wallow in shame. But in the process of pretending it’s not there, we bury it more deeply.
But all buried feelings are buried alive.

But as those kids (and all of us) get down to work in the classroom, in our jobs, or in our homes, the emphasis will be on getting, not giving. Getting better grades. Getting into the best university or getting the right job. Getting homes and clothes and cars and entertainment and vacations. Ultimately all of that “getting” is in service to finding security in our lives. And instinctively we believe that security comes with sufficient acquisition. But we are learning that that is not the case; once we have our basic needs met, acts of generosity actually increase our sense of well-being.

Ask almost any child who grows up in a family where there is a mental illness or severe marital conflict, and they will tell you that for years they thought that the behavior in their family was normal and their anxiety meant something was wrong with them.

Being alone is a fact of life. Loneliness is when we fight against that and assume something is wrong when we feel it. Mark Twain once said, “The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself.” Many of us are afraid to be alone because we fear having to face our demons.

The question is: When you are alone, who are you with? Are you with someone whom you judge harshly or someone you feel compassion toward? Are you with a person who is not good enough, a person who needs to do better in order to be loved? Are you with a person who is unworthy? Or are you with that divine child?

We cannot experience love unless we feel known for who we are. And that doesn’t happen until our vulnerable parts see the sunlight. When we feel loved, we can trust that we are loved for who we are and not for how we look or for what we do.
Then one day we wake up and realize that we are enough, no matter what. The “no matter what” is what is no longer hidden. And when we are enough, we can love and be loved.

I have said we usually live between fear and wish

He said he felt himself getting tired. I know that, more often than not, being tired is not always a statement about physical fatigue. Many times, it is synonymous with being spiritually malnourished.

we all live in a global orphanage. And there are so many others in that orphanage

But I think we know that. The aloneness is not an illness that needs to be cured. It’s not a pathology. It doesn’t signal there’s something wrong with you—that you’ve been rejected or judged. It just means you’re human. And the child you were, and are, knows what it’s like to be alone.

However we tell our stories, the message about our humanity is the same: I want people to know my heart. That I am a kind person who always tries his best to do the right thing in life and often fails. That I am, furthermore, insecure and vulnerable and dependent and comfortable and independent. Yes, all these things. Just like you.

When I felt no one would ever understand me, I truly wondered about my own humanity.
So I helped Dariya understand her relentless compulsion to tell her story—that the compulsion is about our human calling to connect, to be understood and accepted for who we are at our core.

So whenever I encounter someone who says they feel alone in the world, my question is, “What’s your relationship like with you?”

So then I ask them … How would you like to spend the rest of your life with the person you are right now? The person who tries to do the right thing and who fails more than they want to? The person who might be overweight or underexercised or has a mean streak or a bad temper? The person who feels not good enough or unworthy of love?

Could you love that person in the mirror, warts and all? Even if you couldn’t love that person quite yet, do you think you could feel kindness and compassion toward him or her?

if we are more naïve, tenderhearted, and sensitive, not only are we at risk of being labeled but we’re also at risk of being hurt. On the other hand, I have grown to realize, after being hurt many times, that I can survive it. I don’t like it much, but I also know that it doesn’t last. So now my heart is open more than it is closed, only because I am much less afraid of being hurt.

Think about your narrative and how it defines who you are. Are you a leader or a victim of your childhood? Perhaps you are a chronic caretaker or you see yourself as depressive or disabled or insecure or disordered in some other way. Is your unhappiness because of the person you are living with or working with, or is it caused by your upbringing or genetics? Will happiness come when you have enough money and love, and when your children are grown and secure, or do you believe it will never come? The answers to these questions are part of your narrative. These are the building blocks of your house.

Dreams are visions and wishes—of what our hearts long to be, to say, to contribute to the world. Having a dream means having a vision of a life in which we can go to sleep at night and say, “How blessed I am to be living this life!”
Dreams happen when your heart is open, and cannot happen when your mind is closed. Dreams are about the heart’s calling to find itself.

Dreams open our hearts and minds to possibilities. Dreams are what happen when we’re on a playground. My first playground was my driveway. Now my playgrounds involve watching the ocean or almost anything nature has to offer. Playgrounds happen when there are no deadlines or expectations. They happen when we have nothing to do. (And the same with children, by the way. Children can be creative only when they are on their own, even when they’re bored. That’s why these overscheduled children worry me. They will learn lots of information and even develop lots of skills, but I fear they might not have time to dream.)

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book. In the beginning, I thought it would too essay-ic and philosophic and it probably was, but the thoughts that the author expressed resonated with me. The more I was reading, the more I was encapsulated by it. I liked that it wasn't repetitive as many such books tend to be. And the use of less formal language also helped processing the book with much more ease. So, highly recommendable for a couple of evenings of reflection on deep topics of life

[Peung Sucha · Rating 5 out of 5]

เนื้อหาในหนังสือชวนให้มองตัวเองจากด้านใน สะกิดความมีปัญญาภายในที่มีอยู่ในตัวเองให้ได้ออกมาพบเจอกัน ประสบการณ์คือครู ยิ่งได้ลงมือทำ เรียนรู้จากความเปราะบางแล้วเผชิญกับมัน เปิดความเปราะบางนั้น ทำความเข้าใจกับความรู้สึก ให้ความรัก ความกรุณาต่อตัวเอง มองความเป็นพวกเราในหมู่เพื่อนมนุษย์ อ่านจบแล้วรู้สึกว่าเป็นห้วงเวลาที่งดงามห้วงหนึ่งที่ได้ทำความรู้จักกับตัวเองมากขึ้น

[Biminator · Rating 4 out of 5]

หนังสือคล้ายกับบันทึกเล่าประสบการณ์เคสบำบัดและสิ่งที่เกิดขึ้นกับชัวิตของผู้เขียน ตอนแรดติดว่าจะมาเป็นทฤษฏี แต่เป็นเรื่องเล่า ทำให้เราอ่านไป reflect กับชีวิตเราได้เหมือนกัน เพราะว่าโดยธรรมชาติแลเวเรื่องแบบนี้เกิดกับทุกคน

[Livi Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was really good. Much like Tuesday with Morrie

[Thanaa Nazim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed almost every page in this book, so well written.
It touched the deepest places in my heart and I’m so grateful to Dan Gottlieb and his wisdom.

[Mildly Rojanasukarn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full of courage and healing power

[Shanky Kalra · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was great to read this book, where the writer has shared remarkable life lessons from his psychological background. Definitely it will make you humble.

[Glenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Coincidentally I had been thinking a lot recently about the idea that we have people that come into our lives at various times, and are just there... to see us through that particular time or adversity. It doesn't mean they give advice or words of wisdom, but something about their presence is what sees us through it all. And, that comes up in this book... so in many ways I feel that this is one of those as well. A book that I stumbled on when I needed to read it.

There's a lot of really good wisdom here, about mindfulness, and vulnerability, and the importance of love and self-acceptance. I can see reading it again when needing those reminders, and I'll definitely be checking out some of the author's talks, including his TED talk.

[Igli · Rating 5 out of 5]

As illustrated by the title, this is a book I have been yearning for since my junior year of university. I always had this belief that we, as humans, possess many of the qualities that we seek.

The secret was that they have to be revealed to yourself through inquisitive learning and reflection (and not through modern day materialism and social media validation). Reading this book has now affirmed that belief I had in university. I’ve come full circle. Highly recommend this book if you’re looking for guidance on how to listen to yourself from a mindful and somatic approach.

[Betsy Ng · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like this book of wisdom. Wisdom is abstract and hard to define. But this book is able to give an overview of wisdom and how faith can relate to it. Wisdom comes from inner self; it takes time to realise our inner consciousness as well as to develop our wisdom. Would love to re-read this book again if I am able to grab hold of the book.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wise counsel. Very beautifully written. Something to read over and over again. Highly recommended.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

The wisest man. Everyone should read his stuff if you want something beautiful and different.

[Karen Y. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This little book is filled with insights about human nature. I loved it.