I love self-help books. To me, a self-help book is any book that helps me on my journey to being my best self, including psychology, physical health, and spirituality.

These are the self-help books I’ve read so far in 2020:

• The Wisdom of Menopause, by Dr. Christiane Northrup. I highly recommend this book for any women in their forties and fifties. I am keeping my copy as a reference for the perimenopause adventures that lie ahead.
• Turning Pro, by Steven Pressfield. Great for any creative folks who want to be serious about their work.
• So You Want To Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo. The audiobook was excellent.
• Caffeine: How Caffeine Created The Modern World, by Michael Pollan. This is an Audible original. A very fast listen. I listened to it while I was weaning off caffeine and it has helped me stay on track. (The author still fully embraces caffeine!)
• Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life, by Byron Katie. This book really did help me change my life. I often use the Four Questions in my journaling.
• This Messy Magnificent Life: A Field Guide. by Geneen Roth. I love Geneen Roth. She writes about women and food and God.
• The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz. This was the second time I read this book. I think I’ll try the audiobook next.
• Untamed, by Glennon Doyle. I inhaled this book during the early months of lockdown. Love, love, love it. I requested the audiobook from the library. It’s a long wait list but by the time I get it, I’ll be ready to read it again in 2021.
• Change Me Prayers: The Hidden Power of Spiritual Surrender. Tosha Silver. This changed the way I pray and connect with my Divine Beloved.
• The Surrender Experiment: My Journey Into Life’s Perfection, by Michael Singer.
• The Road back To You: An Enneagram Journey To Self-Discovery, by Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile. The enneagram is a personality typing system with a spiritual slant. I haven’t worked with the enneagram since the first quarter of 2020. I might need to change that soon…
• Making Life Easy: A Simple Guide to a Divinely Inspired Life, by Dr. Christiane Northrup. Title says it all.
• Warrior Goddess Training: Become The Woman You Are Meant To be, by HeatherAsh Amara. I am currently reading this book and it is sooooo freaaaaking inspiring.

But I have not always been such a lover of self-help books! I used to feel drawn to the self-help books at the bookstore (remember those?) but I would not let myself buy or even look at those books. Just being near those books made me feel ashamed, like I should not be so weak as to need advice about how to live my life.

The Kindle helped me get past that shame because it enabled me to read all the self-help books I wanted without fear of “getting caught.” At the same time, the Kindle reinforced my belief that I should be secretive about any self-help books I read, and secrecy just intensifies shame.

At some point, I got over the shame. I’m not exactly sure when. But for years now, I’ll happily read any and all self-help books wherever I please. I read the actual boo and make no effort to conceal the cover or title.

I read Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus when I was dating Nathan. (On the Kindle. Back then, I was still very secretive about self-help!) I had lunch with Nathan when I was in the middle of the book. During lunch, Nathan’s eyes seemed to be looking at anything but me. I fretted this meant our relationship was doomed. That night, as I was reading Men Are From Mars, I came to a passage about men and eye contact. Apparently men in intimate relationships do not make as much eye contact as women. As a matter of fact, men will make eye contact a lot in the early stage of dating because it feels like they are on a job interview but as they relax into the relationship, they make less eye contact. Reduced eye contact is acutaly a good sign! This was a huge and helpful revelation.

But toward the end of Men Are From Mars, the author John Gray recommended writing letters to significant others about any disagreements or issues. This advice did not sit well with me. My gut said, Hell no! But there had been so much other helpful advice in the book. I felt like I had to follow ALL of the advice or none at all.

That’s when I realized: it’s advice, not a freaking mandate. I can follow the advice that works for me and discard the rest.

I have followed that philosophy ever since.

When I am reading a self-help book, I write notes in the margins and highlight passages that resonate with me. I am not just a passive audience to the book. I am an active participant, making my own connections as I read.

Twice, I have thrown out a self-help book. One was about parenting, the other an extreme diet. Both felt toxic to me. So toxic, I did not want to pass them to a friend or Goodwill. I am a bookworm and published author. I adore books! But these two books needed to go into the trash.

But until recently, there was one self-help book that intimidated me.

The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up.

I read that book when it first came out in 2014 and found it to be really inspiring. Yes! I wanted to tidy up! But the methods were so … extreme. Kondo advocated doing everything at once. You can’t just dip into your closet and purge a few things at a time. You have to find every article of clothing in the house, put it in one location, and tackle it all at once.

This approach was overwhelming to me. Under my philosophy of only following the advice that works for me, I should have seen that I was inspired to declutter but needed to do it my way. But for reasons I still don’t understand, I did not apply my self-help philosophy to Marie Kondo’s method. Not when I first read The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up in 2014. And not when I read Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class On the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up in December 2019. I treated Kondo like an infallible guru. I had to follow her advice if I wanted to declutter, end of discussion.

I was paralyzed. The past few years, the clutter has been mounting. But I kept procrastinating because I did not have the time or energy or inclination to tidy in the way Kondo advocated. And I had a mental block or a blindspot. With all the other self-help books I have read since 2014, I have remembered to pick and choose what works for me. But with this one damn book, I felt like a prisoner to all the advice, even though it clearly did not work for me.

Recently, the clutter was just too much. Or maybe it’s just that I have been spending more time than ever at home (hello, 2020!) so I have grown less tolerant of the clutter. Either way, I cracked and started decluttering.

I spent an afternoon sorting out the garage with the kids. We got rid of a bunch of old strollers.

Then it was Thanksgiving so I took a break from decluttering.

But since Thanksgiving, I have been attacking our messes, one by one. The kids are enjoying it as well. They both picked out a ton of toys to send to our curb. And the old toys are all gone! Even the Happy Meal knick knacks!

I am reclaiming my right to declutter in the way that works for me. Marie Kondo might have a fun Netflix show, but that does not mean I need to find all the clothes in the house and tackle them all at once. I have to do what works for me.

I have to put the SELF in self-help.

As I mentioned on Halloween, I participated in NaNoWriMo last month for the first time ever. If you have not heard about it before, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. The goal of NaNoWriMo is to start writing on November 1 and end the month with 50,000 words of a new novel.

I did it! I wrote every single day, even Thanksgiving, and ended the month was a little over 50,00 words of the first draft of a novel. It took me another eight days to finish the draft but hallelujah, I did it. I finished the Shitty First Draft of a novel that I am planning to publish in 2021.

The novel is about a mom who grew up in the circus and did not go to school until college. Now her daughter is starting preschool, and she feels insecure and overwhelmed that she does not know what preschool is like. She feels like a total imposter when the Director asks her to be room mom…

I’m calling it a Mom Com. It was really fun to write and was exactly the sort of project that I needed in November 2020. I suspect it’s the sort of project I will need for 2021. This is not the time for me to be writing some sob story with intense drama and personal conflict!

I am currently rereading my Shitty First Draft and creating an outline for the Somewhat Less Shitty Second Draft. I am also currently picking at Julian’s gingerbread house. Why is crusty frosting so delicious? Why did I just eat a stale chocolate chip that Julian says is reindeer poop??

I have no idea how long it will take me to revise the novel. (Oh shit, I just knocked over one of the sugar reindeers on Julian’s gingerbread tableau.) I am just going to keep revising until I don’t know what to do, and then I will send the book to an editor. Woot woot!

Excuse me, I have to move Julian’s gingerbread house before I accidentally eat the entire roof.

I actually made a new episode for my first podcast, Adventures With Postpartum Depression. (So for listeners of Adventures With My Forties, you did not pull a Rip Van Winkle and miss seventy episodes!)

I wanted to drop in and say, “Hello!” to all the listeners to Adventures With Postpartum Depression because the e-book of my memoir, Adventures With Postpartum Depression, is free RIGHT NOW, from December 8-12, on Amazon. Download now, listen whenever you want. It’s my early Christmas gift for all the mamas struggling right now. (And for everyone else! You do not have to be a struggling mama to read the book.)

While I was saying hello, I thought I would give a pep talk for all the postpartum mamas because sometimes, you just need someone to tell you, “You can do this. Yeah, this is tough. But I believe in you.” Because seriously, mamas, I do believe in you and I know how tough newborns are – and in 2020, sweet mercy, there’s a whole extra dimension to the toughness.

Here are the main points I tried to make in my Episode 86 Postpartum Pep Talk:

1. It gets easier.
2. Babies are tough.
3. You are not alone.
4. You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone. Haters gonna hate.
5. You did nothing wrong.
6. You are enough.
7. Babies are all different.
8. If you have a maternal mood disorder, you don’t have to conquer it today or tomorrow or next week. It’s like you broke your back. Would you expect someone in a full body cast to get better tomorrow? Give yourself the same grace. Mental health matters as much as physical health.
9. You don’t have to treasure every moment. I’m sorry, but a blowout poopy diaper at 2 a.m. is no one’s idea of a good time.
10. You are allowed to make mistakes. Perfect is boring! Our children are entitled to our mistakes. In fact, if you never make a single mistake while raising your children, my god, you are setting the bar really high! Do your kids a favor and make a few (thousand) mistakes.

This is the pep talk I needed to hear when I was in the throes of postpartum depression, anxiety and OCD. I hope it helps someone struggling now. I am rooting for all of you and sending you my love!

p.s. Listen to this episode as often as you like!