How to Meet Your Self: The Workbook for Self-Discovery by Nicole LePera

How to Meet Your Self: The Workbook for Self-Discovery Reviews

• 
  J

  I really love this author's advice on Instagram and was so excited to read this. Unfortunately, this book wasn't as helpful to me as the author's incisive videos and posts on social media. I'm not sure why, but I think it's b/c the book had a lot of breathing exercises and yoga-like advice...and it felt less like the author's voice on social media.
  
  If anyone else reading this feels similarly, I recommend, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? by Julie Smith. That's easily my favorite self-help read this year.
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  J.W. Griebel

  A more focused and grounded work than the book it is intended to accompany. A lot of the practices involved are meditative and comtemplative in nature, which was a struggle for me at first. Throughout the years I've often dismissed meditation as silly or pointless because it never seemed to work for me. Something I was not open to, which was a disservice to myself and others. As I've spent the last few months increasing my therapy sessions to 2-3 times a week and really digging in and trying to understand myself rather than just talking and using sessions to process, it's become clear that a lot of my struggle is how often I dissociate--and how often my trauma tries to work against any change I attempt to make.
  
  Sometimes it feels like wading through molasses. It took me weeks of practice just to successfully clear my mind and meditate for 5 minutes, because each time I tried, disturbing memories and invasive thoughts would flood my mind in an attempt to prevent me from doing something unfamiliar. I understand now how much the brain actively works to stay in the familiar, no matter how difficult or painful it is. For me, that familiarity is grief, humiliation and fear. Each time I attempted to meditate, my brain would flood with images of people I have lost, people I fear losing, people I miss having in my life, times I've felt ridiculed and alone and unseen. It wanted me to return to that familiar state of grief and shame, no matter how painful it was for me to experience, because it's what my brain was shaped around all the way back in my early childhood, due to things I experienced. But I kept up with the book. And though it took nearly 2 months, I did finish it, and aim to return to it after I have worked through a few more of the workbooks I have. I'm grateful that my therapist was patient enough to walk me through some of the more difficult aspects of how my brain works and why it was so difficult for me to just sit and relax, why every attempt to feel safe and secure led to my brain being inundated with terrible images of things that have caused me so much suffering.
  
  I'm hoping Dr. LePera continues in this direction with her future work, focusing more on the work itself than anecdotal experiences, as she does have a knack for combining different systems in a very helpful and cohesive manner. I will say, I do not believe this book would have been half as useful had I not had a decent understanding of psychology and a great therapist for guidance, as Dr. LePera tends to skim over topics without addressing the potential outcomes/experiences you may encounter when actively trying to work against the learned trauma responses of your mind and body. These are best used as companion books with actual, professional treatment, not as materials to try and solve it all yourself, as the author suggests.
• 
  Rafael Mtz

  Very good one. And it is a written workshop. Now the remaining thing is to do the actual work
• 
  K.K. Fox

  An accessible guide for articulating the difference between you and your emotional reactions and unconscious patterns. A blend of The Body Keeps the Score with work of people like Brene Brown and Byron Katie, LePera clearly lays out how to differentiate your authentic self from the stress and baggage of past trauma and developed habits. There's a touch of spirituality thrown in.
  
  I really enjoyed the consideration of how I envision my future self and how to live toward that each day. Read just in time to implement it in a new year.
• 
  Natalie

  Comprehensive, Nicely laid out, good quality book physically speaking. Not engaging, little new information ( we all know affirmations, meditate, ground) but a few charts of interest. Would be good for a person in their 20-30s.
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  Cansu Topaloglu

  Comprehensive and well-put! Although, this book makes more sense if you first read ‘How to do the work’ to be able to comprehend human psychology better and this one is more like a practice book. Couldn’t recommend better!
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  Sam Kraft

  Definitely not as good as her first book. This is more of workbook and therapy than an actual book. I have learn a lot of these skills in DBT. It will be help if someone wasnt able to access therapy. I love the skills of body, breathing, & mind work.
• 
  Anna Stehling

  I liked this! Im gonna pick it up when I need it. There’s alot of helpful coping skills, and actionable ways to better your emotional awareness. 🫶🏼
• 
  Ita

  Some good ideas but very repetitive.
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  Victoria White

  3.5 ⭐️
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  Ayesha

  How to break your patterns by understanding your past.
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  Maegan Dougherty

  Always love her content. This workbook is excellent. Explored so many different parts of myself and highly recommending to clients already.
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  Lia K Cook

  A manual for self-discovery, with guiding questions and action steps to dive deep into who we are and why we do what we do—and how to become our most authentic selves.