Subscribe to Read
Sign up today to enjoy a complimentary trial and begin exploring the world of books! You have the freedom to cancel at your convenience.
On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard
| Title | On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard |
| Writer | |
| Date | 2023-10-22 19:33:11 |
| Type | |
| Link | Listen Read |
Desciption
“[A] powerful account of hearing loss and learning to communicate in a new way—through yoga, gratitude and radical honesty.â€Â —People, “The Best New Books† Centered around the touchstone stories Jen tells in her popular workshops, On Being Human is the story of how a starved person grew into the exuberant woman she was meant to be all along by battling the demons within and winning. Jen did not intend to become a yoga teacher, but when she finally left her thirteen-year waitressing job and said yes to her first workshop, it was a choice that changed her life. After years of feeling depressed, anxious, and hopeless in a life that seemed to have no escape, she healed her own heart by caring for others. Since then, she has learned to fiercely listen despite being nearly deaf, to banish shame attached to a body mass index, and to rebuild a family after the debilitating loss of her father when she was eight. Through her journey, Jen conveys the experience most of us are missing in our lives: being heard and being told “I got you.†  Exuberant, triumphantly messy, and brave, On Being Human is a celebration of happiness and self-realization over darkness and doubt. Her complicated yet imperfectly perfect life path is an inspiration to live outside the box and to reject the all-too-common belief of “I am not enough.†Jen will help readers find, accept, and embrace their own vulnerability, bravery, and humanness. Read more
Review
I may have realized this book was more memoir than "self help" when I downloaded it; I don't remember. I put books in my Kindle library such a long time before I actually read them, that I seldom remember the description. The majority of the book is about Jen's life happenings and how her mostly self-imposed limitations played out. Perhaps this is so during the next part going more into her breakthroughs we remember what was going on around her and what she was telling herself at the time so we more clearly see the profundity of the breakthrough. Jen's writing is excellent at immediately turning her breakthroughs into our possibilities. Very little in my pathological life is like Jen's, so my enjoyment wasn't about identification with her experiences, finding new tools or new understandings for myself. It was about learning more about being human and what it takes to lift each other up. Jen's great writing talent conveys her ideas and experiences just as though I were watching a movie play out in front of me. I have overcome a lot during my almost 8 decades of life; but Jen has overcome more than I think I could stand. The miracle she is is such a blessing.