Book Review: You Are Not A Rock

No one wants to feel sad, angry, lonely, or anxious, but by avoiding those feelings, we may only make things worse. In You Are Not A Rock: A Step-By-Step Guide to Better Mental Health (For Humans), Mark Freeman encourages readers to feel feelings because we are not rocks. We do feel things and he provides steps to do this without becoming overwhelmed by our emotions. Freeman shares his personal experiences with compulsion and how he engaged in OCD behaviors to avoid unpleasant emotions. And he admits that his attempts at dealing with his feelings were a problem. Feelings can help us practice emotional fitness, which may include seeing a therapist, getting social support, eating the right food, taking time to exercise, sleeping well, and focusing on our breathing. Only by experiencing things are we able to build up our mental fitness, just as with physical fitness. We exercise to lose weight, stay healthy, and have energy. We do not avoid exercise to be in better physical shape. He divides You Are Not A Rock into two sections: The Basics and The Transformation. Like many recent guides to mental health, it does include a section on mindfulness — paying attention to our experiences and being aware of how we feel. He emphasizes that mindfulness does not require more work on our part. It can be about what is happening right now, being aware of what we hear, what we see, or what we experience. Freeman makes it very doable for people who may see mindfulness as a complicated pr...
Source: Psych Central - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Book Reviews Disorders General Mindfulness Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Personal Stories Psychological Assessment Psychology Psychotherapy Treatment mark freeman mental health book you are not a rock Source Type: news