... And I knew there was no help, no help from you

In my very first post on this blog, I already had my mind set on this book. Remember?

After reading my very first self-help book this year (You Do You by Sarah Knight) in a moment of weakness, I was hoping for nothing short of a total mindset change. I thought the book sounded so good, surely it would boost my confidence, give me permission to live life to the fullest, achieve total zen and all that. ... Not quite.

Marianne Power was already well-read in the self-help universe when she set out on her project of reading 12 self-help books in a year and following them to the fullest, to test whether they would really help her change. Help Me! is the recounting of the year (and a bit), and the result was really quite surprising and not at all what I expected. There is a dark side to all this self-help stuff... and Marianne explores it there and back again.

What did I like about it?

The most loveable aspect of this book is that it's clearly an honest account (to the extent a book can be - sometimes names and timelines need to be changed for the sake of a good story, of course). Marianne doesn't shy away from describing how she felt in any given moment - what she worried about, how things terrified her, what decisions lay behind other decisions. To give you a taster, she goes from skydiving through making 'vision boards' to bashing pillows with baseball bats. Quite the spectrum, wouldn't you agree?

It turns out it takes a certain bravery to do as much digging as she does in our own heads. It can mess with your mind quite a bit - you pick at thoughts and feelings you're very uncomfortable with, and aspects of your personality you didn't even know existed. It's quite a fascinating exploration of how layered people really are and what happens when we force ourselves out of our comfort zones, both physically and mentally.

Marianne's writing feels very familiar to read. While I'm not overly fond of 'yay' and the overuse of exclamation marks (which she admits to, by the way), I do think her enthusiasm at little successes comes out clearly, which works. She succeeds in involving us in the story, which is key for something so personal as this.

There were also sections that really resonated with me. Rejection therapy, for example - the idea of getting rejected on purpose every day to kill our fear of rejection. Also muting the negative mantras in our heads that play all day, every day without us even noticing. Every morning, the minute I swing my feet out of bed, my brain jumps to: what did I have for dinner again? How big is my tummy today? How much do I need to exercise to get rid of this fat? How can I be so fat again?... Maybe that's something to work on.

What was I not massively fond of?

For me, there was a point that I think would have made the perfect ending, and I almost wish Marianne had finished the book there and then. The arc of the story starts upwards, then drops very suddenly, climbing back up slowly in what feels like the recovery and reconciliation. But then we get another low, and another climb, and a few minor ups-and-downs still, which - although they make sense story-wise - I think kill the momentum.

Sometimes, the writing felt a bit too cringeworthy for me. I think that non-fiction can get away without descriptions like "It had been raining that morning and the grey concrete was damp. Clouds sat heavy in the sky". I also know it's very human to get high on revelations, and in those moments to have embarrassingly silly thoughts like "I'd like to be those trees, I thought. I bet nothing bothers them," but I still winced at these moments. These thoughts, to me, felt fluffy like Disney-clouds and after everything Marianne had experienced in that year, I would have thought she'd be more down-to-earth.

Overall...

I was in two minds throughout this reading experience. On the one hand, I knew this is what being human is - constantly having new revelations, thinking we finally figured it out, then being disappointed again and again. We get stupid things into our heads, believe in them then throw them away in search of something new.

On the other, I judged. Hard. And I feel bad about this. I am the type of person who can't help not feeling for someone who spends thousands of pounds on expensive retreats in search of themselves, only to come back not having found anything. When I feel lost and depressed, I exercise, I feel sorry for myself for a short period then shake myself and go at it again. But then, I am not (yet) seriously prone to depression and I am also quite young. So I guess it's easier for me.

One thought that really stuck with me though: "I realized then that you can't love others when you're busy hating yourself. It's just not possible." One to remember for me especially.

It's an interesting read and the outcome is not at all what I expected. I'll tell you one thing though - I will not be buying another self-help book anytime soon.

6/10