Evaluate your Mind

Evaluate Mind

Quick, are you more likely to go to the gym if you or someone else commands you to or because it makes you feel better? I’m guessing that unless you like to be told what to do, your answer was the latter. In David Simon, M.D.’s new book The Ten Commitments (Health Communications, Inc., 2006), he addresses how modifying our mindset from commandments to commitments can help us to truly find balance in our lives. Modeled after the Ten Commandments, Simon stresses similar virtues and morals, but in a different light. Instead of ‘thou shalt not’, you’ll find ‘I commit to.’ Each chapter is devoted to a different commandment and includes information on incorporating the lesson into your life. Sounds simple, right? Not so fast. These aren’t easy tasks, especially for those of us that are good at neglecting our own needs. To get started, try one today: ‘I commit to compassion and forgiveness.’ If each of us could live with this in mind, we could really change the world one person at a time.

If you’ve ever perused the self-help aisle at your local bookstore, you’ve surely noticed titles with such themes as ‘how to find love in your life’, or ‘how to be a better lover.’ However, according to John Elwood, psychotherapist, teacher, and author of Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships (Trumpeter, 2006), the problem isn’t the lack of love in the world, it is our relationship with love. Elwood’s premise is that there is a prevalent ‘mood of unlove’, or a feeling that we cannot be loved just for who we are, that limits and inhibits our relationships. Instead of feeling open in our relationships, we’re coming into our relationships with partners, spouses, co-workers, family, etc. with a feeling of distrust, which not only inhibits our capacity for giving love but for receiving it as well. “Love is a potent blend of openness and warmth”, Elwood says, “openness, the heart’s pure, unconditional yes, is love’s essence, and warmth is love’s basic expression.” And while Elwood acknowledges the challenges in coming to a place of openness and warmth, he also provides an immense amount of insight into our relationship grievances with exercises designed to open the heart. Unlike typical self-help books, Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships, allows the reader to take an inside look at their own, tangled relationship issues from the perspective of an open heart, free of criticism.