BLOG TOUR: The Overthinking Cure - Dr Jessamy Hibberd

Do you get caught up in anxious thoughts?

Do you replay over your mistakes and failures in your mind?

Do you lie awake at night because you can't stop thinking about what happened earlier that day?

If so, you're suffering from overthinking.

But you are not alone.

Thinking about your life is a normal part of being human; it's often helpful to analyze a situation or revisit a problem in your mind, but if you find yourself constantly dwelling on your thoughts - with no sign of resolution - then it becomes a problem.

Overthinking is the problem that disguises itself as the solution.

In this life-changing book, trusted psychologist Dr Jessamy Hibberd shows how to break free from overthinking. Through expert advice, and real-life examples from her clinic, you will become more aware of your overthinking habits - and learn why we get stuck in unhelpful thinking patterns. Dr Jessamy offers personalized prompts and practical tips to identify your doom spirals and help you find healthier coping strategies that redirect your thoughts.

The cure is simple: break the cycle of overthinking.

In this book, you will learn how to:

- Notice your thoughts

- Choose your response

- Challenge your thinking

- Accept the reality of how life is

- Face your fears

The Overthinking Cure is the essential guide to break free from overthinking - so you can live a better life and focus on what really matters.

 

What did I think?

I am a massive overthinker and once I get on the hamster wheel I can't get off it.  I didn't even know it was a solvable problem, I just thought it was the way that I am but now I know better thanks to Dr Jessamy Hibberd's amazing life-changing book, The Overthinking Cure.

By the time I had finished reading chapter one, I had started to recognise when I was overthinking and by the end of chapter two I realised I wasn't alone and it's not my fault.  Our brains are wired to solve problems and part of that is going through every possible outcome, but sometimes this overthinking can affect our life and become a negative habit.

The book is set out in three parts: Understanding the problem, Why we overthink and The cure.  It is written in a very accessible way that is easy to understand and there are diagrams, tables and exercises to aid further understanding.  The chapters are concise and informative as well as being interesting and thought-provoking.  There are some memorable analogies too and I particularly liked one about our emotions being like where to seat children in a car: you don't want them driving it but neither do you want them hidden away in the boot!

Whilst I think it's a long road to cure my overthinking, I feel like I'm heading in the right direction with my emotions firmly strapped in to the back seat.  I think it's fair to say that The Overthinking Cure could change your life as it has already made a difference to mine.  Don't overthink it - just order a copy now!

I received a gifted paperback copy for the Novel Tours Bookstagram Tour and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

Buy it from:

UK.Bookshop.org

Amazon

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BLOG TOUR: The Red Book - Davide Cortellucci

DON’T UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF THOUGHTS.

Martin’s life as he knows it has turned upside-down, and he decides to embark on a trip to give sense to his existence. Via coincidences and fabricated non-coincidences, he finds a group of people that helps him enhance the power of his thoughts to modify the physical world around him.

In a journey within a journey, Martin discovers the powers of visualisation and its pull.  And he acknowledges why he’s flooded by negative feelings when he’s close to certain people.

DON’T UNDERESTIMATE THE ENEMIES.

Unless Martin finds the strength within himself to fight, he and everyone around him will cease to exist.

What did I think?

I have always said that I read anything except sci-fi but I was intrigued by the synopsis of The Red Book, which is officially in the science fiction genre.  I have to change that statement now as I rather enjoyed The Red Book and, it being the first in a trilogy, I'm looking forward to reading more.  The Red Book concludes very nicely though, as there's no cliffhanger ending which often leaves me unsatisfied until the next book comes along.

The main character is a young man from London called Martin Cloud who is given a red book by Professor Conti, one of his customers in the coffee shop where he works.  After a devastating event, Martin decides to go travelling and takes the red book with him.  When he begins his journey his eye catches a girl at the station and he glimpses her several times during his journey.  I love this twist of fate;  how two unrelated people take the same journey and run into each other several times.  On his travels he meets an American named Chuck and he finally catches up with Maria, the girl that fate has chosen for him.

Unbeknown to him, or perhaps more unacknowledged by him, Martin has a gift of visualisation and can turn his thoughts into reality.  He is drawn to a similar group of people led by Caesar, who reminded me of a cross between Yoda and Professor X, where he is taught to control his gift.  Martin has to undergo some rigorous training as a group of Sinisters are intent on destroying Caesar's group and a fight between good and evil must begin.

The Red Book is a very well written book, especially considering that English is not Davide Cortellucci's first language.  There are a few hints that this is so, coincidentally with 'a few' being one of them as Davide uses 'few' instead.  This isn't a criticism at all, more of a quirk, and for it to be the only one I noticed is remarkable.

I loved reading about how we are affected by our thoughts and how people can get inside our head and change our mood, although this was in a sci-fi setting you can easily relate this to things that happen in real life.  The Red Book is a really good introduction to the sci-fi genre for me, I think more so because I consider Star Wars and X-Men among my favourite films.  With the visualisation reminding me of Yoda and the gifted group fighting evil reminiscent of the X-Men, this book really was more my kind of thing than I expected.

Real life challenges mixed with super-human powers make The Red Book an action packed thrill a minute.  Real life makes it sad at times but where there is negative there is positive so it is also hopeful; ultimately, The Red Book is extremely thought-provoking.  Thanks to Davide Cortellucci's The Red Book, the sci-fi genre can consider my head officially turned.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

Buy it from Amazon



About the author:

Davide Cortellucci is a writer and the author of The Red Book. He has spent the last few years working on an unnamed trilogy, friendly referred by him as Little Yellow Rubber Duck. The Red Book is the first book in the trilogy. He was born on the 25th of July 1978 in Belgium, to Italian immigrant parents. He grew up in Belgium, Italy, and in London, UK. Davide has done several jobs, from waiter to inventories, from sound engineering in shows to events manager, and many more. Davide is a college dropout with a couple of creative writing courses on his back. He has spent many years travelling around Europe, learning about cultures, and keeping an interest in the power of the mind. Davide loves writing stories that awaken the epic feeling within the reader. He now lives in South East London with his partner, he's curious about life, and he also makes a great pasta sauce.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/D.CortellucciAuthor/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/d.cortellucci/

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Author Interview: Q&A with Anthony Alvarado

I was so lucky to receive a copy of Anthony Alvarado's D.I.Y Magic from Amy at Souvenir Press and I can't begin to express how grateful I am.  This is a book that can really change your life, and I wasn't even in the market for a self-help book.  You can read my review of this amazing book here but first I have a fascinating Q&A with Anthony Alvarado.

What’s the idea behind DIY Magic?

DIY Magic is a collection of activities that readers can try for themselves. It is a cookbook of experiments to be experienced. So, even though it is a salmagundi of philosophy, esoterica, modern psychology and ancient wisdom, it is unified by the idea that these are all things the reader can try out for themselves and then make up their own mind about. If creativity is a fire, DIY Magic is a box of matches. The fuel is up to the reader.

What’s your favourite mind hack?

Going for a walk. It is one of the best ways to stimulate the creativity in the world. People may be disappointed in this “mind hack” because it is so simple, so easy, so everyday. But that is what I love about it! (Charles Dickens, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Charles Dickens, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Einstein, Erik Satie, Beckett, Darwin, Tchaikovsky, Steve Jobs, Thoreau, Aristotle, and Goethe were all prodigious walkers.) It is free, requires no equipment, it is enjoyable, good for you, puts you in a pleasant mood, and it’s eco-friendly. There is something about walking that relaxes the mind into a receptive state that is open to inspiration and new ideas. I think because you are moving, and the scenery is changing around you, it is impossible to really brood, or for the mind to get stuck in old ruts. And yet it is a gentle contemplative activity that allows one to really have an inner discourse and develop your thoughts. Always bring a notebook with you when you go for a walk, so you can bag the big idea!

You name quite a few authors in DIY Magic, has their writing had a strong influence?

Yes! All the writers I name-check contributed their ingredients to the stew! Writing is an ongoing conversation that incorporates the ideas of the past and hopefully passes the baton on to the future in a new form. Especially these weirdo magical ideas— there is a golden thread of esoteric thought you can trace through the ages (I think Aldous Huxley referred to it as the Perennial Philosophy.)

I like to think of it as being a bit like the album cover for the Beatles Sgt Peppers Lonely Heart’s Club Band, in that you can squeeze in the ideas of Burroughs, Carl Jung, Steve Jobs, Shakespeare, Carlos Castaneda, Kerouac and Lao-Tzu all in one kaleidoscoping chapter.

What prompted you to write DIY Magic?

I think the initial impetus grew out of the experience I had while working as a counselor with mentally ill clients. I worked with people who had schizophrenia and for various reasons experienced a quite different reality from the one we usually all agree upon as being real. This work got me fascinated with the philosophical question ”what is reality?”

There are quite a few mind hacks, how long did it take to practice them all? And write them all down?

It was an ongoing project that developed over a couple of years. I didn’t just sit down and write DIY Magic in one go. It was the culmination of years of reading, musing, daydreaming, journaling, and lots of weird late-night conversations with friends over a beer about philosophy and ideas. Really the process was like this: I would get some strange idea and try it out and play around with it, and then if it worked, I simply described how it worked so that others could try it.

Ebooks or paper?

Paper! I haven’t actually read an ebook yet. I love the feeling of curling up with a good book—the physicality of it. And also collecting the books you have read feels good. A bookshelf is a sort of trophy case for nerds. Studies are finding that our brains retain information better when we read on paper rather than on screens. (When you read something on the internet, you are always one link away from some distraction; when you pick up a book you are in it for the long haul, you get the full course meal, rather than some overwhelming buffet of options.) Books are a more immersive technology. New doesn’t always mean better! Plus, a well-made book is nice in and of itself, it is a real thing, it has weight, and a smell, and sometimes a nice cover. I love being able to hold a physical object that has its own existence and is filled with ideas.  

Anthony Alvarado has been a forest fire fighter, a high school science teacher, a library delivery truck driver, a telephone psychic and a mental health counsellor.

About the Author

Anthony Alvarado lives in Portland, Oregon, and spends his time writing when he is not busy daydreaming.

http://anthonyalvarado.net/

Read my review here!

D.I.Y Magic - Anthony Alvarado

D.I.Y Magic offers a set of mind hacks that will help any creative artist to find new sources of inspiration encompassing self-help, psychology and philosophy. D.I.Y Magic will change the way you think about yourself, about creativity, and about the world. This is not a book merely to be read; it is a book to be lived! Hack into deeper levels of creativity, access the subconscious, and discover techniques that have been used by artists from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Beethoven and Richard Wagner, David Lynch and Leonardo da Vinci for centuries. From vision quests and lucid dreaming to creating a memory palace and Salvador Dali s spoon trick the deceptively simple exercises collected by Anthony Alvarado are designed to help those born into the modern age of reason to escape the rational web of what we already know and to see. Explore creativity through the lens of actual magic and follow in the steps of the Romantics, the Dadaists, the surrealists, the beatniks, anyone chasing the muse, in learning how to pull the strings of everyday reality and unlock the magic of the creative mind. Illustrated by a host of visionary artists, including alternative comic artists such as Farel Dalrymple and Ron Rege Jr, D.I.Y Magic is a radically original arsenal of ways to think, perceive and experience the world.

What did I think?

Firstly, it took me a little while to open this book as I couldn't take my eyes off the cover.  The way the door is illustrated gives it an almost 3D effect and there's something so very soothing and heavenly about the blue sky on the other side.

I love quirky books and this was no exception and I found myself trying out the mind hacks as I went along.  They really work!  I was always the person walking along the road with her head down hoping to go unnoticed.  Little did I know that I was going about my quest for invisibility completely the wrong way.  Along came Anthony Alvarado and his mind hack number 8: the Cloak of Invisibility, so off I went to Newcastle with my head held high and looking disinterestedly at approaching strangers.  It actually worked - I looked at them first so they didn't look at me - it was amazing!

There are some really interesting ideas in the book that actually made me think about life (and death) and simpler times - I definitely want to walk more than drive and I will try the switching off from the internet for 1 day per week, although it does sound a bit daunting I am from the pre-internet era so how hard can it be?

With inspirational quotes at the start of each chapter and mind-boggling illustrations throughout, it's full of food for thought and life-enhancing tricks.  I know I will refer to this book time and time again and my life will only improve because of it.

I am indebted to Amy from Souvenir Press for sending me this book in exchange for an honest review.

My rating:

Buy it from Amazon - you won't regret it!