Sarah1984's Book Journey

Wow, some of the reviews of this are brutal and I'm a bit mystified by what they're accusing Hart of doing - trying to woo-woo yourself out of being sick. That's not what I got from the book, at all. I got discussions of ideas like: telling yourself that nothing's ever going to get better and you're going to be sick/in pain forever is actually making yourself feel worse because your brain listens to you and begins to make those thoughts into a reality (something I've experienced myself when dealing with chronic pain); or that getting out into nature (in whatever capacity you're capable of) can be mentally (if not physically) healing through the lowering of blood pressure, etc.

I've certainly never had to deal with anything as serious and life-changing as chronic fatigue syndrome (and I'm the last person to ever pick up a so-called self-help book), I've just got diabetes and endometriosis, but a lot of what she said made sense to me (even though the thought of doing some of the positive thinking activities had me cringing while I was listening - like I said, self-help and I don't get along because most of it just seems to me to be either common sense or ridiculous). While reading I never would have classified this as 'self-help', for me it was just Miranda telling us of her health journey with some tips as to what she found useful at different stages of that journey. There were also a lot of personal anecdotes and her customary humour that had me snorting in the supermarket.

This is the first time I can say that I would happily, enthusiastically even, listen to this audiobook again. Now that I've listened to it once, I could see myself buying a physical copy, too, because I'll always have her voice in my head reading it to me while I read with my eyes.