Learning from the Heart

What a surprise!

I was in Barnes and Noble looking for a book for my daughter Rachael. Surfing around in the motivation, inspiration area, I was wanting to find something that would be helpful to her as she was going through kind of a challenging time in her life.

Learning from the Heart by Daniel Gottlieb caught my eye because of the clean and attractive cover. It reminded me of the magazine look of Real Simple Magazine. It's a small and compact read, too, which is good because I am reluctant to pick out War and Peace for anyone in their 20's!

But, when I began to read bits of the book I was instantly hooked by the writer's style.

Rachael enjoyed the book (YEAH!) and I kinda forgot about it.

Then one day a week ago - she handed me the book, open to a page, and asked me to read a few paragraphs. This doesn't happen very often, so I jumped on it and began to read.

What I read was so compelling for my relationship with my daughter - and the helpful idea was delivered in the fewest possible words (and a story, my favorite!)

The story was about a couple who brought their son into Gottleib's therapist office to deal with his sullen and withdrawn behavior. What was revealed was how the unhappiness of the mom and dad was actually driving the sons behavior.

What the son wanted, needed, was for the parents, especially the father, to find some happiness in his own life. Dad's focus on the son was ignoring his own needs, and his terrible relationship with his wife, the weight of it all was a giant burden on his son.

I've said this in a clumsy way, but I think you get the idea. The author, Daniel Gottlieb, did a tremendous job of getting this idea across. Every short little vignette in this book is powerful, enlightening and insightful.

I'm not usually the big "touchy feely" book type guy - partly because I prefer how-to steps.

I really recommend this book - and actually ended up writing this review as a result of logging on to Amazon to buy a copy for my step-mother, who is dealing with losing my father in February and her Mother in August of this year.

Rick