90 Seconds to a Life You Love

90 Seconds to a Life You Love, How to Master Your Difficult Feelings to Cultivate Lasting Confidence, Resilience, and Authenticity, by Joan I. Rosenberg, Ph.d, Little, Brown, Spark - Hachette  2019

When we hit these rough areas its good to have a formula, or even a list of bullets to keep on an index card - I love index cards! - might even want to laminate it because that bullet list is going to get well worn!  Dr. Rosenberg breaks it down to a memorable three parts - Skills Building, Avoiding Pitfalls, and Benefits,  for a total of ten chapters, logical and clear, just where we want it.  

Let's start with the current situation, knowing the way we are living - career, family, or even off-time - is just not right, and certainly not what we want to continue to do.   Our feelings will tell us how it all is working, and according to Dr. Rosenberg, - "Feelings are available to us for the threefold purpose of protection, connection, and creativity."  And she warns us that in the zone of unpleasant feelings, when we don't hear them or try to ignore and block them, they can grow and have overflow effect by muffling or dulling the intensity of our pleasant emotional states.  "Think about it from an evolutionary standpoint.  Those who were more able to identify threats were also more likely to survive and have children."  Boom.

So here we are, locked in lockdown, masked and looking for the shot with the confirmation that feelings are what got us here safely, but feelings won't for sure get us out.  Because this pandemic, if its ever "over," has altered the lives of the living beyond what we could ever have imagined.  Some day, some longgg day away, the meaning of Wuhan will be clear, but for now, we need to work on how we are going to best use the energies, the human systems we inherited, to move ahead and succeed, to love where we are.  We have time to work on this because:

1.  Dr. Rosenberg shows us how to respond in small steps

2.  We've got time.  We're stuck, building explosive energy to DO something.

What makes this book so encouragingly informative for a layman is that the author gives us the theory behind the feelings as well as sensible recommendations to get through it.  Sections of the book are dedicated to the "Eight Difficult Feelings" - sadness, shame, helplessness, anger, embarrassment, disappointment, frustration, and vulnerability.  

Chapter 8, "Moving Through Grief" is Dr. Rosenberg's most valuable chapter - it could have become an entire volume because it speaks to more than what we normally describe as grief or loss of a loved one.  Instead, she includes those haunting old wounds and events with people who may have created searing memories of pain or discomfort.  Left intact to molder, "these past experiences lead to further unpleasant feelings of bitterness, resentfulness, grudges and eventually soulful depression,'' all of which she wants us to recognize and move through. 

"Life is not absent hurt.  How we are able to experience, make sense of, and bounce back from those hurts is the essential element of  self-growth.''  Fortunately Dr. Rosenberg offers numerous exercises and drills to help us better understand our life experiences, and to help us visualize and practice new skills.

Mil Girl Verdict:  A+ simply for the tools, analysis and practice drills shared.

Patricia E. Moody

FORTUNE magazine  "Pioneering Woman in Mfg" 

IndustryWeek IdeaXchange Xpert

A Mill Girl at Blue Heron Journal, on-line resource for business thought-leaders and decision-makers,  patriciaemoody@gmail.com