Reel Fulfillment: A 12-Step Plan for Transforming Your Life Through Movies

Life should be as happy as we can make it. Life should be as fulfilling as we can make it. Life should be as free of fear and doubt as we can make it. No one book, no one program can provide all these needs. But this work, Reel Fulfillment, is certainly a tool you will want to add to your tool box. If you are building a house, you cannot do it with only a hammer. You must have saws, screwdrivers, rulers, pliers, and on and on. To build a full life you must have many tools also. Most certainly, this work, I feel, can be one of those tools, quite an important tool, actually. What a unique and fascinating concept...using movies to help analyze your life and help correct those little and big blimps and bumps in life that we all encounter. This is not a just a book about "going to a movie and feeling good." It is far more. The author, Dr. Grace, gives us a twelve step plan or program for truly changing the way we perceive ourselves and the way we meet and treat the various crises and challenges we all encounter. The subjects, Gaining Inner Clarity, Emotional Health, Joy, and Gaining Spiritual Fitness, are all more or less hung on a unique framework, on the concept of movies, on the stories that we can relate our own experiences to, and learn from, which we see on the screen. We can and, indeed, do learn from these stories. Movie, of course, are art. Who has not been emotionally changed by a great piece of literature, a great painting, a wonderful photograph, a deeply felt and written poem or one of the world's great paintings. Most of us can be driven to either tears or great joy by any of these. Movies are no different. More importantly, with movies, we can learn from the stories these artists, the movie makers, writers and actors bring us. We can relate. I dare say that not one person reading this review has ever not been moved, in some way, after watching some film story at some time in their life. Dr. Grace has given order to this. Each chapter includes a wonderful section of self examination, profound questions, which, if answered truthfully by the reader, can indeed shed great light on our inner being. She has been able to articulate what most of us actually know, but we simply did not know we knew. She has given us a tool and then explained how to use that tool effectively. Now, this work, like any work in this particular genre, is only effective if you actually DO IT! I wonder how many "self help books" are purchased, skimmed, shelved and forgotten. You actually have to work through the program for it to help. Folks, there are no free lunches...you get out of something just about what you put into it. This book is no exception. On the other hand, if you want to purchase it, skim it and then shelf it, that is okay too. As an added bonus, even it you don't work through the doctor's program, you will certainly pick up some great tips to make your movie going far more pleasurable. You really cannot loose with t

"Reel Fulfillment" A 12-Step Plan For Transforming Your Life Through Movies Maria Grace, Author McGraw Hill, Publisher ISBN 0-07-145907-3 Reviewed by Donna Van Straten Remmert, Author of "The Littlest Big Kid" and "The Jitterbug Girl" If you love movies as much as I do, "Reel Fulfillment" is an insightful guidebook that will entertain as well as transform you. It will explain why you love some movies enough to see them over and over again, and why you laugh or cry your heart out each time. Psychotherapist and author Maria Grace is well known in Austin for her live, standing-room-only movie reviews that humorously and poignantly probe into our psychological make-up and help us realize truths about ourselves, as reflected by characters in the movies. She is also well known at SCN for her fabulous Be Our Guest presentation. If you've witnessed Maria's gigs, I know you haven't forgotten how delightful they were. The same is true about "Reel Fulfillment". It's delightful. Maria moved to New York City a few years ago, and she has already received a great deal of praise and recognition for her inspiring book, her seminars, and her ezine that I highly recommend as a way to continue analyzing your responses to movies after you've read "Reel Fulfillment". Each week's ezine is about something new and different and it's always fun and thought provoking. This week's challenge, for instance, is to watch movies that are about food cravings. She tells you some of her secrets for relating to food in a more healthy way, learned from having attended a spa in Brazil, she invites you to click onto her 60-minute seminar "Eating Without Guilt: The Joy of Conscious Eating" and she asks you to watch two fabulous movies about food to better understand yourself: "Chocolat" and "Real Women Have Curves". Go to www.mariagrace.com to learn about Maria's adventures and to read more about the ezine that's free for the asking. Subscribe! Thanks to "Reel Fulfillment", I can now say it right out-I am a movie addict! I watch at least one, sometimes two, movies a day. In the privacy of my bedroom where I can laugh or cry to my heart's content. I'm obsessed, and I now know that I don't need to feel shame or guilt for spending so much relaxation time in bed, because through my obsession and with the help of Maria's 12-step plan for transforming my life through movies, I accomplish major self-awareness fetes. There is a Questions to Answer section in each chapter of "Reel Fulfillment". I glance at these questions in advance of watching a movie recommended by Maria in that chapter. Then, as I'm watching, I think about possible answers to these questions, viewing the movie as if it were a story about my life. Metaphorically, it usually is! After my movie(s) for the night is over, I sink into my unconscious for a good night of dreaming. When the movies I've seen are especially relevant to my life, they often trigger fantastic dreams that reveal things about me that I'd othe

What a novel idea, that movies are more than just entertainment. The author points out that watching some of the traditional Christmas movies (It's a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol) makes us feel safe and comfortable. They relieve stress and give us a feeling of control. I remember my family having a ritual of watching Yankee Doodle Dandy every fourth of July. Even now, if I sing a few lines from one of those songs, my sisters join in (40 years later) with all the words. Movies like these, are "very rich in spiritual messages," according to the author.

This new self-help book is really good with this new method of watching movies combined with exercises in each step to find fulfillment. At the beginning I thought it was about analyzing movies but was pleasently surprised that the method uses the movies to help the reader find answers and create awareness. I did watch a couple of the movies suggested and then followed the exercises and it really works. I highly recommend this book to anybody who likes movies. Watching them from this new angle will make you enjoy even more your favorite films and even better appreciate the ones not so good.