Taming Your Inner Brat: A Guide for Transforming Self-Defeating Behavior

The other night I was trying to find a "self-help" book dealing with being on time. I came across this wonderful book, Taming Your Inner Brat.....". It's great! I could never relate to all the reasons that are given elsewhere for why some people are never on time. But there was always something in the back of my head that questioned where was the fine line between being appropriately self-concerned and being self-absorbed. Your book wasn't an eye-opener, it was a JOLT! It affects so many other areas of my life as well. I am going to have to think of a lot of names for each of these brats!

Taming Your Inner Brat is a refreshing change from most self-help books. You won't find any "its all my parents' fault" here. Nor will you find a set of affirmations telling you that just need to love yourself more and everything will be fine. This book takes a hard look at what is really behind your bad habits, problem tempers and other self-defeating behaviors and thoughts. It's the "inner brat," a remnant of early childhood, the part of you that never grew up. This inner brat wants what it wants when it wants it. It pouts, sulks, gets angry and blames others when it doesn't get its own way - just like a bratty child.Everyone has an inner brat, including me, I now realize. While not written specifically for the workplace, Taming Your Inner Brat addresses common personal and interpersonal problems that spill over into the office. Things like procrastination, resentment, jealousy, making mountains out of molehills, and even being on a diet all interfere with our working at our best. The book has a quiz that helps you estimate the strength of your own inner brat. There is also a chapter illustrating the different "personae" of inner brats, and how they affect the way you perceive and react to situations. Toward the end of the book are several do's and don'ts for taming your inner brat. "Don't always trust your feelings," urges the author, because your inner brat can manipulate the way you feel. Instead, she suggests distracting your inner brat and talking back to it in specific ways. More help is available through a free, monthly email newsletter. Sign up at innerbrat.com Taming Your Inner Brat is mainly about how to regulate your own feelings and impulses. But it also includes a chapter on how we became such a "bratty" culture that demands instant gratification and blames others when things go wrong. This is an interesting backdrop that shows how we got here, but at the same time, it does not let us off the hook for personal responsibility for our actions. Besides being informative, Taming Your Inner Brat is entertaining and easy to read. It's written by a clinical psychologist in a straightforward, no-nonsense style reminiscent of Dr. Phil, but with a more gentle and humorous tone. Without scolding, this book shows you a new way to look at your problems and to better manage them. When you're done reading it, you'll probably think of at least half a dozen other people who need to tame their inner brats.

Taming Your Inner Brat, written by Pauline Wallin, is an enjoyable book. It is such a humorous and conversational book that while reading, I almost forgot that I have an inner brat that could benefit from the book's tips and techniques. This book states that it was written for those who have self-defeating behaviors. Within the text, topics such as overeating, gambling, smoking, and other habits that people try to abate were discussed. This book was so non-threatening and playful that it could apply to just about anybody who has a behavior that they would like to learn how to get under their control. It is through the use of humor, personal examples, and mini-case studies that this book allows and encourages its readers to learn about their "inner brat." This text also encourages the readers to understand the triggers that coax their "inner brat" to come out and play, how to take responsibility for the actions that subsequently follow their "inner brat's" appearance, and techniques to try to prevent the speedy emergence of the "brat" and the behaviors from occurring in the future.

I've probably read several hundred self-help books in my life time, and even written some of them, and I have to say that I found this book to be one of the best I've read in a long time. The author's combination of research from well respected sources, metaphors and analogies that help bring the philosophical concepts to a concrete understandable place, and her use of personal vignettes is a great combination that makes for easy reading. I find that after reading this book I am much more cognizant of when my own inner brat has gotten out of control, and it has also enabled me to see other people's behavior through that lens as well. If this were required reading in our highschools and colleges, maybe we'd all be suffering less from bratty behavior. One of the most compelling chapters in the book discusses how we as a culture have evolved to encourage and tolerate this kind of excessive brattiness. I hope, with the help of teachers like this author, that we can start teaching our kids a different way to be in the world. Bravo Pauline for a job well done.

Taming Your Inner Brat is an entertaining, yet technically well-groundedmanual for understanding and gaining control of that childlike,self-centered "brat" that resides within and gets us into trouble: forexample, temper tantrums, road rage and desk rage, addictions and badhabits, self-absorbed pity and resentment, procrastination andextra-marital affairs. This "inner brat" embodies the combination ofnarcissism and impulsivity which are inherent in these self-defeatingbehavior patterns. In this sense, the book is unique, since no otherself-help book of which I am aware addresses this specific combination.