What about the Big Stuff?: Finding Strength and Moving Forward When the Stakes Are High

Very wordy with a running theme throughout that changing one's mindset is the key to everything. Gives the Scriptures short shrift.

The book gives some excellent insights into how to take control of your random thoughts and fears and make them rational. It gives you processes and techniques you can follow to make sense of many concerns that, at first blush, seem insurmountable. Take the time to reread lines, passages or chapters that most apply to your circumstance at any given time, and you can achieve a sense of calm that helps you sort through the "big stuff."

With this book, Richard Carlson finally shows us that there are mental attitudes that can help us overcome the greatest challenges of life - not only the small problems. The book is not trying to deny the difficulties we all encounter at some point in our lives. Rather, it teaches us that there are healthy and unhealthy ways to react when confronted to hardship.I was also glad to read this book because it's the first time I've seen Richard Carlson openly talk about God, especially in one of the chapters. It's not the purpose of the book to tell you that if you want to feel good you have to believe in God, but it shows you that when you slow down the counterproductive chaos of your mind, you discover another part of yourself that is never depressed and that always knows what's best for you. Since I learnt to access this part of me, I've also notice that it's where you can be connected to God, so I was glad the author mentioned this point too.This book is wonderfully written. Yet, it is not as practical as other books by the same author that tell you exactly what causes depression and sadness and how to get rid of it. I would especially recommend "you can feel good again" by the same author, because this book is definitely the key to happiness for anyone caught in the web of pessimism.

The book is not complex analysing too many theories, but extremely accurate to some fundamental common core cause of mental dys functionality and emotional pain in the truly important aspects of living. Richard throughout the 40 individual chapters deals with different subjects in each chapter, giving effective advice on commonly fell problems we all experience in our every day life. Often we are in automatic mental mode, which produces problems in our life without our realising consciously. But with a shift in mentality and wisdom we can change our habitual mental actions and experiences to seriously improve our life.One subject Richard points out is your thoughts are not an actual reality which simplistically put is obvious, but with an overcrowded mentality of problems which are often over exaggerated to its worst scenario, we hinder our actual mental and personal health, reducing our IQ and ability to help ourselves. I personally felt the benefits of producing a less stressful and crowded mentality immediately, and managed to sustain this through effort, and rereading the book to reaffirm information and changing my habitual mental actions. With a quieter healthier mentality, your true wisdom is able to function, but you have to have confidence in your ability to know the answers without striving too much.If you like myself have read many books on the subjects that you are interested in whether this be educational or entertaining, but even though many may be of a high quality, you usually only narrow this down to a few favourites. I personally have read many psychology books over the last 10 years with this being my favourite subject material, and would place this book in my top ten, because it actually expanded my mentality and true improvement to the quality of my life on completion of reading it.We are emotional mental creatures, and we often loose our mental health but with the help of books like this, we can broaden your mentality and actions to improve our lifestyle. Simply put, the book does deal with the big important aspects and values of living and helped you stay healthy and clear, trying to help obtain core fulfilment in your life.Alan Davidson

The book is not complex analysing too many theories, but extremely accurate to some fundamental common core cause of mental dys functionality and emotional pain in the truly important aspects of living. Richard throughout the 40 individual chapters deals with different subjects in each chapter, giving effective advice on commonly fell problems we all experience in our every day life. Often we are in automatic mental mode, which produces problems in our life without our realising consciously. But with a shift in mentality and wisdom we can change our habitual mental actions and experiences to seriously improve our life.One subject Richard points out is your thoughts are not an actual reality which simplistically put is obvious, but with an overcrowded mentality of problems which are often over exaggerated to its worst scenario, we hinder our actual mental and personal health, reducing our IQ and ability to help ourselves. I personally felt the benefits of producing a less stressful and crowded mentality immediately, and managed to sustain this through effort, and rereading the book to reaffirm information and changing my habitual mental actions. With a quieter healthier mentality, your true wisdom is able to function, but you have to have confidence in your ability to know the answers without striving too much.If you like myself have read many books on the subjects that you are interested in whether this be educational or entertaining, but even though many may be of a high quality, you usually only narrow this down to a few favourites. I personally have read many psychology books over the last 10 years with this being my favourite subject material, and would place this book in my top ten, because it actually expanded my mentality and true improvement to the quality of my life on completion of reading it.We are emotional mental creatures, and we often loose our mental health but with the help of books like this, we can broaden your mentality and actions to improve our lifestyle. Simply put, the book does deal with the big important aspects and values of living and helped you stay healthy and clear, trying to help obtain core fulfilment in your life.Alan Davidson

I must admit I'm somewhat biased against "big" self-help authors. However, Richard Carlson knows his (pardon the expression) stuff.His recommendations, couched in the language of self-help, derive from solid psychological research. Small stuff is defined as whatever won't be important in six months or a year. However, to his credit, and unlike many cheery self-help authors and coaches, Carlson admits that sometimes you can't go home again.Some of the chapters offer straightforward, not especially original self-help, but the book is worth the read. The most helpful chapters focus on the need to "beware" a "busy mind." Solutions come from staying calm.I concur! Often I find myself telling clients, "Take a break from thinking about this decision," and now I can refer them to Carlson's Big Stuff book.You won't find "be happy" platitudes here, and that's a plus.Carlson writes well and he's convincing. Even if you've seen some of this before ("shift perspective" "take time to heal"), Carlson gathers these ideas together in a new way. I would recommend this book to anyone who's going through some "big stuff."