Isabel Losada

I'd like to rip this book up...

No, I don't mean that it is terrible, it is the proverbial 'curate's egg'.

The book is a mixture of awful ideas as to how to be 'green'. Don't use plastic pens, buy all your fruit and veg unwrapped and make your own soap! Don't be too concerned about flying, however!!!

Just as I am about to hurtle this book to the furthest dark corner of my library, Isabel changes tac; her description of the XR gathering in London is the best I have read. She goes to other events, meets people, from rational environmentalists to the nuttiest of wackos. She is always polite, kind and gets the most from everyone she interviews.

How can one love - and hate - the same book!!!… (mais)

He tells us how to achieve immediate change: by looking at the consequences of not changing and the massive pain that will result. Not too hard to do that. If I don’t get out of my pothole, I’m going to die a mad old lady – why do I find that very easy to visualize?

When Isabel Losada feels as if she is stuck in a pot-hole, she decides to try five methods of digging herself out, starting by hiring 3 different feng shui consultants to analyse her house. She follows this up with a four-day Anthony Robbins seminar, a ten-day silent meditation retreat, attending meetings with a guru in Brixton, and finally by taking a hallucinogenic drug administered by a shaman during a trip to the Peruvian rainforest.

Part of me feels like a dog that was promised a special meal and gobbled it down trustingly only to find that it had been horribly poisoned. That’s not so much what I feel like – that’s what happened. But of course I do not allow a vicious snake to crawl out of the tent. Just a battered Isabel. ‘How are you this morning?’ asks Dilwyn, looking full of the joys of spring, as if he’s just heard that he had a large win on the lottery. ‘I’m glad to be alive, Dilwyn,’ I say, quite calmly. He misses, or ignores, the strong undercurrent of hissing.

I like the way the author describes her adventures humorously but without mockery, and manages to take something positive from each experience, even if she did not really enjoy it at the time.… (mais)

I'm hopeless at meditation, as I told you. I've only got to close my eyes and take two deep breaths and I'm asleep. The fact that I'm sitting straight-backed with the wind blowing in my face makes no difference. How am I supposed to make any progress in the path of deep meditaton if my subconscious is going to keep seeing opportunities for deep sleep? 'Awareness? Ugh!' It says, and before I know it, I'm snoring.

As a cynic when it comes to all things New Age, I was surprised to find myself enjoying Isabel's journey. Some experiences did more for her than others, but she writes about them all with an irreverent touch, while avoiding ridiculing them.… (mais)