I originally read this book when it first came out in 2003 and had the inspired action to pick it up again to review it. Well, I got sucked in a second time. It’s a great book with lots of interesting insights about how when we hold onto feelings, they hang around on the inside and affect everything in our lives… relationships, physical health, financial health, mental/emotional health, etc.

Truman gives a feelings list that is 20 pages long. And it’s single spaced! That’s a lot of feelings. The list includes the feelings we would like to get rid of (such as abandoned and embarrassed) and gives suggestions for replacing them with feelings you choose to have. For example, if you choose to give up abandonment, you could ask for the feelings of being cherished, precious, upheld, and cared for.

The book also has what it calls The Script, which will help you process the feelings. It’s not the questioning and curiosity approach I usually use, but there is a lot of good in The Script.

Golden Nugget: “A great ecclesiastic leader once said words to this effect: God works on a person from the inside out. The world works on a person from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. But, God takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. God changes men, who then change their environment.” p. 91