Book Review of The Mountain Is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage Into Self-Mastery, by Brianna Wiest
Ever feel like you’re in your own way? Like life is always getting between you and your goals? Or like you’re stuck in a cycle you can’t seem to find your way out of? Then put this book on your reading list…today!
The premise of The Mountain Is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage Into Self-Mastery is right there in the title. But the deeper understanding of our negative habits are clarified with easy language and helpful examples. In this book, you will glean very quickly how you are standing squarely between where you are and where you really want to be. I have to admit, I had a few “ah-ha” moments reading this, like I was being directly called out for my sins against myself.
The good news is that Wiest provides a professional perspective to help identify the real needs behind self-sabotaging behaviors. Here are a few of my favorite points from the book. Maybe you can relate to some of them:
Imperfection is required for growth. Growth is the objective of humanity - we grow our families, our skills, our finances, and our self-awareness. Space for improvement can only be made by running into obstacles or failures. We won’t learn/improve/grow if we don’t f*ck up sometimes. So get lost, perfectionism!
People are not programmed to be happy; instead, we are programmed to be comfortable. Sometimes “comfortable” looks like staying broke, or never exercising, or staying in that job you hate. Gasp!
Coping skills are great…sometimes. Coping skills generally come out of tiny traumas we experience in our lives. And coping (or adapting) skills are necessary for things we can’t change. BUT we have more control over our lives than we think. And coping can be misused to avoid solving a problem at its core by creating a separate, less impactful problem or neurosis. Neuroses can be substitutes for real, deep, and painful problems that we are too scared to face. And this one spoke to me.
Resistance = Fear. When you feel resistance while making changes in yourself (like wanting to lose weight but not changing diet, wanting to be rich but hating rich people, never practicing the instrument you keep saying you want to learn), it’s usually because of fear. Fear comes out of long-held beliefs that eventually become attachments. Attachments are over-sensitised to change. So in the face of becoming one who exercises, for example, you have to ditch the person you are (one who does NOT exercise). That means getting very uncomfortable, at least for a while. And that can be very scary.
Comfort can be a bad thing. Always settling for what is comfortable is very limiting to our potential, and only makes it that much harder to adapt when we are forced to change.
If you feel like you’ve hit “rock bottom”, you are primed to make real, lasting change in yourself. Up until the point where you are able to remove the debris of old habits, wants, and goals, you won’t have room for new growth. In nature, we experience the cycle of death and rebirth with the seasons. And so shall you have to let some parts of you die to make room for the new life you want to live. So get fed up! Get tired of the same old BS. Tell yourself “never again!” And then get to work.
Wiest also provides real-life examples of the ways we self-sabotage, as well as how to start making changes to navigate your way out of complacency and distraction. There are so many great points in this book, far too many to list. The main messages I get out of this book are: It is normal (even human) to get stuck or distracted from what we want, because stuck can just mean comfort, which we are programmed to crave; and, understanding our resistance to change, along with actionable steps, means liberating ourselves from our own mental blocks.
If you feel like you are stuck in a rut, and that feeling has been around for far too long, it may be time for a big change in your life. I recommend this book as a first step in identifying all the ways you may be holding yourself back.