Review: The Quiet Teachers: Becoming a Student of your Life

Book information: 

Title: The Quiet Teachers: Becoming a Student of your Life

Author: Ally Bogard

Where to buy: Amazon, Barnes & Noble.

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My Initial Thoughts Before Reading

I thought this book is about teaching and learning and not about more, but it was more and I am glad it was.

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Quotes from the Book

'Each of us is a unique self, we are here to fulfil.'

'Your life is your greatest teacher.'

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In Depth Discussion/The Review

*I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.*

Cover: Simple, colours match. 

Table of content: Yes, well-arranged. 

Likes

Everything has a main section and subsections and the reader gets different approaches that are listed to read this book. The reader can decide for themselves how to read and perhaps try something new and explore a new approach to complete the book. Which is also a good practice for exploring, which is also a main section in the book to explore yourself.  

The book tells us about amazing aspects like how we are thought what we think in society but not how we actually should think. Which is true as we get told how to act and how to behave and what to do and don't do, but no one actually tells us how we think, how we built our own mind and opinion. Or how uncomfortable feelings are told to be suppressed or not to be shown to anyone else but yourself as they are inappropriate. But they are still important feelings even if they are uncomfortable or embarrassing. They are still feelings. And just acting like you don't feel it or even suppressing them is not the right approach, which we get told. We have to accept our emotions and our way of thinking before we even start doing anything else.

Important thing that is said in the book as well is that discovering your own self might be uncomfortable. Many books act like this journey is easy and comfortable, but we might find something out about yourself that we might not like or we need to get out of our comfort zone to even begin with and that makes one uncomfortable. Very good that this book mentions this and doesn't let it seem like the most simplest thing on earth.

Tools like patience and discipline is important for your journey of self-discovery and even more tools were mentioned to help the reader to manage the tasks given.

It's get teached that one's perspective of life isn't like everyone else's and we shouldn't act out on it always. And that the perspective difference perhaps can come from trauma. And altering that perspective or beliefs isn't bad as one grows from it. 

Before you understanding anything about yourself or someone else you have to allow for it to happen, if it's now a situation, a feeling, a challenge or something else, we have to allow for it to happen before we can even understand it, before we even know if it's good or bad.

Thoughts shape our behaviour and action. And as mentioned in the book one shouldn't always believe one's thoughts as they aren't always right and therapy strategies are listed to help the reader to push negative thoughts away in a healthy way. 

One shouldn't look into the past or the present as the now/present is more important and focusing on the wrong can lead to a overall bad mood and one should show gratitude for every little thing that is good.

Repeating means sucess and one learns by repeating. People think that when one repeats something they can't do it and that they are a failure and such, but the book shows us that repeating is completely normal and part of the learning process. I like that someone addresses it and not says that it's wrong and one must be able to do it from the beginning or 'it's not made for them'. 

Feel your body and your surroundings and not just one thing at a time. A lot of people just focus on one and many don't even feel comfortable in their own skin! Breathing techniques can help you with it. (also helps with silence, mediation and for anxiety).

Quick guide how to find out how you perceive your OWN body. + Realising how much your body helps you and keeps you alive. + How your body was treated by others and your reflection to it. + How to feel more comfortable in your skin.

Teaching about emotional and physical capacity and that it's fine to step back if you reach your limits.

One needs to let go of their old self to become a new and better self. That's essential for the explore section. 

Growth mindset with realistic thinking (facts than assumptions + being motivated and see the good in things). 

How to overcome (past) stressful events (talking about you and how you acted in the situation than talking about others and their actions/behaviours). 

Forgiveness and not agreeing with what happened or forgetting but forviging them and yourself to keep a stable mind and not staying in the past.

Risk chances, do what you desire and don't fear failure. 

Appreciate the small things and thank others but also yourself for every little thing. 

Don't fear to call for help and let yourself be supported. 

Accept your own presence and embrace being nobody.

+ Examples for everything mentioned

+ Practices

+ Comparison of good thinking and bad thinking (conscious + unconscious)

+ Comparison of facts, unconscious meaning and intentional meaning (+ how past experience influences unconscious meaning and how current experience helps out to find the core of the issue). 

+ List to fill out for oneself (apparent self and authentic self)

+ List of questions to ask oneself (situation-based and belief-based). 

Dislikes: 

At the 'Quiet the noise' section I must say that this is more of a spiritual mediation thinking as one doesn't do anything when they are silencing their mind. There is a good reason why our mind is always busy even if we try to rest. Even if we don't try alot we anaylise things and this information gets a voice in our head, the same with emotions we anaylise from ourselves or others and situations we are in or just hearing. Without thinking, we won't think. That might sound stupid, but it's true. We need our mind to be busy, we need to have this voice and the only reason to quiet it in my point of view is when we go to sleep and actually need to rest. But for learning purposes it will do the opposite. You can't read without your voice in your head speaking every letter out and you can't get smarter and get more information in your head if that head of yours isn't processing it by talking. Our mind needs to talk.

Open awareness good, but it's an all-known fact that everyone gets teached. (First think before you act).

Negative self talk isn't amnesia, you can have it due to mental health complications as they alter your mind and perspective of the world and not just 'cause you don't know yourself (unless you have DID). One can know their likes and dislikes, their triggers and more but have negative self talk as it is due to mental health complication. Even with treatment they might still hear this and people sometimes get it 'cause they get manipulated (get told these negative things) and it repeats in their mind due to that.

Self talk practice is inaccurate. The best practice for negative self talk to go away is by allowing it to happen, but not believing it and ask yourself different questions. Ask yourself if that voice that says it has proof (Am I really useless? Is there any proof for this?). Realising if you overcatastophise the situation (Is it really that bad?) or by altering the sentence into a nicer one (I can't do this -> I could do this) Don't use words like can't, don't, won't, shouldn't, but use their alternatives to make it seem for yourself possible without immediately giving up > I could, I want, I should try, etc. Except that this wasn't mentioned the tips for the practice are almost all good, some could do the reserve effect by the questions depending on the person and their mind state.

Eveness isn't as good as the book says. You can't be even with everything and not everything is even. That's why weighing pan exists. Not everything is the same and nothing will stay the same. We can't stop judging everything that passes us as we are humans. It's in our nature to judge and saying to stop doing so is the same as telling a carnivore to stop eating meat. It won't be possible. The same with judging and seeing everything as even or believe everything will be even after some time. A complicated situation will stop and a person you disliked is actually nice. That's not how it works. 

At the potentiality section it seemed like previous sections got repeated. The 'Change your thoughts pattern' and 'Think before acting' again. 

Praying isn't necessary to learn for yourself how to slower your brainwaves. (Mediation + rest is, but not praying). 

Even though there are sections with the senses I noticed that already in the see section the feel section was already covered somewhat.

Freezing, fighting or fixing. It's freezing, fighting, fleeing or fixing. One was missing.

And I didn't like that lists and such only appeared to the end and at the beginning it was completely different demonstrated. It changed completely from the beginning and I wished the lists of questions and such were already in the first section and not just later. 

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Rating

How it works: Only everything that is lower than 9 gets reduced from the final rating. Depending on how strong it inflicted the overall enjoyment of reading it affects differently. 

[ Right statements 7 / 10 ] -

[ Understanding 10 / 10 ] +

[ Repetition 4 / 10 ] -

[ Topic/Genre 10 / 10 ] +

[ Writing style 10 / 10 ] +

[ Grammatic and spelling 10 / 10 ] +

[ Examples and co. 8 / 10 ] +

Final Rating

3/5

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Final thoughts/Questions

I might already knew all the things I read in that book, but I did this intentional as I wanted to see how the book is and if everything is 'right' or not. I know a lot about psychology and not just from humans. Psychology is for me a fine line and I think everyone should make their own idea and perspective of it as I myself don't see anything completely right or wrong in this topic. The same with book interests. One might read this review, and even if I would have rated it lower than three stars I wouldn't say that one shouldn't read this. Everyone should form their own opinion and so the same with psychology. I still rated it lower 'cause of my sense of 'right' when I read this 'cause I believe in it, but no one needs to believe in it too. That's just my point of view of this book. 

Started the book: 02. March 2024

Finished the book: 02. March 2024

Wrote the review: 02. March 2024