A SELF-HELP BOOK ON LEARNING TO BALANCE OUR EMOTIONS

Book Review: "Balance Your Emotions and Be Your Own Coach" by Pratibha Tiwari

In many self-help books, the authors mentor the readers and coach them on how to proceed on a successful journey of self-development. The author Pratibha Tiwari, who is a NLP Coach, Hypnotherapist, Career Coach and Counsellor, however has come out with the book “Balance Your Emotions and Be Your Own Coach”, in which her imperative advice is for people to be their own coach.

In the book, she writes about the need of balancing our emotions in our daily lives. The importance of various emotions and their ever-elusive balance has been explained in a simple format.

The blurb reads- ‘We are tuned to channelise our state of mind through a plethora of emotions that are an integral part of our being. We all have different emotions wired with our neurons; these emotions work as a lubricant that helps our body and mind work in smooth harmony.’

Just like an oiled machine runs with least friction and maximum efficiency, the same is true for the human mind and body as well. It functions at its optimum if fed with well-balanced emotions. The author gives practical tips for maintaining emotional harmony, mind-body balance and inculcating mindfulness.

The book contains 12 succinct chapters, which delve into the topics of Emotions and their classification, Mind-Body connection, Feelings, Social Life, among others.

Many important concepts have been elucidated in the book. One pertinent example is ‘Sunflower resilence’- which means that when we express our positive emotions with others, we exchange energy with others which boosts their powers of resilence. The same happens with sunflowers, who take energy from the sun, but when the sun goes behind the clouds, they exchange energy with each other. This can be implemented easily to deal with emotional and mental stress. Many other innovative concepts also pervade the subject matter of this book.

The benefits of the scientific approach of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) have also been explained lucidly and in a simple manner in this book. The basics of NLP technique have been shared, though a little detailed information about the whole technique and how to incorporate it into our every day routine should have been provided.

In this book, the author’s main argument is that coaching is our best bet for shaping our lives in a manner that we want to get the best out of it. She says that all of us have the calibre to be our own coach. However, she also writes that one must take help from professional coaches, whenever it is needed.

At 84 pages, this book is a short but insightful read, which forays into simple titbits for achieving emotional stability and mind-body balance. The author’s mantra in the book is that we all have to learn to be our own coach and achieve emotional balance. With its straightforward guidelines, and organized and illuminating content, this self-help guide is a valuable addition to the genre of Self- Help books, and should be picked up by readers for its fresh perspective on the subject.