Book Review: "Good Morning I Love You"

We have a guest blogger, Ruth Anne McManus for today's book review of "Good Morning I Love You: Mindfulness and Self-Compassion Practices to Rewire Your Brain for Calm, Clarity and Joy" by Shauna Shapiro, Ph.D.

We discovered Shauna Shapiro and her book on Sharon Salzberg's Metta Hour Podcast. After I heard the interview, I knew I wanted to read her book.



"Good Morning I Love You" quite literally takes us on a journey to the heart. In the book, Dr. Shauna Shapiro uses science to help guide our hearts to better overall health using mindfulness. She guides us to set intentions for ourselves and others, and she helps us have a healthy positive outlook on ourselves and life, some of us, like myself for the first time.

Dr. Shapiro talks about the "amygdala hijack" when we confront ourselves with shame and blame and how this causes pathways for learning to shut down.



She writes about how compassion and mindfulness are transformative, and scientifically proven to rewire our brains. She writes about neuroplasticity; how our brains can create new neural nets to go from "superhighways" - habitual patterns - to scenic country roads.

Before I read this book, I would go into autopilot every morning. I had an untreated infection that went undetected for three years. Suffice it to say that autopilot patterns were ingrained in my system during this time.

While reading Dr. Shapiro's book, I made an intention of becoming a more peaceful person. Attention, Intention, and Attitude of mindfulness are clearly explained in "Good Morning, I Love You". I realized that in order to be more peaceful, I needed to let go of self-defeating inner dialogue and my go to habitual patterns. I needed a major attitude adjustment and "Good Morning, I Love You" profoundly helped me with my self-defeating thoughts and judgements about being ill for 3 years having endured 14 hospitalizations on behavioral health units. The untreated infection led to brain inflammation which resulted in neuropsychiatric symptoms.

Guided meditations in Dr. Shapiro's book are gold, and new pathways knock out old defeating ones 5% at a time.

I recommend this book to everyone! Lastly, without doing a spoiler alert, every morning after breakfast, my family and I put our hands on our hearts and say, "Good morning. I love you."

From my heart to yours
In health and wellness
Ruth Anne



Be sure to visit my website to learn more about my inspirational journey from a wheelchair to the finish line of the Boston Marathon and beyond!

My books are available on Amazon.