Do you ever ask yourself, “Is this all there is?”  Have you played by the rules and done your best, yet wonder why you’re not as happy and fulfilled as you expected to be?  If so, How To Survive Your Childhood Now That You’re an Adult: A Path to Authenticity and Awakening is a book you’ll want to read. The author, Ira Israel, is a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and a Mindful Relationship Coach.

Israel sees beyond the cultural illusions and covert assumptions that have kept you from discovering your authentic self. For example, Western culture’s beliefs in capitalism, science, and religion taught you to value the wrong things like productivity, consumerism, and romantic love. Your futile struggles to find happiness and unconditional love via these beliefs created resentments and judgments about the past. And whether or not you realize it, as an adult you still dwell on these beliefs and ignore your present pain to stave off future pain.

This book will challenge and deconstruct your current worldview and encourage you to own the realities of your life. It will help you see the false self you created as a child to gain the acceptance, approval and love you craved.

Israel writes:

Every time we are forced, as children, to jump through hoops in order to get love or positive feedback, this foments resentment. And even if there was no physical trauma during our childhoods, all of the resentments can add up to what is often called “a core wound.”  As adults, we have remnants of wounded children in us.

Israel says that without our conscious awareness, these remnants influence the way we think and behave as we live our everyday lives. Here is the clearest description I’ve ever read of what this looks like:

In short, we emulate the characteristics of the caregivers we had when we were young in an attempt to retroactively subconsciously gain their approval and love; and we also subconsciously incarnate the opposite characteristics of the caregivers we had when we were young as a way of individuating from them.

You might be surprised to know that, “Becoming something in order to gain approval is inauthentic: being reactive and rebelling against something is also inauthentic.” In fact, living through your false self is the reason for your resentment, stress, anxiety, depression, and unhappiness. The antidote is to be congruent, to allow your outsides to match your insides. To do this you need to be present to yourself: your honest feelings, your true intentions, and the way you are thinking and acting in this very moment.

As a being who yearns for connection, you will welcome the author’s instructions about how to express yourself compassionately and as authentically as possible. He says,

If it is time to improve our conversational skills and create a more loving and positive reality, then let’s become conscious of the words and actions we choose in order to express who we are, who we want to be, and what type of lives we want to lead.

To this end, he recommends two transformational tools to improve your relationships:  reflective listening and “nonviolent communication.”  These are described in the final chapter. As Israel says, there is no plan B.

The only possible panacea is authenticity, which is difficult but must be attempted and practiced on a daily basis. It is up to us to break the chains of unskilful solutions that were handed down to us, to consciously decide who we want to be, what type of relationships will nourish us, and what kind of world we care to live in.

Throughout this delightfully humorous and seriously wise book, Israel guides you through healthy and dysfunctional ways of thinking and suggests practices that combine valuable wisdom from philosophy, spirituality, and psychology. If you make it your job to become a mature, authentic adult, you can transform your life into the fulfilling journey you looked forward to as a child by committing yourself to these practices. They will alleviate your suffering, promote loving relationships, and help you live with authenticity and love.

How to Survive Your Childhood Now that You’re an Adult is not just a great read.  It’s a must-read for anyone who seeks truth, growth, and happiness.  I highly recommend it.