Shelf-Help

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By Ann Skinner

Coach, Doodle Artist and Author/Illustrator of The Art of Contribution and Annie and Eva Love Devon.

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27 Oct 2021

Five Challenges the Overthinking Shelf-Help Junkie Faces

My bookcase is full of self-help books, even after whittling them down! Of course, I work in the industry so that isn’t surprising, and I even added my own book to the noise.

In this week’s doodle story, Annie and Eva remind us that, although there may be a lot to be gained from educating and developing ourselves, we are unlikely to find ourselves in the headiness of our books. Overstimulating an overactive brain can even have the opposite effect and make us feel more lost and confused.

Although I am a big advocate for empowering yourself by expanding your mind, you can have too much of a good thing.

If you are a ‘shelf-help’ junkie, you may be facing one or all of the following five challenges:

1. Reading and thinking about life is more comfortable than living it and the couch has become a haven.

2. You feel overwhelmed with information and are going round and round in your head trying to figure things out.

3. You are looking to books for answers about life and stop listening to your own judgement and inner wisdom.

4. You never feel good enough as you can’t quite achieve what you are told should be possible.

5. You have become even more confused because there appear to be conflicting ways to approach life.

How do I know this? Because at one stage I was able to tick off every single one of these challenges.

Too much analysing keeps us in overthinking mode, which may be the very reason you reached for those self-help books in the first place.

The Heartworker’s Way teaches you to move out of your overthinking head and into your compassionate heart, helping you go quiet so you can bring your thinking levels down. When our thinking levels come down, our emotions come down. When our emotions come down, we are more able to listen to our heart’s guidance.

Love from Annie and Eva,