Both of those sound so fun!! I love that. The book I’m writing is a memoir about all the ways I dampened my life over the course of a decade, how I overcome each thing, & what I learned. A reflection on how we can be mindful of these things and do better to give ourselves a better life overall🫶🏻

My son has gotten both a holographic Dragonite and a Charizard card from these! So fun.

The Kiss is my favorite painting and I love cats - this is fantastic😅

That’s an excellent challenge! I have so many. One I’ve been wanting to finally read is Wuthering Heights. I also have a slew of books my counselor has recommended I need to actually read😅

Good job! I am feeling lazy but this inspired me. Your setup looks cozy too!

This is a great point. I think that may be why I rarely fully read self-help books…I just read excerpts/different sections and have a “take what I like/leave the rest” approach to it. The ones that kept me reading the whole thing though - wonderful!

The best feeling! So cozy!

I love self-help but have definitely read some books like these. It's like a pyramid scheme of sorts haha.

I love writing self-help :) And I LOVE cross-stitching! Do you make your own patterns? I want to learn how to do that eventually.

I used to joke when I was pregnant that my son would know 3 voices when he came out of the womb: mine, his dad's, and the Forensic Files narrator's. It lulled me to sleep every night haha

Regardless of what it's labeled as, though, I guess it makes me sad to hear people be resistant to material that could help them think or live in different ways - or at the very least just give them a bit of food for thought or show them a new perspective!

What do you think of the self-help genre?

I think another concern is that people want the genre to sound more empowering & maybe be more inclusive of the wide variety of topics it can cover. There's definitely been a rebranding in recent years, moving away from "self-help" towards "personal development/growth" or "self-improvement" instead.

I think another reason people hesitate to say they enjoy self-help is that it implies weakness and a level of shame, because it's basically flat-out admitting that we need help.

(Plot twist - we all do)

It's so much deeper than that, though. They may be desperately trying to improve their mindset and way of living, but they remain stuck in their habits.

It's one thing to read and intellectualize the content of self-help books, & it's another to actually absorb & transform with it. That takes work.

Why is self-help often considered cringey or annoying?

My first thought is that it reminds people of those who read self-help in a self-serving way, like going to church only to feel like a better person. They talk the talk without walking the walk, so to say. They don't apply any of the lessons.

Don't get me wrong - I am a LOVER of self-help books. Give me all of them. I will eat them up (very slowly over decades because I only ever read a few paragraphs at a time & just love the little nuggets of wisdom & overall feeling of them).

(sometimes I read them all I swear).