Good book that is easy to read. Some bits are a little wordy so they feel slow but the overall pace of the book is good.

This book was clearly written before 2020. Everything is terrible.

I was recently diagnosed with severe anxiety. And like I do with most things, I immediately started reading everything I could get my hands on. While this book didn't exactly help my anxiety, it did make me feel less alone and less "crazy". Which I really needed.

I hope this book is riding the pandemic books wave of “needed now more than ever”!!
Kathleen Smith probably never imagined what 2020 would deliver to all of us and how her book should be required at the top of every nightstand despite all that’s happening right now and after will head to the keeper shelf!
Much may be rotten, but Everything Isn’t Terrible! Thank you Kathleen!

This book has lots of helpful tidbits of advice that people can apply to their own lives. Each chapter centers on a person that is dealing with a certain anxiety-inducing behavior and Smith describes what advice she gave them and how she helped (or attempted to help) the person with their therapy sessions. Certain chapters were more relevant to myself than others, but overall this book has helpful advice and could be a good tool for people to use to cope with anxiety.

Everything Isn’t Terrible: Conquer Your Insecurities, Interrupt Your Anxiety, and Finally Calm Down is written by marriage and family therapist Dr. Kathleen Smith and draws on Bowen theory. This is a theory of human behaviour that sees anxiety as being rooted in social relationships, and thus work on social relationships must be done to improve anxiety.

The book is divided into four sections: the anxious self, anxious relationships, anxious career, and anxious world (which includes social media and politics/religion). Anxiety is described in an emotional sense, and the book doesn’t specifically address anxiety disorders.

Each chapter is based on an example of a client she has worked with. At the end of each chapter, there are questions to ask yourself to go through the steps of observe, evaluate, and interrupt, as well as things to practice

The book begins with background information on Bowen theory, including the existence of a true self and a pseudo-self that’s susceptible to relationship pressures. “Under-developed beliefs” are susceptible to influence by others, and to work past this the therapy involves developing guiding principles on which to base one’s actions.

Differentiation of oneself (including our own thoughts and feelings) from others is a major theme throughout the book. Greater differentiation is equated with greater maturity. The author also observes that people who are more differentiated tend to have more and deeper friendships.

The author outlines a number of strategies that families tend to use: distance, conflict arising from emotional reactivity, triangles, over-functioning roles (parenting one’s own parents), and under-functioning roles (helpless child).

Bowen theory is a type of family systems theory, so that can probably give you some idea of the lens the author uses in this book. One of the fundamental concepts is that how we behave within our family predicts how we’ll behave in social groups, and to fully address issues in other relationships we have to look to our family relationships first. Community is described as the cake rather than the icing, and feeling settled and calm would be unlikely without having community.

This doesn’t overlap all that well with my own worldview, but I thought everything was explained well and it represented a novel way of looking at things. I liked the idea of taking an astronaut’s view rather than a ground view. This was framed as a way to help us calm down and handle situations more maturely, and while on the face of it that does sound a bit condescending, it wasn’t presented that way in the book.

What did provoke some internal grumblies for me was when the author minimized the number of bad bosses out there, saying most bosses are imperfect and anxious just like anyone else. While that may be true, it sounds like it comes from the privileged position of not having had to deal with stigma, bullying, and cruelty in the workplace.

There were also a few comments here and there that weren’t all that significant but left me wondering, huh? She wrote that while cutting off and staying off of social media might work for a monk or ferry boat captain, most of us will need to be online. It’s minor but it was just one of a few things that left me thinking that the author and I don’t look at the world in quite the same way.

I think this book would be a good read for people who can relate to the idea of poor differentiation. Probably a big part of why I didn’t really relate to the book is that, whatever my other issues might be, I’m well-differentiated from my family. If I wasn’t, I think the book would have been a lot more relevant.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you NetGalley..

This was my first book by this author. I'm typically not a huge fan of self-help books, but my anxiety often gets the better of me. I'm glad I picked this up. There is a good mix of information, advice, and humor.

3.5 stars

When life gets crazy and stressful, I find myself needing some time to just take a breath and calm down. This little book has a good mix of practical ways to help feel less anxious and insecure. There are chapters devoted to family, friends, relationships, work, and even social media. As someone who has struggled with anxiety for much of my life, I appreciated that the author made this book accessible and humorous. There are practical ideas and methods in the book to confront anxiety. I learned a few things about myself while reading this book. I learned that I need to work on managing myself in stressful situations rather than trying to change people and emotions within a certain situation.
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This book is available on December 31st, just in time for a new decade. If you read this book, you may just find some ways to implement the ideas that are discussed in the book for a little bit less anxiety in your life. I can’t change the world. But I can work on how I react to things in my world.
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Thank you to NetGalley and Hatchette Books for my copy. All opinions are my own.

I am a big fan of self-help books in general but I am especially drawn to the idea of confronting our own anxieties. In Everything Isn't Terrible, author Kathleen Smith presents an approachable explanation of the Bowen theory of therapy which involves not only looking at ourselves as individuals but also at our relationship systems...

"Because when we feel anxious, we often try to make other people change. We try to calm everyone else down so we can finally relax. But if you can work on managing yourself in these relationships, it’s likely that your family, your workplace, and even the greater world will calm down a little too."

Smith uses this approach in the work she does with her therapy clients and shares valuable examples in her writing regarding this methodology then gives us questions and ways to put these ideas into practice.

I really enjoyed this hands-on approach and how interactive this book felt while reading it. The writing is accessible and also shares things we can implement into our lives in a large variety of relationships and circumstances.

I love the idea that while we cannot always change the circumstances we are in, we can change how we react to them. "By changing yourself, you change the equation."

Thank you to NetGalley and Hachette Books for an advanced copy. All opinions are my own.

Licensed therapist Kathleen Smith breaks down a number of common situations/relationships that often cause people great anxiety and what they can do to try and combat these feelings and resulting fears. The examples she gives are pretty specific scenarios, but I definitely found it easy to relate the cases back to myself. I found myself often saying “whoa, that’s totally me!”. Is this going to cure the most severe cases of anxiety? No, probably not. But I do think it has the potential to be very helpful to some for thr day to day anxious moments many of us experience. This was a very quick and easy read too, I finished it in two sittings and I walked away with quite a few takeaways. One thing I wish there was a chapter about is anxiety as it relates to parenting - but that might be a topic with enough to fill it’s own book. Everything Isnt Terrible is certainly worth the read if you find yourself often anxious!

Kathleen Smith shares her experience with and knowledge of the Bowen method of therapy. This therapy helps address anxiety in all different types of relationships (family, friends, love, community and career) by asking that we observe, evaluate, and interrupt our own automatic responses to things in relationships that make us anxious.

I found this book to be very helpful in showing how we can calm ourselves and change the dynamics of a problematic relationship or interaction by understanding the part we play in the situation, taking responsibility for that, and offering other ways to respond more appropriately.

The book is also well organized, and easy to understand. I think everyone would benefit from reading it. We all have parts of our lives that could be improved, this book offers some practical information on how to do so.

My thanks to NetGalley and Hachette Books for allowing me to read a copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. All opinions expressed here are my own.

As a psychology student, I picked up this book by curiosity, and I was not disappointed. I really like reading books on this type of topic, and this one was very instructive and organized. It's not a book that will teach you how to cope with extreme anxiety or trauma situations, but it will help you manage small to medium amounts of anxiety in your day-to-day life, deal with anxiety-inducing people, and be more mature in your interpersonal relationships. I would recommend this book as a gift for someone who has problems with anxiety that don't necessarily need them to go through therapy but that still bother them on a daily basis.

Sorry, I really tried, numerous times, to get through this book. Just couldn’t do it. It just seems like everything in here was covered by other books, and a bit better. I really did not learn anything new. I am sure that others may find this book to be quite helpful, Therefore, I won’t be posting this review anywhere else, so as not to “poison the well”. Best of luck to the author.

This is probably a helpful book for a very specific set of problems with a rather specific answer for all of them. Basically, the author is a therapist who follows Bowen theory, which says that all of our problems are because of their existence in our relationships. So if you're anxious or stressed or in a terrible marriage or miserable at work, it can all be fixed by being more mature in your relationships in each sphere.

Each section starts out with Smith telling the story of a client who was in a miserable situation, and how she helped them see their part in it and react differently. Then she has you ask yourself questions and talks about healthier ways to manage that kind of relationship. It's good advice, but it kind of seems like the whole thing could be a well written blog post and then you could just go "do the same thing in family/social media/friendship/jobs...".

I personally have had anxiety all of my life, since early childhood when I was badly bullied in school after school (we moved at least once a year and I was tiny, nerdy, shy and dressed funny) and dealt with some pretty serious childhood traumas and then more traumas in adulthood. I can't say that any of the advice in this book really seemed helpful for my personal anxiety. This isn't the book to turn to when you have PTSD from domestic violence, the murder of a family member or multiple sexual assaults, for instance, or can't stop worrying about your child's terrifying health battles.

That said, there is some good advice here for handling interpersonal relationships, especially learning healthier ways to cope with unhealthy people.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for purpose of review.

Really enjoyed this book. It was witty and to the point it was also backed by clinical information and l felt it was a good mixture of advice and research. I feel for those struggling with anxiety the topic of inner reflection and understanding personal triggers along with techniques to help get past these moments are grounded in how to refocus our gut responses which are generally what causes the initial anxieties to surface. All in all I believe this is a good beginners tool for those ready to look inwardly and focus on our own feelings. I received this book from NetGalley and honestly enjoyed it.

I liked this one and I agree with the author about many things she wrote about. I would like to read more from Ms. Smith.

This book is an excellent and helpful resource for anybody with problems. Yep, it's that general! I opened this book thinking it would be a book about anxiety, and it is, to a certain extent...but it's not about Generalized Anxiety Disorder. It's more universal than that (although a pretty big chunk of the population has GAD, unfortunately) so can help a wider variety of people.

Basically, the book is about the Bowen method of approaching anxious problems. The Bowen method focuses on how you interact with other people. I'd never heard of this before, and it was quite interesting to learn about! Kathleen Smith does a great job presenting the ideas in an organized and easy-to-understand fashion. The book is split into 4 sections about your anxious self, family, career, and world. The one about self and family were the most insightful to me. But maybe that's because I'm a college student and haven't really tackled the whole "career" business yet. We'll see in a couple years, I guess.

Anyway, this book offered me a new way of looking at things and was written in an engaging, friendly, and nonjudgmental way. I highly recommend it for anybody who feels like the world is a little too big, scary, and/or overwhelming.

*Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review! I will be reading Kathleen Smith's other books soon!*

What a great book with actionable suggestions for processing and handing your anxiety! Author Kathleen Smith uses a very down to earth voice that the reader can relate to, rather than it being a jargon-filled clinical manual. There's a lot of humor here: I laughed out loud in the section on career anxiety, when Smith talks about the current generation's disappointments as a result of picking career paths based on television shows: "I wonder how many surgical residents became angry when they discovered they wouldn't be having as much sex as Grey's Anatomy characters." What's also helpful is that no judgment here. Rather, the patient anecdotes and the author's own admissions allow the reader to feel that she is not alone in her anxiety.

The book itself is broken down into four parts: anxiety based on 1. self, 2. relationships, 3. career, and 4. the larger world. It also includes an appendix that includes terminology related to her Bowen methodology, a guiding principles worksheet, and further resources. Readers can pick and choose which sections pertain to their own needs. For example, if your anxiety does not stem from job concerns, you may not find the material there as applicable as, say, the chapter on family dynamics.

Each chapter also comes with reflection questions so that you can take steps for dealing with your anxiety in a real way. I also appreciated the tenor of the book as a whole, which is more about the stress we place on ourselves thinking the world is on fire, when really, we can all take action to quell those flames.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hachette Books for providing this review copy.

Stress has become one of the top killers in the US due to its link to numerous diseases. Yet the human brain continues to ignore positive thoughts in favor of negatives ones due to an old survival trait that we really need to evolve out of as a species.

In this book, Kathleen Smith examines a few of the top things that cause stress in the modern world. You'll get some good advice about what to focus on and what not to let yourself dwell over. You'll also learn why your mind wants you to believe that everything is terrible, even when it actually isn't.

Everyone will glean something different from this book. Read the sections that are most applicable to your life and skim/skip the rest. Also, be sure to give yourself time to actually reflect on the various nuggets of wisdom and the questions that each chapter poses.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC. This review contains my honest, unbiased opinion.

really enjoyed the first part of this book, felt like everything was hitting all the right spots, laughed a few times, made me think about some things and ways to handle my anxiety. the second part was less helpful for me personally, but still interesting. the third and fourth parts were where i struggled, i either didn't 'need' them or they were missing whatever the first two parts had for me. i am sure those parts will be helpful to some people though, and perhaps the parts that were helpful to me won't be helpful to others. i guess it depends on the areas of your life that give you anxiety - some people may have anxiety in all areas, some not. so, still worth a read, just may not find all of it helpful.

Felt like this was going to be a great book, but it came across as "too clinical". Even though it is written by a credible author and doctor, I still wanted it to read and resonate with a "regular" person. There was some good information, but overall not great in my book. Sorry. Thank you for the opportunity to read and review your book.