As I've gotten older and further into my thirties, I've found self-help-ish books aren't always my jam. I get tired of the fluffy quotes and toxic positivity they teem with. Y'all, that is not what this book is, and I'm so grateful for that. This is a book about the realities of life. This book acknowledges that sometimes life can be real tough, but that doesn't mean you can't still get through and find happiness. With that, happiness isn't a generic "thing" rather it's something you have to explore understand for yourself. The section I liked the most was one on the words we choose and how these simple choices can make a world of difference. Overall, this was a spin on navigating life that was authentic and real in a space that can often be anything but this. Thanks to NetGalley for the early look at this March 2022 release!

3,5 stars! I liked the overall message of this book and found myself reading just a chapter at a time to really let the information sink in. I feel like this would be a good coffee table book to refer back to as needed, Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!

What I loved about Cy Wakeman's autobiographical self-help book, LIFE'S MESSY, LIVE HAPPY is her willingness to air her dirty laundry of two divorces, raising four boys (at times eight boys when counting step-children), homelessness, and thriving as a successful businesswoman. Some people would keep certain things hidden, masked if you will, to only show their highlight reel. Not Wakeman.

The other great thing about her personality is that she acknowledges where she is privileged. At times, perhaps she wasn't. When her first long-term relationship ended, she called to her father for help. She wanted to go back home. (I've done that - twice.) But her father rejected her which caused years of distance and walls between them. She went to live by a lake in a tent and would shower at her office. Wakeman isn't resentful. She loved her time at the water which is an image that repeats throughout her life. The more recent anecdotes have her living out the COVID-19 pandemic at her house in Mexico on the oceanfront. From a tent to multiple houses and appearing on television's Say Yes to the Dress.

To be honest, when I read the title, I expected a vapid self-help book from someone with so much privilege and no sense of "the real world" that it would a quick read leaving me unmoved. I am happy to be wrong. Though there are parts I believe an editor should have suggested cutting out, like an entire chapter in italics of a letter the author wrote to one of her sons. It's lengthy and offers nothing to the reading. It may have been cathartic for Wakeman to write it, but even in non-fiction every component has to be relevant. This chapter simply wasn't.

There's more memoir than advice. According to research, (I was listening to an episode of Science Vs podcast embedded), people remember personal anecdotes better than statistics. Wakeman could have approached this book with globs of data and science about mindfulness, self-care, trauma and abuse, and divorce; she didn't. She opted for very detailed, sometimes repetitive, personal stories. They make an impact. They give a reader something to then tell a friend or client when recommending this book.

LIFE'S MESSY, LIVE HAPPY is a book that I allowed to germinate as I took almost a month to read it. Wakeman breaks down what it is that people want from other people: to be chosen. This is often engrained in girls. She clearly wants people who are at the stage of looking for partners (life or business) to learn from her mistakes and lessons. Maybe you're searching for a job. Wakeman wants you to consider that your idea of a "dream" job doesn't have to be what society defines as successful like a corner office with underlings or being internet famous. The position that's truly the best for YOU and can accommodate your needs and your goals. She wants that to be a place that allows you to grow and welcomes your talent.

Okay, that's often easy as a dream than reality. How many of us end up in dead end jobs for the paycheck? I'd say 99% of friends. Yet a few do find their ways to what seems like their "dream" jobs only to find that they have no time for themselves, their families, they're exhausted, they need to be "on" all the time, emails never end, and what was a dream ends up a big disappointment. Dead end and low on the ladder in a warehouse or one of the big dogs with a New York salary? LIFE'S MESSY asks you to figure out your needs.

The chapter "Love Big and Let Go" features an incredible story of Wakeman's time as a social worker when an African father was going through the death of his six-year-old daughter. I want you to read that! The TL;dr is that people view death in very different ways. In this father's culture, he wasn't groomed to be sobbing, wailing, and depressed. He saw dying young as a bit of a blessing because someone so young has not had the time to see the injustices and violence of the world. She was just a little girl riding her bike and loving life.

Wakeman's themes run through a variety of what it is to be human: forgiveness, vulnerability, living with anger and resentment, ending and beginnings, grief, growth, and acceptance. She pretty much covers the Serenity Prayer but with her own words.

Summary:

Cy Wakeman's memoir/self-help book, Life's Messy, Live Happy: Things Don't Have to be Perfect for You to be Content is one I recommend. It will not be relatable to everyone -- as noted, she checks her privilege -- yet, I believe that her heartful stories can inspire anyone. If you like Brené Brown, you'll like this.

This book was a good book about the author’s life and the experiences they had and overcome that could help anyone be happy. I enjoyed this book, but didn’t agree with all the author’s thoughts and decisions in some of their stories.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a copy to honestly review.

As a self-proclaimed perfectionist (or someone who tries to be, at least), I was interested in this book that focused on the fact that contentment isn't found in perfection. This book may help readers reframe their focus and mindset, and thus live a more content life. The author infused personal experiences and life lessons learned throughout the book. Tips are clean, concise, and easy to apply to your own life. It's a good book, and a wonderful message, for the current times, as well.

C;y Wakerman is a go to for those searching out leadership improvement. She has real life day to day approach to improving your contact and sharing yourself with others. I always seek her out when I need a little boost.

With "Life's Messy, Live Happy: Things Don't Have to Be Perfect for You to Be Content," Cy Wakeman, a successful business owner and teacher/speaker, explores how a simple change in thinking can change everything one believes about their own happiness.

Do you remember that short-lived television series called "Bob?" It starred Jason Alexander as Bob Patterson, a popular motivational speaker whose own life never quite lived up to his teachings.

I thought about "Bob" a lot while reading "Life's Messy, Live Happy," a book that seems to find its inspiration across a philosophical Grand Canyon of sorts with pieces of prosperity thinking/theology, A Course in Miracles ("Nothing but Love is Real" came to mind again and again), and a host of others as Wakeman shares story after story about her own life and how she used shifts in thinking and in her own language to right her own course and get herself back on the right path.

At the core of "Life's Messy, Live Happy" is Wakeman herself, an arguably successful business owner, mother, and community member who has experienced business success amidst having also experienced a variety of life challenges including financial losses, divorces, the pandemic, and family stressors among others.

The problem, at least for me, is that at no point in "Life's Messy, Live Happy" did I ever actually feel Wakeman's happiness or, for that matter, contentment. As we get toward book's end, she begins to identify finding herself in a meaningful community and happy parenting but a good majority of "Life's Messy, Live Happy" finds Wakeman mired in the muck and simply changing her attitude to get through it all.



First off, there's very little in "Life's Messy, Live Happy" that is actually new in the spectrum of self-help. It's not new material. There aren't really any new insights. There's no new research, in fact no communicated "facts" at all, indicating validation for this material. Quite often, "Life's Messy, Live Happy" reads like "I do this. It works for me. You should do this. If you don't, you're stupid and going to stay stuck." No, she doesn't say these things literally, but it's the prosperity theology bones in this literary structure basically saying you determine your own outcome. While I certainly agree that attitude matters, self-talk matters, and we can impact our experiences by changing these things, an awful lot of "Life's Messy, Live Happy" feels more like a control freak grabbing for control in difficult circumstances than someone actually healing themselves through a different approach to difficult circumstances.

I wanted to love "Life's Messy, Live Happy" and I fully expected to do so. However, the book often felt to me like a self-help guru's condescending lectures on everything I'm doing wrong followed by overly simplistic fixes promising miracles without any evidence. Wakeman herself acknowledges that her own life was mired in muck while she was writing this book, less than two years ago, largely a result of multiple losses and financial uncertainties that were pandemic related.

"Life's Messy, Live Happy" comes off as condescending, arrogant, and narcissistic.

For example, Wakeman has a chapter here based upon reframing situations with the word "given," an approach that encourages a change in perspective and self-talk. However, what I found interesting was that Wakeman's approach was to apply this technique toward employees uncertain and uneasy about returning to the office during a still raging pandemic. So, she basically applies her technique outside herself by encouraging these employees to say "Given I want to keep my job and I'm required to return to the office, how can I...."

What a complete jerk.

She never once goes internal and says "Given my employees are concerned about returning to the work setting amidst a pandemic, how can I as their leader better support them?"

In fact, nearly every example Wakeman provides finds the core problem outside herself. Relationship failures? It was the men. Business failures? It was the circumstances or the employees or the pandemic.

There's a story involving Wakeman's sister receiving an organ transplant that Wakeman quite literally says "I got her..." I half pictured Wakeman herself in the operating room doing the surgery. However, the crux of the story is that the sister didn't really express gratitude for her sister and family's support and, in fact, seemingly rebelled against the experience. Wakeman's "woke" moment seems to involve that she was "giving" too much to her sister and giving help that wasn't being asked for.

For the record, that's not giving. That's called being a control freak.

I would argue that there are healthy teachings in "Life's Messy, Live Happy" but that, perhaps, Wakeman isn't yet far enough away from the muck to have written them with clarity and fullness of meaning. Rather than being inspired by "Life's Messy, Live Happy," I often found myself troubled by it and even outright depressed by Wakeman's stories of surviving life's messiness by changing her self-talk and choosing a different attitude but never really exploring the roots of how that muck and mire developed in the first place. She starts to get there in exploring a common factor in her two divorces, yet she seems to always return to overly simplified catch phrases rather than digging deeper.

There's an obvious goodness to Wakeman, a fact evidenced by a 30-year friend who wanted Wakeman by her side in her final days with cancer and by Wakeman's ability to maintain financial success even through a variety of hardships. I really wanted "Life's Messy, Live Happy" to more deeply explore the foundation of these successes because I can't help but think that's where we'd find the answers to how one maintains contentment even when the surrounding world is chaotic and unstable and sad and filled with life's great challenges.

However, "Life's Messy, Live Happy" never quite gets there. Instead, much of "Life's Messy, Live Happy" feels like, at least to me, condescending one-note advice giving that's turned outward instead of inward. It too often feels like "Bob," a consummate adviser who never quite fully grasps his own advice. There's a "fake it til' you make it" mentality here that can certainly work in some life circumstances, but it also speaks much of her own privilege and it just plain doesn't always work AND, perhaps most important, is woefully lacking in humanity.

I'm thrilled when people resonate with a book. There's no doubt there will be others who proclaim here the kernels of wisdom they take from "Life's Messy, Live Happy" and for that I'm grateful. We all need different tools to guide us along our life journeys and while one may not work for me others will find it extraordinarily meaningful.

All I can do is share my own experiences. For me, "Life's Messy, Live Happy" projects teachings that I find unhealthy and, perhaps, this is why I'm much more passionate than usual in my critique of the book. As someone who has lived in the worlds of prosperity and new thought-styled philosophy, I've sought to explore different and more meaningful ways of manifesting my own successes, positive self-talk, and ways of getting through life's hardest times.

Despite everything, I do essentially agree with the very fundamental message here - when life gets messy, it is still possible to survive and thrive.

The title drew me in, and I wasn’t disappointed. I’m also in the process of turning lemons into lemonade, and appreciated the authors real life perspectives. This is not a scientific, footnoted manual, They have their place, yet I found this firsthand experience an enjoyable and satisfying read.

Life's Messy, Live Happy - Things Don't Have to Be Perfect for You to be Content is a book that can help a lot of people reframe their mindsets and live a more content life. I love how the author related her life experiences and lessons learned to build the framework for this book! She presents the info in an easy to understand way, and in a way that makes it seem applicable to your own life.

“You don’t have to be perfect to be content.” The main takeaway from this book is so simple and important. I learned so much reading this and highly recommend it. Great points and easy to understand. Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy.

The message behind this book I think is an important one to hear and is right in the title. The idea that you can only be happy if you have everything under control is a pretty pervasive one and also sets people up for failure. The truth is you can be happy even if things in your life are somewhat messy. The book set out to make the case for why that is so, and how you can achieve it. I think it is important to note that this book is more based on the author's personal experience than science. If you are looking for data-driven writing, look to another book. If you are looking for a personal story used to set out how messy happiness can be achieved this is a good title for you. The part of the book I find the most interesting was about the use of language, basically, how are you taking to yourself when challenges arise.
I received an ARC copy of this book thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press. This is my honest review.