Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with a free ebook copy in exchange for an honest review.

The concept of this book is very interesting - focusing on mental health of activists is incredibly imporant, as we all know it's hard to avoid burnout when your job is to point out problems to people who don't want to see it.

Even though I'm not skilled in meditation, neither do I do it regularly (even though I should), the only thing I learned in this book is that Lynne Sedgmore is a coach in mindfulness for activists, she likes to talk about how successful she is, and she likes to refer almost all her ideas to other people's works.

Given I was reading an ARC, this book needed a lot of further editing as to avoid repeating the same sentences in the same paragraphs, write more creatively when refering to other people's works, and of course, review the references to chapters of the book that don't exist (many times reference to chapter 8, while the book ends with chapter 7).

I believe with more editing this book could be interesting for activists who are new to mindfulness, but I won't be reading another work from this author.

The idea that activists should have some kind of mindfulness practice to stave off burnout and avoid succumbing to hopelessness is definitely one that resonates with me, but I found this book fairly jumbled in its explanations of what Lynne Sedgmore actually considers ‘presence’ - as she terms it - to be.

Some of her descriptions just sound like fairly basic meditation and mindfulness. In other places she talks about out of body experiences, and the ‘transmission’ of presence as an energetic connection people can make with others. The sections on ‘personal’ and ‘professional’ presence read like a self-help/business type book, talking about confidence and effective leadership. Overall I just don’t think I came out of this book with a clear idea of what presence is, or how to achieve it if I wanted to.

Also adding to the feeling of disjointedness were the random chapters talking about the climate crisis more generally. It seems a fair assumption that most people picking up a book subtitled ‘A Profound Antidote to Climate Anxiety’ probably already have some knowledge of climate peril, and don’t need it re-explained by Sedgmore simply summarising things other people have said about it. Similarly the section on what individuals can do about it - which essentially boiled down to ‘eat less meat and avoid fossil fuel-powered transport methods’ felt fairly reductive and not particularly useful within what this book purports to be about.

Love this book, and I do recommend! I do notice that I have some complicated feelings about it. Because it was even better than expected, both the frequent hits and the few misses were more obvious.

It explained a lot of things really well, using even personal examples to explain. But at random, I couldn't follow because the book assumed I was familiar with certain spiritual terms and it makes me feel left out a bit. The book takes anxiety and burn out seriously and isn't ableist about it (which a lot of spiritual books are unfortunately and was such a welcome change for me), but because of that when thr book repeats the common ableist trope about the rich and privileged having personality disorders it hit harder. At that point in the book that hurt because I was loving this book.

*Thinking that rich people are bad people because you think they have personality disorders doesn't harm the rich, but it harms those with those types of psychological disabilities who just have to keep hearing everyone think they're bad people. The rich do what they do, because they can. It's the impact of privilege, not a personality disorder. It's a choice they make.

For someone who struggles cognitively and with energy levels the short chapters and subchapters was welcome. It made taking breaks easier without losing track.

The book reads like having a lovely conversation with someone you agree with very regularly but not always. It is spiritual and helpful while practical. The author tries to recognise privilege and be intersectional. And is open to learning. I hope therefor any future books veers away from diagnosing the privileged with anything more than privilege. Because I do hope this author will write more. I enjoyed this.