Becoming Okay (When You're Not Okay)

We can't avoid pain, but we can learn how not to turn our pain into suffering, and this book provides a clear path for doing so. Time and time again I have had friends, coaches, therapists, and healthcare providers tell me that I need to learn acceptance, but this is the first time I have ever had anyone provide specific, easy-to-understand steps I could follow to learn how to do that.

Dr. Bryan Bushman's approach incorporates aspects of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Buddhist philosophy, and neurobiology. There are several acronyms you'll need to learn to remember the steps of his approach. I found these a little overwhelming at first, but you can download worksheets from his website that will guide you through some of the exercises, and those worksheets really helped me in learning the process. Appendices, endnotes, and references are also provided for those who want to delve deeper.

Even though I have already read quite a bit in this subject area, I really liked how Dr. Bushman presented these ideas. He shares some great teaching stories and he uses some very helpful analogies. Some of the stories are also really funny--I loved the parable of being dead right, and that lesson is likely to stick with me. I also appreciate that the author tried to incorporte some diversity in his examples.

The one thing I would have liked to see different would be more examples of people dealing with physical pain and chronic illness. I understand that the same approach applies, but it would have been nice to see a couple examples as opposed to all of the focus on emotional pain.

I wasn't familiar with Dr. Bushman's work prior to reading this book, but he does such a fine job establishing trust and rapport with the reader, partway through the book, I realized that I'd be happy to sit and discuss these ideas with him over a beverage. I think most people could understand and benefit from this book, and I highly recommend it.

I was provided an ARC through NetGalley that I volunteered to review. Because I have not seen the final published version, I cannot comment on the final editing and formatting. The issues I noticed in the ARC were sufficiently minor and infrequent enough that I doubt they would interfere with most readers' enjoyment of the book.

Becoming Okay (when you're not Okay) is an interesting book on how to deal with pain and suffering. I loved the detailed description of SIFT, TIRED and ACCEPT. I also loved the Rose metaphor that the author, Bryan Bushman, has used to explain suffering and pain. The extensive examples to describe situations and why people behaved so was an eye-opener. Becoming Okay (When you're not Okay) is also a book about self-love. It is okay to be not okay. It is okay to accept things the way they are, but at the same time, being aware of how it might affect us in the future. Once you are aware, you will work towards making your life better.