An erudite book about nervous system awareness that is too long on personal examples rather than collective solutions.
An attorney-turned-coach teaches readers how to rewire their brains and nervous systems in this self-help from Stephenson-Laws.
The first part of this instructional book on how to give yourself a neurological overhaul focuses on the practice of recognizing patterns through nonjudgmental awareness. Stephenson-Laws introduces the concept of “observer capacity,” or the ability to witness your physiology. In other words, she encourages separating the self from the experience (i.e., saying “I have anxiety” instead of “I am anxious”) and then explores the body’s “alarm system”: the ways the nervous system is formed through early caregiver interactions, direct experience, and cultural and family transmission. Readers also learn about the “inner protector,” whose cautionary function may prevent people from embracing the good things in life. Stephenson-Laws believes that emotions can also manifest physically, such as through jaw tension (anger), throat tightness (inability to express needs), or lower back pain (feeling unsupported). Readers are guided to return to their “neutral zones,” like earlobes, elbows, or pinky fingers, to remind themselves that they are safe. Part Two transforms this awareness into “gentle experiments” that nudge the nervous system into new territory. The author introduces the psychological concept of the “window of tolerance,” or the “zone where you can handle stress without becoming overwhelmed or shutting down,” and the factors that influence it, including sleep, hormones, anniversary reactions (e.g., responding to anniversary dates of particular traumas) and “social battery depletion.” The author distinguishes between accurate, historical, and capacity anxiety and describes the many guises of the “night guard,” which is the threat-scanning part of the nervous system that can disrupt sleep. The final chapters explore healing through healthy connection, addressing boundaries, nervous system syncing, and familial inheritance. In the end, the author emphasizes that real change is possible thanks to neuroplasticity.
Stephenson-Laws’ original approach combines neuroscience, somatic awareness, and lived experience. The reader will find plenty of practical tools to allow one to shift from reacting to responding, like the “three-step practice” of noticing, validating, and making a “tiny adjustment” to behavior. Readers are also equipped with scripts, such as engaging the inner protector with questions like, “What danger are you protecting me from?” In addition, established concepts like the “window of tolerance” are given a unique spin, such as identifying your capacity as either a “window day” (lots of capacity) or a “keyhole day” (very little capacity). More to the practical and less conceptual side of things, the author outlines helpful exercises to bring people back into their bodies, like “The Butterfly Hug,” which involves crossing the arms over the chest and tapping alternating shoulders for one to two minutes. The book also gives the cultural lenses through which to view phenomena like anxiety: “Some Indigenous communities view anxiety as disconnection from community or land rather than individual pathology.” The book’s eclectic structure includes everything from checklists and worksheets to conversation transcripts and poems, allowing readers various ways to engage with the content. However, the sheer volume of information may overwhelm readers seeking actionable advice in a more digestible format. While the author’s interactions with her son illustrate her lived experience, the deductions from said personal experience sometimes feel superfluous.
An erudite book about nervous system awareness that is too long on personal examples rather than collective solutions.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9798298590181
Page Count: 317
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
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