How to Rule the World from Your Couch by Laura Day
Release date: 2009 / 267 pages
Synopsis (from front cover): 
“…Laura Day teaches you or your company how to create success in any area by using yoru brain in unique and compelling ways so that your innate intuition can propel you ahead to success solutions.”
Review: I was recently contacted by Day’s publisher to see if I would be interested in receiving a copy of this for a review on my site. I was initially reluctant, since I rarely read self-help books and was a bit busier than usual with terms ending and beginning and Thanksgiving right around the corner. But I agreed and was at first a little trepidacious about some of the terminology; however, I ultimately enjoyed it quite a bit and would recommend it to others.
I think I’ll start my review with a favorite quote from Ranier Maria Rilke that has seen me through many a troubled time:
…have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
As someone who can be a bit of a control-freak, this quote has comforted me at times when I didn’t know how to act my way out of a painful place or a tough decision. At this point in my life, I am gratified to report that Rilke’s words have never let me down either.
So, my inital surprise at reading words like “mediumship” and “body heat telepathy” were fairly quickly revisioned as “compassion” and “empathy.” I am fascinated by physics — my grandfather was a physics professor and I have a close friend with a passion for this, too. So much of what Day shares is like a personal way to harness the concepts of physics to do good for yourself and others.
For example:
“Simply stated, healing is directing energy to change something into a desired state of being. If you have fried an egg or made an ice cube, intervened in an argument or used a good idea to turn your company around… or simply made a meal that was loved by your family, you have changed energy and performed a healing. What is energy? Everything is composed of energy: your chair, your body, your environment, and you life — everything is made up of energy, which, in turn, has patterns that can be changed with intervention. That is what healing is all about, and it helps to think of healing as having two key components: energy and attention, which together constitute action.
So, my initial surprise at the terminology quickly passed, and I realized that so many of Day’s recommendations have brought me to my current, very happy place in my life.
I like the idea of allowing a new reality to settle slowly around us. I tend to want to actively problem-solve — to force change, as it were… As my husband has kindly told me in situations where I wanted to change/modify the behavior of those around me, “I’m not the teacher of the world.” So reading a book like this that teaches us to embrace our intuition and calmly await transformation was a healing experience of sorts — especially since I just turned 40 and have spent some time imagining the decade ahead.
So, while this isn’t my normal milieu, I do recommend it — even to book clubs, surprisingly. I could see great discussion occuring naturally as a result of having read this, in fact! Anyone else heard of Day?
Sounds like something I would not typically read, so I’d like to be stretched by doing so. Like you, the quote from Rainer Marie Rilke has and continues to resonate with me and encourages me along life’s way. Thanks for the opportunity to win this book. Was there a winner from last week? I may have missed that somehow.
Theresa
Hi Theresa! Glad to find another fan of Rilke… So inspiring, especially when most needed!
I’m working on the winner right now… Stop back again soon!