#ReviewShare #BookReview #SelfHelp - The Mind-Made Prison by Mateo Tabatabai

The Mind-Made Prison: Overcoming Limiting Beliefs and Manifesting Personal Transformation by Mateo Tabatabai
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As always, let's get the negatives out of the way first. This book desperately needs a good editor. Plural tenses, upper / lower case and basic sentence construction is muddled in ways an edited book won't be. Are the mistakes so bad you cannot understand a sentence? Not all the time.

Theoretically, this is a very good book. It breaks things down in ways the reader can 'diagnose' the problem but solution or method is nowhere near in front of you after you finish this book. The best way to explain this is to go off course a little bit so please bear with the old cat man.

The best way to sum up the contents of this book is with a quote from the movie Goodwill Hunting (Robin Williams & Matt Damon).

(extracted from IMDB)

<<<>>>Sean: So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, "once more unto the breach dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. And look at you... I don't see an intelligent, confident man... I see a cocky, scared shitless kid. But you're a genius Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my f***ing life apart. You're an orphan right?

[Will nods]

Sean: You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally... I don't give a shit about all that, because you know what, I can't learn anything from you, I can't read in some f***in' book. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I'm fascinated. I'm in. But you don't want to do that do you sport? You're terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief.<<<<>>>

This book misses significant milestones which relates to the human mind. Birth, death, separations, divorce, love, war. I do not know the author personally but when talking about 'transformation' theory will only take you so far. Beyond this you need examples and personal experience. From his bio, I understand that he is too young for all of these experiences but getting people involved and applying his theories with their life stories will work much better for his readers. Just the old cat man's two cents worth.

Disclosure - As a Quality Reads UK Book Club member, I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. I received no monetary compensation for my book review. This book review is based on my thoughts, opinion and understanding of the book. This book review does not reflect the opinion of other book club members.


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