About the Book

The bad news: Your parents lied to you about who you are and what life is about. The good news: Most parents didn’t do it intentionally. They told you what they learned from their parents. Are you ready to: Look at the world differently? Challenge the beliefs that you were force-fed as a child? Live life on your terms, being free and at peace with yourself? Stop passing fiction to your own children and their children? … then you are ready for Facing the Truth of Your Life. Some self-help books promise simple solutions that sound easy and might even feel good. Yet the fact about your personal truth is that getting down to it, facing it, and getting to the other side of it, involves some pain. There’s no way around it. The way out is through. Facing the Truth of Your Life is a tough, enlightening and demanding book that delivers. If you’re ready to grow fast, then it’s time to read this book.

Reviewed by Gisela Dixon for Readers' Favorite

Facing the Truth of Your Life by Merle Yost is an excellent non-fiction self-help book. Facing the Truth of Your Life is like having one's own psychotherapist at hand and, indeed, addresses a lot of the questions that psychotherapy does. The book is divided into several parts, each with its own set of short chapters such as Reframing Your Life, Digging In, Walking Through the Darkness, Childhood Re-imagined, etc. These focus on the Self and how, why, and when we became who we are today; all of the internal and external influences that worked on us and are still working on us, the links to childhood especially in the case of traumatic childhoods, and how to overcome these obstacles that prevent one from feeling happy and exploring one's potential. There are also several lists, questions, and short case histories throughout this book.

Facing the Truth of Your Life is an extremely well written and empathetic book. I constantly felt that it is probably more worthwhile reading and absorbing this book than going to a counselor or therapist. Therapy certainly can be and is a money-making business at the end of the day while, on the other hand, reading a book like this allows one to process one's feelings at one's own pace and essentially be one's own counselor. I especially liked the section on Victim Identity Disorder as well as the section on how to raise happy, healthy, functional children and not continuing the cycle of dysfunction into the next generation. All in all, the useful subject matter and the compassionate style of writing make this a worthwhile read!