I will start this review by telling you that I was working late one night and was really bored. I found this book on the bookshelf, and out of lack of anything better to do, I read it.

The book is called Love Is Letting Go of Fear by Gerald G. Jampolsky, M.D. It was written in 1970 and was originally published by Celestial Arts and has been most recently published through Bantam Books. It is a paperback book and has 131 pages. ISBN 0553273337

Jampolsky begins by telling how in 1975 he found himself divorced, drinking heavily and having back problems; he was miserable and unhappy. He viewed himself as a victim of the world in which he lived, and blamed his misery and anger on others and the world in general. But then he came across some writings called A Course in Miracles, published by the Foundation for Inner Peace, that changed his life. He says that the Course is a form of self-taught “spiritual psychotherapy” that teaches: “there are only two emotions, love and fear. The first is our natural inheritance, and the other our mind manufactures. It suggests that we can learn to let go of fear by practicing forgiveness and seeing everyone, including ourselves, as blameless and guiltless.” He says that the Course taught him to take responsibility for his own emotions.

Jampolsky says that our faulty beliefs tell us that we will find happiness in other people and other external things such as cars, homes, and jobs. When these things are as we expect them to be, we are happy. When those things aren’t going our way, we are unhappy. Jampolsky believes we must change our belief system in order to find inner peace and happiness. He writes this book as “a primer for those who are motivated to experience a personal transformation toward a life of giving and Love, and away from a life of getting and fear”.

Jampolsky explains love and fear as:

Fear always distorts our perception and confuses us as to what is going on. Love is the total absence of fear. Love asks no questions. Its natural state is one of extension and expansion, not comparison and measurement. Love, then, is really everything that is of value, and fear can offer nothing because itis nothing.

In “Part I” of the book called “Preparation for Personal Transformation”, Jampolsky explains that our learned beliefs prevent us from achieving true happiness and peace of mind. Because of our fears, we tend to expect the worse, possibly overlooking positive choices; then when the worst does happen, we feel justified in our beliefs.

Jampolsky goes on to say that we must make peace of mind our single goal, and forgiveness is our first step. Through forgiveness of ourselves and others we learn not to judge. When we stop judging, we stop living in fear and can learn to live in the present. When we live in the present, we can begin to follow our intuitive voice and learn that we have choices, which can be positive.

“Part II” of the book is called “Ingredients of Personal Transformation”. Jampolsky explains that we have to “retrain” our mind to get rid of the negative beliefs and he lists the following questions to ask yourself in all circumstances:

“Do I choose to experience peace of mind or do I choose to experience conflict?”

“Do I choose to experience Love or fear?”

“Do I choose to be a Love finder or a fault finder?”

“Do I choose to be a Love giver or a love seeker?”

“Is this communication (verbal or non-verbal) loving to the other person and is it loving to me?”

He also provides a list of words that need to be removed from your vocabulary. Some of the words he includes are:

Impossible
Can’t
Try
If only
But
Should
Ought to

And any other words that label, measure, judge, or condemn you or others.

“Part III” of the book is called “Lessons for Personal Transformation”, which contains 12 lessons to help the reader understand how to apply the author’s teachings in everyday life. One of the lessons is called, “Today I Will Judge Nothing That Occurs”. In this one the author encourages you to go through your day only looking at your own strengths and the strengths of others, while overlooking all weaknesses. Jampolsky says this will help us learn to accept others, instead of trying to change them; in so doing, “we send out love”, which of course, will return as love. He gives two different stories to illustrate this, one of which is a story about a man receiving really bad service from a waitress at a restaurant. If the man perceives the situation from the fear emotion, he will get mad, report her to the manager, and leave without giving her a tip. If the man perceives the situation from the love emotion, he will not judge her and understand that her husband just died and she has five children at home; he will forgive her and maybe even leave a large tip.

Other “Lessons” include:
All That I Give, I Give to Myself
Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness
I Am Never Upset for the Reason I Think
I am Determined to See Things Differently
I Can Escape From the World I See by Giving Up Attack Thoughts
I Am Not the Victim of the World I See
This Instant is the Only Time There Is
The Past is Over-It Can Touch Me Not
I Could See Peace Instead of This
I Can Elect To Change All Thoughts that Hurt
I Am Responsible for What I See


MY THOUGHTS AND RECOMMENDATION
I had very mixed emotions about this book. A lot of what the author wrote is sound advice. I think what I didn’t like about it is the way he expressed it or presented it.

I will start with what I liked about the book. I agree with most of what Jampolsky says about feelings and the way we express them. I absolutely agree that we make decisions, for better or worse, based on past experiences. I also agree to an extent that we should try not to judge a current experience based on a past experience; when we live in fear, we miss out on new opportunities and experiences. I also agree that being a forgiving person is much healthier than living with resentments. I totally agree that we aren’t victims of the world in which we live; we can be the victim of a crime, natural disaster or other negative situations over which we had no control, but overall, we aren’t victims of our world.

Now, what I didn’t like about the book:
A lot of Jampolsky’s views are commonly accepted in self-help groups, treatment facilities, and other counseling situations. We would all be healthier if we did not judge or blame others, took responsibility for our actions and feelings, and felt only love. These are all human tendencies that we strive to overcome, but I don’t believe this book is going to help most people overcome their weaknesses or achieve a “higher consciousness”. I believe that the average person picking up this book will be overwhelmed by the author’s views. To let go of all feelings of what he calls “fear”: jealousy, blame, criticism, personal inadequacy, guilt, etc., is unrealistic. If we could replace all of these and live our lives based solely on love, we would be superhuman.

I am not saying that we shouldn’t strive to improve our conscious minds so that we live out of love instead of fear. But the author presents it that not only can we strive for this higher consciousness, but we can achieve it just by making the decision to. I think this is very unrealistic (similar to the “Just Say No to Drugs” campaign…if it were just that easy, we wouldn’t have millions of addicts in the world). An educated, emotionally healthy person could probably read this book, understand it, and be able to apply the principles to their daily life, and improve their life experiences. But for people who actually need to change their thinking, who aren’t emotionally healthy to begin with, this book would probably be overwhelming. My personal opinion as a social worker/counselor is that a lot of people could not make these changes on their own. After reading a few pages, they would feel that living in “pure love” is impossible.

I had read only a few pages of this book when the thought occurred to me that it sounded like something from the 1970’s; I flipped to the front of the book and found that it was indeed written in 1970. The author talks a lot about “higher consciousness” and “inner peace”, and the word “love” is capitalized in every use of the word (which was extremely distracting). This book and its philosophy might have been considered “hip” for that day and time, but times have changed and I just don’t think this book is going to be of much help for people today. Younger people would probably roll their eyes at some of the author’s quotes that he puts in bold type; things like:

All minds are joined and are one.
Teach only Love for that is what you are.
Other people do not have to change for us to experience peace of mind.
Love is the way I walk in gratitude.
My present happiness is all I see.
All fear is past and only Love is here.
This day I choose to spend in perfect peace.

I even found myself rolling my eyes over some of the “Lessons”. Like in the example I wrote above about the waitress and the bad service: Jampolsky might say that I am living in “fear”, but when I get terrible service at a restaurant, my first instinct is not to ask the waitress if her husband just died (I just don’t leave a tip). Jampolsky says that we need to get rid of all prior assumptions and approach every new situation with Love, but I believe that in some situations we have to trust our instincts if we are to be safe.

The only way I could recommend this book for most people is if it is being used by someone who is already in counseling or a 12-step program (and has a sponsor), or for someone who is already emotionally healthy.


Recommended: No