Self Development Books
Book Reviews
Walking With Your Wolf
Unlock your Intiution, Confidence and Power
Jonathan Hoban
Yellow Kite 2020
ISBN 978 1 473 69324 1
pp. 212
I initially picked up this book, Walking with Your Wolf intrigued by the title, as the wolf is one of my spirit kin. I found a very easily read and understood book that anybody can follow to help start improving their life. It details the aspects of 'Walking Therapy', which the author, a therapist uses with clients in his practice. In the book what it becomes is a form of self administers therapeutic walking meditation, combining journaling (Called Diarising in the book) and walking in any form of nature you can get mindfully. This is detailed step by step, chapter by chapter.
Covering common topics that people seek help for today, such as stress, burnout, depression, anxiety, addiction, grief in easily digestible chapters with practical ways of helping yourself this is a well written primer for those that are ready to take some action and help themselves. The author, who developed the idea of walking therapy from his own experiences of grief, loss, addiction and depression is refreshingly honest and forthright about his own life. I am a firm believer in in order to understand someone you need to walk a mile in their shoes. In order to half understand someone, you need to be through something similar enough to get insight. This is how drug and alcohol counseling works, being able to understand through shared experience. This helps create rapport with the person going through the experience currently, creates authenticity in communication between client and therapist. This is very important for trust in the relationship. Here, it helps give an insight into how and why the author came to this point and clearly helps him understand why those who he sees, or would use this method for themselves, get to this point. It is a good thing, no matter how unconventional it sounds.
Overall, I recommend this book to anybody, especially at this time where there will be so many people stuck in ruts from the past eighteen months, or stressed and burnt out by this demanding time. This is a good way of, well getting out of yourself for a while and looking at things from another perspective to help change your life.