Life Lessons by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler - Book Report/Review Example

? Life Lessons – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler The Kubler-Ross and Kessler are well known in the field of American hospice movement. Their book Life Lessons tackle issues like love, power anger and forgiveness and offer a wonderful opinion from their own lives and their followers. Their ideas are similar and blend very well with a dynamic philosophy. Unique stories have been shared by both to make the reader understand the ideas. The main theme of this book is purely spiritual but they both avoid many of the controversies surrounding Kubler-Ross’s previous book, The Wheel of Life. The reader is thus guided through practical and spiritual lessons that are needed to live life in the best possible manner. The authors reveal the very truth about all our inner feelings in a deeply rewarding manner. The book takes us through many lessons in life that are only learnt when people are in their death bed. These are certain things, which even if we try, is never easy to understand. This book simplifies that and makes us understand every aspect of a happy life and why not to be depressed. That is why many individuals who suffer from mental depression have resorted to this book for a feeling of calmness rather than resort to counseling. People who stop looking for happiness do not want to wait for the appropriate time that is perhaps yet to come. They find their peace in today. Happiness has been described as a reaction to something that might have happened and it is a state of mind. The feeling of happiness should not be trained but should be natural and that is why individuals feel so deeply about the loss and pain. Such feelings of victimizations are not desirable as life includes loss as well as recovery, happiness and sadness. Happy people are found to be in a state of forgiveness always and have more to offer. The author asks the readers to think about those times which bring in more happiness and practice that along with kindness (Kubler-Ross and Kessler, 2001). Fear holds the mind captive, and when it is released it can harm others. Fear dominates within every individual. To overcome it and go forward with the endeavor is the real challenge. A very beautiful example discussed here talks about a boy who had cancer, wanted to ride around his block, but with the help of his father he finally did just days before he died. This way he had lived his final dreams. The author makes a point that everybody has dreams but they also have more reasons or excuses not to fulfill them, which should not be (Kubler-Ross and Kessler, 2001). Relations demand a lot from individuals, and problems arise when a person is dependent too much on it. Completeness does not come from the other. An unhappy single person will make an unhappy spouse. However the authors point out that before ending any relationship the person must think about the problem and where it lied. Love has been described as the only lasting thing in life and what people can give to others, but it comes with many conditions. The authors point out that loving someone is possible only when one appreciates oneself, and that comes from things people enjoy doing and they start doing. Something very important in life is patience and the authors appropriately point that many individuals nowadays lack that. Accepting situations have become harder because of such haste. This calls for the practice of faith and patience. Power is not defined by the position in society; it actually comes from living each day with discipline and love, being honest, and having patience. Too much concern about other opinions takes the power away. The power to make others doesn’t lie with the person, what is there is the power to make their own selves happy. A beautiful example here is where the authors speak of a woman and her little daughter getting saved by inches and she realizes the importance of what she had in life (Kubler-Ross and Kessler, 2001). Chances are what one must give the other and that is forgiveness, it is about letting the pain go. Holding onto a grudge makes a person unhappy for that. Forgiving is to consider everyone as humans and to accept the fact that they can commit mistakes. The feeling of guilt is borne out of self judgment and rooted in what people are taught as children, especially when tending to others needs than their own. Way of heal guilt takes place via forgiveness. Here the authors talk of a client who in her dying days wrote a letter to her estranged daughter telling her how much she loved her. After her death the letter was found and read on a radio station. Hearing the same her daughter came forward (Kubler-Ross and Kessler, 2001). Here the authors make everybody realize how circumstances define a person nowadays and not what they actually are. The general feeling of wellness is there only when something good happens, but when things go bad, people looks at others to define them. A very important example given here is that a job may be lucrative, but by the end of it the person may feel empty. The authors urge the readers to follow their urges once in a while and to keep on discovering what they really want to do. Kubler-Ross and Kessler’s book have given a new bible to the grief counselors all over the world. Their experience with the dying had enabled them to provide such descriptions which no other author had ever been able to produce. Counselors over the world had avoided dealing and going into depth of this psychological state of dying as they didn’t have answers to certain states of the mind before a person dies. Over the years the books written by Kubler Ross and this book in collaboration with Kessler further delves into the human mind and provide striking explanations to such problems. This had certainly helped other counselors to provide appropriate advice and treatment to their clients (Kubler-Ross and Kessler, 2001). Life Span by Blewitt and Broderick (2002) were written to help practitioners to understand the problems of the clients and for research. The main points being highlighted in this book is that how the individual should be viewed not as a single individual as a part of the society as a whole. This book, like Life Lessons inspires the future counselors how to go about their work and take into account the problems that sometimes ultimately lead people to resort to counseling. This book, although dealing with psychology and the patterns of the human mind, is somewhat different from Life Lessons for the fact that it mainly focuses on the development of the child from infancy to an individual, whereas the other book deals with life as a whole, although discussions regarding love, patience and anger are common elements in both. Using counseling related case studies, special topics, and journal questions, the text in The Life Span introduces developmental theories and research with reference to clinical practice. Life Lessons is a guiding book which immerses the mind into the depths of the human soul. It melts a rigid heart, makes us realize what we really have, to look for happiness, shun fear and be patient as life as complex it may seem, brings with it joy and sorrow. The expert way in which the authors have made us understand the aspects of life for which we are always bogged down or ready to compromise, truly moves me. The fact that the authors have such an in depth knowledge of such a difficult situations makes me think along a different path. What we learn from here is that birth is a celebrated affair whereas death is feared and unspeakable. We can delay it, but it comes to all. It strikes and when it does, it doesn’t differentiate in terms of the social ladder. Dying patients show us that nobody asks us about the number of degrees we obtained, how many mansions we make or how many cars we bought. From a spiritual standpoint, I believe that we all have a purpose and at the end of that journey, we will be held accountable for that life. References Broderick, P.C., and Blewitt, P., (2002), The life span: human development for helping professionals, New Jersey: Merrill/Prentice Hall. Kubler-Ross, E., and Kessler, D., (2001), Life Lessons: Two Experts on Death and Dying Teach Us About the Mysteries of Life and Living, New York: Simon & Schuster. Read More