When I saw the title of this book my mind jumped to Samuel Beckett’s existentialist tragicomic play of the same title in which the main character is buried up to her waist, and then her neck in sand, while being eternally optimistic. Although Bernstein never refers to Beckett’s ‘Happy Days’, she does recount as a student performing Beckett’s absurdist play ‘Not I’, so the title is no coincidence. Bernstein has made it a personal mission to understand and transform feelings of fear, anxiety and unworthiness in order to be able to truly experience freedom and not remain buried in the sand.
A traumatic childhood led Gabrielle Bernstein to rely heavily on drugs and alcohol. Then she studied A Course in Miracles, the self-study program in spiritual psychotherapy. Bernstein’s previous books, including Spirit Junkie and The Universe Has Your Back, are inspired by A Course in Miracles. But despite following this spiritual path after the birth of her son, the author found herself crippled with anxiety, so embarked on a journey to heal the unresolved trauma from her early life.
In the early pages of Happy Days Bernstein asks the reader to create a vision for a new life not by focusing on a desire for more money, a successful business or a bigger house, but by thinking about how they want to ‘feel’. This book is a call to look at the triggers and feelings that cause destructive patterns. Bernstein offers methods, which she learnt through years of therapy, to help the reader become conscious of feelings of fear and low self-esteem. She offers ways to accept and heal those confronting and uncomfortable feelings which many of us have been avoiding all our lives. This book offers valuable practical tools.
Reviewed by Rosamund Burton
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