From room to room

Life is full of rooms and Sherre Hirsch, through personal experience and a multitude of counseling examples, shares how to effectively cross over the threshold into a new room without getting stuck in the hallway.  This concept of thresholds is a great word picture to visualize how we live and grow through our experiences, however, depending on the age of the person reading this book, the revelation that occurs will be different.  

I was a little turned off at first by her flippant way of dismissing having faith in God, and putting more emphasis in having faith in yourself, because in my personal experience, faith in God has been the foundation of all my decisions and comfort as I struggle through this life.  As I continued to read, I could see how the message was still sound, and could reach many who are not believers in God.  I also realized that this is coming from her experience of being "stuck in a hallway", and how she found a way to cross the threshold.  

I enjoyed the stories, which fleshed out the concepts she was formulating, and I agreed with most of them.  Some of my favorite quotes are:

• "If I know where I have to be on the Tuesday after next and what I will be doing next summer, then I don't have to think about how little control I have.  I can just disconnect.  I can turn off that channel of fear.  I can pretend that I am in control when in fact I am really just on autopilot."   This is one of the most difficult struggles I have had (as well as many of my friends), and will always have as part of our struggle to do life on our own, apart from God.  We need to learn to be present and to live life to the fullest, right now.  We never know where life will take us, or what "thresholds" He will bring us to cross, but trying to control too much of our future may blind us to the present. 
• "It is easier metaphorically to run a race with a finish line than to go on a long run with no end point."  This was referring to making big life-changing decisions, and not being able to see how the change would affect the relationships in the future.  This is very true that we want to be able to make decisions based on how we know things will turn out, but the reality is we will never be able to predict how our decisions will affect others.  This is where you truly have to weigh the pros and cons, and if you are a believer, pray for guidance, and take a step.  As Sherre says later in the book, "moving forward into a new room- even if it is very imperfect-may be the best way to find answers.  Sometimes it is only by making a decision to cross into the wrong room that the threshold to the right one can possibly be revealed."  
• "What if each one of us developed a Wait Box for life?"  The concept here is to wait 24 hours before responding to "potentially life-changing decisions".  Wow- if we did that, the world would be a better place.  Just write down your issue, wait, and then respond.  I will be trying that more often.  
• As I have grown in wisdom, I have been able to grasp the concept that we cannot predict other people's responses and we are also not responsible for them.  Everyone is responsible for their own choices.  As a mother, this is very difficult to realize and accept, however, it is freeing!  Sherre goes on to challenge the reader to "pause before we judge another and ask ourselves, What is their fear?  The point of this question is to force you to interrupt your judgment and instead recognize that most of the time people are afraid and there responses are driven by their fears."  I liked this because it enables you to actually have an avenue to approach this concept with clarity. 
• "We may not have control over the situation, (but) we do have control over how we respond."  See above- we choose how to respond.
• "Statistically people are the happiest in their sixties, not when they are in college or even as children."  Yay!  I have hope for the future!  And yes, I have to agree, as I get older, I get happier.  I think a lot of that comes from acceptance of our past and how that has affected our future, and the wisdom in not taking life too seriously.  

Overall, Thresholds has many good nuggets of information, but I struggled with her stance that God is not an important factor, and I had to read it carefully to discern what was a good message and what needed to be left behind. 

**I received Thresholds, by Sherre Hirsch, from Blogging for Books, for this review.