It never occurred to me that, perhaps, my problems coping with things came from outside myself, rather than some internal failing. That is, until I read Ryan Christensen’s Winner Peace: How to End Inner Conflict and Make Success Inevitable. As he suggests, what if you thought there was something wrong with you, but the only thing that’s ever been wrong was the situation you were in? What if you were simply forced into situations where there were no ways to win, and you did the best you could?

Bucking the common notion put forth by the $10 billion self-help industry that tells us “we need help,” Christensen says “you are not the problem!” Honestly sharing his personal life experiences and his work helping others unlock their human potential, he offers a radical approach that enables you to stop coping and start succeeding. By reframing “trauma” as a situation where you weren’t able to figure out a way to win, he explains how your mind will be able to sit back, relax, and watch with certainty and authority as things unfold, without being distracted by unnecessary thoughts and emotions. This frees you up to reevaluate how things are going, how you want them to go, and what’s needed to make that happen.

He goes on to explain how all feelings, even and especially negative ones, are actually valuable signals – requests for help – and what negative emotions (guilt, shame, anxiety, doubt, etc.) are trying to tell us. He explores in great detail how our conscious mind and our unconscious mind work, and how to reframe and respond appropriately to pain, hurt, and even trauma. And why, no matter how much we achieve, we still feel like we’re not good enough; how our emotional mind ignores rational proof, so no matter how hard you push or how much you win, victory is only fleeting and the desire to get more, win bigger, be better, and prove once and for all we’re good enough is not enough. Ultimately, this leads to obsession and exhaustion.

Things, however, don’t have to be this way, and Winner Peace: How to End Inner Conflict and Make Success Inevitable helps us discover how to stop asking if we deserve things, and focus on getting them.

Garth Thomas