There Must Be More Than This: Finding More Life, Love and Meaning by Overcoming Your Soft Addictions

by Judith Wright

Book Overview

"Soft addictions" are the seemingly harmless habits--shopping, emailing, watching TV, surfing the net--that fill up the days and prevent readers from living more fully. Wright teaches how to eliminate... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 076791340X
• ISBN13: 9780767913409
• Release Date: December 2003
• Publisher: Broadway Books
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

This book can change your life

I am a married software developer with one daughter and one on the way. I was spending 20+ hours a week playing video games surfing the net, and overeating. I knew I was doing it too much but was unsure why. After reading Judith's book I was amazed to learn that the "web" of soft addictions I was mired in kept me from having the life I wanted to live. With grace and compassion, Judith shows us that just being conscious of these soft addictions, your life can be one of More Life, More Meaning, and More Love.

It Works

I am skeptical of "Psychobabble" self help books but thiswas an exception. Ms Wright's approach is practical andworkable. I realized quickly what situations triggeredmy soft addictions, like checking my email every minute orso. The book provided techniques for being aware of whatsituations trigger the zone out mode that characterizessoft addictions. Instead of drifting unconsciously intofiddling around on email, checking discussion boards orbids on ebay, I can step back and ask myself "What are youavoiding by doing this?" The technique has definitely cutmy time wasting.Lisa N

Use this Book to Build a Better Life

If you feel adrift and dissatisfied in life, Judith Wright's "There Must Be More than This" may be just what you need. Ms. Wright is co-founder of the Wright Institute for Lifelong Learning where people learn to fulfill their potential in all areas of their lives -- work, relationships, self and spirit. She offers you new ways of thinking about life and new ways to behave. These could make a world of a difference. The core of this approach is that you are thoroughly coached on how to make "the One Decision." The process is one of soul-searching and commitment in which you discover what you really hunger for in life and begin reorienting your thinking, feeling and behaviour. The One Decision becomes your rudder in the stormy seas of life. By giving you a firm "heading" your commitment becomes the foundation for a new, conscious, purposeful life. Once you make your One Decision, then you can begin studying your life and eliminating your "soft addictions." Soft addictions, simply, are patterns of feeling, thinking or behaving that keep you from experiencing what you really hunger for in life. Examples are excessive TV watching, Internet, video games, compulsive reading, over-exercising and indulging in moods that distract you from the beauty of life that lies around us. None of these is necessarily a "soft addiction." The test is what effect they have on your search for what you hunger for in life. By helping you to find a purpose for your life and to redefine thinking that does not work for you, this book can help you to make a breakthrough by building a new, more complete life. Its usefulness is enhanced because it contains the stories of many people who have successfully used this approach to build a far richer life. Just by reading these stories carefully, you can begin to understand the power of this method and can gain increased commitment to fulfilling your One Decision. There seems to me to be follow-up work that you may also do after reading this book. Ms. Wright hints at it, but has not yet helped you to go deeper. Several times, Ms. Wright hints that her clients have decided to meditate. That is, of course, a time-honoured way to find purpose in life by accepting sheer being, without any need to "do" anything. In my life, meditation provided a direct experience of what can only weakly be described as the God within. Meditation led me to experiences that go beyond words. It also produced visions and insights that sprung from the depths of my being and have provided an anchor that does not require that I create a verbal definition. I hope Ms. Wright will fill this gap by producing a follow-up book on self-discovery through meditation.

Not So Harmless Habits

Who'd have thought I could be "addicted" to my gloomy moods? This book helped me understand something I always knew but couldn't articulate: I want more out of life, and don't know how to get it. Or at least I didn't know how before I read the book. With everyone around me seeming to be chronically cynical or lazy or despairing about how anything could be different, who was I to be wanting more? Judith Wright's book identifies that yearning as a "spiritual hunger" and explains it in a way that helps me feed that hunger and feel more fulfilled. I have practicied the "seemingly harmless habits" of soft addictions like daydreaming through stacks of catalogs or eating to feel better or going over and over in my head about what I should have done. And now I see those habits for what they are: distractions from feelings. Through anecdotes and exercises, this book will shift your thinking, and put you on a path toward making bettter choices about how you spend your time. It will help you stop wasting time on things that are unfulfilling, and start living a life filled with what really matters.

Practical and Profound

I have read my share of self-help books. And with each one, I have found a cache of concepts and ideas but little guidance for a practical application that would really impact my life. "There Must Be More Than This" is a true exception. Certainly, the concepts (and realities) of "soft addictions" and "stinking thinking" may at first seem to be both too obvious and too overwhelming to even begin to consider conquering them. But, I found Wright's approach to offer an amazingly simple process for me to stay conscious, aware, and responsible of my choices and the effect that they have on my world and how I experience it. While the section on the costs of remaining unconscious to our soft addictions was maybe the most eye-opening and valuable, my favorite chapter was "Fulfilling Your Spiritual Hungers." Simple and profound at the same time, it left me sold on Judith Wright's message and wondering what life would have been like if my `true' hungers had been what counted all along; and then, the thought "what if they counted now?" Now that I have finished reading this book, it's seems crazy to want life to be any other way.