Us: Transforming Ourselves and the Relationships That Matter Most

by Lisa Oz

Book Overview

"The key to real and lasting change lies somewhere between what you know and what you do. It's what you think." --Lisa Oz

Being social creatures, we yearn for connection but often fall into bad habits that interfere with our ability to have rewarding relationships. We begin to see ourselves as alone, isolated, or at odds with the rest of the universe. How can we learn to live in relationship in a more enlightened way?

In US:...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1439123942
• ISBN13: 9781439123942
• Release Date: April 2011
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.8" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

funny, smart and insightful... perfect for my book club

I really loved this book. Lisa Oz is forthright and funny and her advice is practical, which I like. Instead of just talking about change, she has exercises that help you challenge all those bad habits that you've been carrying around for years. It's that rare find: a self-help book that entertains and enlightens but isn't at all preachy. A fun, smart and insightful read, perfect for my book club. It's got lots of juicy parenting and relationship stories to laugh about and identify with... I plan to spread the word!

Time well spent

I barely have time to read and was given this book as a gift. I thought it was going to be a girls book and would give it 20 pages. Wrong I was. I was pulled in and couldn't wait till I had a break in order to devour more. I found it insightful, FUNNY and most of all it took me on a journey of self discovery that I had not allowed myself. I feel a better person having read it. If you are debating buying this book, stop wasting your time and start reading. My only wish is that Lisa is already in the works on another book. The sooner it is in the book store the better.

"US" could have saved me lots of trouble in my life

In this little book, Lisa Oz has given us all practical and simple but remarkable little strategies for shifting our thinking when it comes to our relationships. Had I simply followed the basic premise of transforming myself (instead of looking, like most of us, to "transform others"), I would have been spared much pain and confusion along the road of life. Lisa is unusually candid about her own life and mistakes in the book, and her words ring with a rarified honesty in the "self-help realm". If we all followed her sage advice, the world would be a very different and better place.

One of the Best Self-Help Books I've Ever Read

"Just as a note becomes music through its combination with other notes and a point in space defined relative to other points, so we manifest ourselves through our interactions with those around us." - From Us I'll be honest: when publisher Free Press sent me Us by Lisa Oz (unsolicited--I hadn't even heard of it before it arrived), I thought "Here we go...another wifey trying to cash in on her husband's popularity and assert her place in the mass media as a viable entity apart from his persona." To add to my prejudgment, I wondered "And why in the world is she scowling on the cover? Way to sell books..." But I decided to give Us a chance, mostly because I happen to like Dr. Mehmet Oz... Well! Consider my snobby reviewer stance blown away entirely when I reached page 10. Yes, page 10! Why? One of the first concepts she tackles in Chapter 1 is the importance of knowing ourselves. She asserts quite rightly that all of your relationships have one thing in common...you. "You are the fundamental unit of every partnership, friendship, romantic entanglement or antagonistic encounter you've ever had", she writes. "And since you're the only part of your relationships that you actually have any control over, working with *you* is a pretty good place to start." And start she does with a psycho-spiritual personality system that I've been studying for almost a decade and found to be valuable--a tool called the Enneagram. Of possible origins with ancient Sufi mystics and employed by the Desert Fathers, this system categorizes individuals into 9 personality types that have central core fears and ways of coping with them (that are rather predictable), as well as ways to "wake up" to each ego trap and realize our core Essence. "The Enneagram?", I thought. "This cookie must be deeper than I suspected..." Frankly, I continued to be surprised, delighted and excited through the rest of the 204-page text of Us. Lisa proves to be a transparent, authentic, reasonable, knowledgeable, grounded, and inspirational sage cloaked in the guise of a flawed housewife, mother, spouse and friend. She doesn't shy away from cringe-worthy admissions (she's a stellar gossip, a paranoid Type 6, has an icky ear-wax condition and acts like a manipulative control-freak, for example), so the reader never gets the sense that she's speaking from atop a cushy mountain. In fact, she weaves nakedly honest anecdotes around the best spiritual, psychological, holistic, and self-help traditions extant--teachings that I've studied for years and found to work in a profoundly transformative way for myself, my family and my clients. Although she doesn't always name the influence (perhaps she doesn't know it), you can find threads of Myss' idea of Woundology (trading on suffering to get what you want), Byron Katie's The Work, Albert Ellis' Rational Emotive Therapy (RET), as well as valuable offerings on ego transcendence, mindfulness, present-moment awareness, detached observation, surrender, a

Best book on relationships

This book is thoroughly entertaining, as well as being insightful and profound. It was a pleasure to read, which is an important thing in a book - but it's also a powerful tool for improving relationships (with yourself, others, and the Universe). I found the exercises in each chapter to be very helpful in my own interactions, and will keep it handy as a reference that I will go back to again and again.