Waking Up on the Toilet: Real Experiences About Appreciating Real Life!

Aliya Fonseca
Authorhouse (2006)
ISBN 1425918905
Reviewed by Evelyn Duran for Reader Views (3/07)

Out of adversity springs forth hope and knowledge - that is the premise behind “Waking Up on the Toilet: Real Experiences about Appreciating Real Life” by Aliya Fonseca. The book is broken down into seven chapters, each dealing with a different emotional crossroad - family tribulations, love issues, searching for peace, recognition of friends, boundaries, reality and self introspection.

The stories included in the chapters veer from relationship issues to personal tribulations and each is attributed to a person that has voluntarily contributed to Ms. Fonseca’s book.

Ms. Fonseca proceeds to give her readers some homework by asking questions regarding the chapter just read in her “Waking up Exercises” section.  This exercise is geared towards helping you understand how the chapter just read might pertain to an issue in your life.  By responding to the questions you will be able to find the answers to resolving an issue within you and enable you to flush out all the negative feelings associated with this problem in your life.  You will then receive a list of feelings that you will acquire as a result of flushing away the negative emotions that have held you in their grip and rendered you helpless. 

As simplistic as this may sound, it is usually the most-simple act that can be the most effective one.  By enabling you to face your fears and anger you are putting a face and a name to an emotion that has been holding you back and the psychologically mental action of flushing it down the toilet releases you from the restraints of this negative feeling thus freeing you to experience a host of positive feelings.  This will then supposedly bring about a feeling of “wholeness” and help you accept happiness.

As an introduction to getting in touch with your feelings, this is a decent beginner book but it does not really dig deep.  I believe it can be used as a first step but by no means will it be sufficient to create a lasting feeling of contentment.

The stories in “Waking Up on the Toilet” were simply written and that is what made some of them powerful, but many were so weak that they did not create a lingering impression.  I believe it would have been more effective if the author had put more of herself into the book instead of just relying on the stories.

My impression is that you should look elsewhere for inspiration and answers but as for Ms. Fonseca’s book, well, you could do worse for a starting point.

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