The Woman’s Field Guide to Exceptional Living: Practical Steps for Living a Big, Bold, Beautiful Life!

Corrie Woods
Morgan James Publishing (2008)
ISBN 9781600373954
Reviewed by Nicole Bonia for Reader Views (11/08)

 

“The Woman’s Field Guide to An Exceptional Life” is a little blue handbook offering encouraging steps to help women make an assessment of their lives to find out how they are living and providing themselves with the fun and pampering needed to thrive.  It offers baby steps in celebrating life so that women can find out what their passions are so they can add excitement, balance and fun to their lives with the intention of making them fuller, richer and healthier experiences.  Broken down into chapters that offer food for thought and short and easy exercises designed to get you walking along the path, this book is easy to read through once for an overview and the well-defined sections make it easy to go back and choose the relevant exercises to test out.

The illustrations and the advice really stand out in this book.  The reasons and tips for practicing gratitude, a journaling to focus your day and taking the time to dance, draw, sing or in other ways to be creative.  Each section of the book offers playfully illustrated pages that illumine the principles of the chapter and provide a space where you can place your own notes and observations about the activities you have tried and ideas that you would like to try in the future. It’s great that this guide offers a fun and easy way that women can start to incorporate fun, balance and appreciation in their lives.  The exercises are practical and easily accomplished for those who are willing to take the time to do them.

While the author makes an effort to examine her own experiences, they were often vague and could have offered more detail to fully connect with the material in the book.  On gratitude Woods says:

One of the darkest moments in my life, I began a practice of gratitude.  It served as a lifeline, pulling me toward the light. At that particular time, I could have endlessly thought about what was not working in my life. I could have moaned and declared to the Universe that I was justified to complain.  But it occurred to me when I did, that I only felt worse, and I seemed to perpetuate the hardship and pain.

Had the specifics of the incident she mentions been known it could have provided more of an illustration of what she was talking about and helped others realize their similar experiences- being grateful in general is vague and can occur on many different scales.  Still, “The Woman’s Field Guide to An Exceptional Life” by Corrie Woods is effective in that it offers women beginning to start on a new path solid stepping stones to a new way of life.

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