Clarity & Connection (The Inward Trilogy)

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At worst, self-help spirals into the icy circle of hell that is pure cliché, and Pueblo’s poetry is often a frozen lake of these. Pueblo writes straight-faced about “the fruits of your labor” having an “immensely positive / impact on your life.” And later Pueblo writes: “we do not need to reinvent the wheel.” Poetry is the antithesis of cliché; it’s disappointing to see so much of it here.

A lot of the poems are repetitive—the same ideas expressed multiple times throughout the volume without much meaningful variation. Strong content writing is the distraction. But what happens when we are distracted from the distraction? About the Writer During the years when I had abandoned myself, my mind felt undeniably heavy. I knew I needed to find a clear way to help me feel lighter.” Buy now:

The moments of genuine wisdom in this collection arrive almost accidentally, and seemingly unknown to the writer himself. There are some exceptions; Pueblo seems aware that his insight, “we need to make compassion structural” is important if only because he chooses to put it in italics.

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The ideas expressed in the poems are worthwhile, solid concepts about communication & emotional health my therapist would approve of. There are also some Buddhist teachings mixed in, which are interesting. From the celebrated author of Inward comes a new collection of poetry and short prose that illuminates how past wounds impact our present relationships. The courage you both have to stay committed to the inner journey will reflect brightly on your relationship. In many ways, these pieces read like half-formed essays. For example, Pueblo follows up his discussion of craving with this: “it is important to note that there is a substantial difference between craving and having goals or preferences.” What follows is a half-formed interrogation of attachment which paradoxically privileges attachment to happiness. Nuance isn’t Pueblo’s strong suit. These investigations of philosophical and Buddhist thought could have been better served with more time and artistry. There’s a whole section on attachment and relationships that show all the excitement of a writer delving into Buddhist thought. But unlike writers like Jane Hirshfield who subject their philosophy to poetic transformations, the material here remains quite raw. Buddha of Clarity. Watercolor. Janice Greenwood. Pueblo’s thesis is basically this: know thyself. Turn inward, face emotions, embrace your difficult parts because there is no relationship that can be had unless one first has a strong relationship with oneself. It’s not terrible advice, but it can get terribly repetitive.

Love will not seek to change you. It will embrace you so unconditionally that you will feel safe enough to heal the old and put effort into the new. The poems read like self help platitudes in free verse form or in long paragraphs. Nothing particularly special or sparkly or piercing about the language. Over the years as a therapist, I have found that the common theme amongstmy clientsis not their diagnosisor their problemsbut theirdeep desire for Calmness, Clarity &Connection. They seek therapy because something is notright in their lives and they want to find a better way. Theingredientsto healing are found in these three elements. Whether it is through individualtherapy, teen support/skill building, The c3 Method or even within the audience of my public speaking events, my clientsengagein aprocess that leads them away from theirstruggles to a place ofI love the whole idea about the book, the execution not so much. I don't even know what the books was supposed to be. It's more self help than poetry, is it really just poetry because of the format it was written? CLARITY is the courageousjourneyinward to ourauthentic self whilelearning how to live aligned with our values and goals. A radically compassionate plan for turning inward and lifting the heaviness that prevents us from healing ourselves and the world, from the New York Times bestselling author of Clarity & Connection Life is trauma and recovery. Not trauma as we often think of it, perhaps, but the trauma of “jealousy, anger, doubt, and low self-worth.” And the recovery “is not about managing your emotions; it is about managing your reactions to your emotions” because “our reactions tell us what our mind has internalized from our past experiences.” And since each and every one of us has different experiences, everything starts with self. I can’t truly have a healthy relationship at any level if I don't understand myself first. What I fear is that this poetry is offering a kind of roadmap for young people trying to figure out their lives, but the roadmap is so cliché and well-worn as to be useless. I don’t see Pueblo’s personal perspective at all. When I was young, I turned to Arthur Rimbaud, Sylvia Plath, Mary Karr, Toni Morrison, Charles Simic, Oscar Wilde, Louisa May Alcott, Lois Lowry, J.D. Salinger, and some Stephen King. The benefit of turning to a chorus of voices who offer guidance in their specificity is that there is seldom the danger that you’ll take one perspective too seriously. Yes, I wanted to bad like Rimbaud, and I wanted to be angry and sad like Plath, and I wanted to be sexy like Karr, deep and rooted like Morrison, surreal like Simic, witty like Wilde, a feminist like Alcott, a visionary like Lowry, honest like Salinger, and scary like King, but because each was so unique it was impossible to model my writing or my intentions too precisely on any one of them.

From poet, meditator, and speaker Yung Pueblo, comes a collection of poetry and prose that explores the movement from self-love to unconditional love, the power of letting go, and the wisdom that comes when we truly try to know ourselves. it serves as a reminder to the reader that healing, transformation, and freedom are possible. Buy now: In Clarity and Connection, Yung Pueblo explores how intense emotions accumulate in our subconscious and condition us to act and react the ways we do. With his distinctive voice, at once spare and evocative, the author guides us through the excavation and release of the past that is required for growth. On the topic of intimate relationships, he reflects: Als Self Help Buch hätte mich das Buch komplett überzeugt, längere Texte, genauer auf Dinge eingegangen und nicht so viele Wiederholungen (manchmal hab ich mich echt gefühlt als wenn wir uns im Kreis drehen) und das Buch hätte mindestens 4 Sterne von mir bekommen. The poems that follow don’t offer much of an answer. We are reminded to “help people, but have boundaries.” Lest we fear we are falling into our old patterns, Pueblo offers the sage advice that “repeating the past / is a sign of progress.”As a self help book this book would have worked so much better for me, longer text, more details to everything, not so many repeats (that made me feel like we are running in circles), and this book would have at least been a 4 star read. The dangers of writing self-help content or offering forth wisdom too early in your expertise is that it is all too easy to be vague, all too convenient to render truth in platitudes. What makes the best poetry helpful is the ruthlessness of its specificity. I think here of Sylvia Plath’s collected poems and Dante Alighieri’s rigorous and specific assessment of all the ways love can go wrong in the Divine Comedy. Han Shan’s Cold Mountain poems offer a Buddhist perspective, but are so specific that the philosophy shimmers beneath, a philosophy of doing, not preaching. An insightful and impressive poetry collection of emotions, relationships, healing, self-awareness, growth, releasing, acceptance, communication, vulnerability, and love. Yung Pueblo is the pseudonym of Diego Perez, who was born in Ecuador, raised in Boston, lived in New York City, and returned to Massachusetts. He was inspired to write this body of work after seeing the power of healing and transformation while attending a silent vipassana mediation course. He and his wife continue to meditate. There were a lot of poems that I loved, and here are a few of my favorites: In these rapidly changing times, it is more important than ever to know ourselves well, even and especially in the face of turmoil. The Way Forward encourages readers to connect more deeply to their intuition, using it to remain focused and grounded amidst a world in constant flux. Progressing naturally from both Inward and Clarity & Connection, The Way Forward is an inspired beginning. Buy now: Yet, the practitioners of self-help poetry are seldom psychologists or therapists, and seldom have professional training as social workers. They are often young.