Customer Reviews

A Big New Free Happy Unusual Life: Self Expression and Spiritual Practice for Those Who Have Time for Neither

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I was very skeptical of this book (how can you not be with a name like that), but it ended up proving to be a meaningful read. It's not profound in it's concept: the author simply gives you inner "permission" to act on your impulses and emotions. These suggestions are constuctive and sneak into your thinking throughout your day. It's the kind of book that is not jaw dropping when your done, it's meaning trickles slowly and frees you a little.
The author did make you feel great but my only concern is that it made her feel greater. Some passages bordered on bragging but still made you feel as though you also had something to contribute. This book proved me wrong, all in all, and is worth giving a shot.

The book contains several exercises of extreme importance for everyone's life in our present civilization, as well as valuable reflections on life and the world around us. The only problem for me was that it has ocassional "Californian" New Age flavour seen especially in the ease with which the author jumps from one spiritual tradition to another. For some readers, as it was for me, it might become a slight indication of lack of depth.

The end of the book, which summarizes everything in the word "fun" was especially disappointing. It seems to me that there is a lot of sweat in every serious spiritual endeavour and "joy" (not "fun"!) is at the end of the tunnel...

This book is great to read however one pleases: first page to last; here and there; last page to first; etc. There are many helpful tips to creating moments of peace in life. Wise is neither pedantic nor obtuse. She offers a great deal of tools for those who would like more out of life, more joy, more excitement.

As a teenager, I once took out a couple of library books that purportedly tested your creativity. According to them, I failed miserably because I didn't come up with the "right" answers, and it was years before I realized that I'd actually been TOO creative for the tests! But their approach is typical of how narrowly our educational system defines creativity: if you have a gift for (say) drawing or singing, you can become a professional in the arts, but otherwise creativity is irrelevant to most people's daily lives. And, anyway, even if you feel that you'd enjoy taking a pottery class or an acting workshop, you have more important things to do with your time and money. Nina Wise shows us how to circumvent both of these obstacles and bring creative expression into our lives. The crucial factor is awareness, both of ourselves and of the world around us. Her exercises give us the opportunity to know ourselves as complex beings, with bodies as well as minds and spirits, and to appreciate the beauty and complexity of even the most mundane aspects of our surroundings. Becoming more aware isn't necessarily easy, or fun, or reassuring, but it can enrich anyone's life immensely. I heartily recommend this book to everyone -- especially those who think "I'm not creative" or "I have nothing to say": you are, and you do, and this is how you find out.

Nina Wise subtitles her wonderful book, "Self-expression and spritual practice
for those who have time for neither." And she could have added, for those who
don't habitually shop at the Self-Improvement section of the store. I had my
qualms but I had first heard the author's name from an impeccable source so I
carried on and bought it. I quickly realised this wasn't Buddhism Lite or
Self-Realization in Five Minutes a Day. Nina Wise has spent thirty years
performing and leading workshops in improvisation. She brings decades of
experience in an art whose principal act is a requirement, as she describes it
elsewhere, to "(find) words for the story the body wants to tell" and where
"nothing in the psyche feels prepared, ready, secure-the stroll from backstage
to centerstage is an act of faith." It is a scary description and her courage
and commitment are everywhere evident. In this brilliant book we get the
benefits of that commitment as she offers dozens of ten-minute "practices"
drawn from every area of the arts -- singing, drawing, writing, role-playing,
dancing --- wonderful hints that invite us to play: to play with the senses;
play with our sense of self, with our life-history; play with friends, with
lovers, with strangers; play with pain and sickness and bereavement, with loss
and disappointment, anger and frustration, play with happiness. They remind
us to take ten minutes NOW to play, but to play with attention, as adults, to
wake up. She shows that unlocking creativity and self-expression has the
widest consequences: "We are not who we think we are --- we are not what we
do, we are not our age ... our gender or sexual preference ... where we live
... or what religion we were born into or went on to practice ... not our skin
color .. not our bodies ... not our thoughts." Many people have said this but
not many have offered such creative, witty, down-to-earth help to discovering
it for ourselves. And in between we are treated to illustrations from her own
life as daughter, lover, teacher, performer: at home by her dying mother or
wrapped in a "Tantric embrace" round her suitcase on an overnight train trip
in India, the range is enormous. She is deadly serious, serious but never
solemn. "All the great sages I have had the fortune to meet have had a
twinkle in their eyes ... their lightness of being is contagious. In their
presence I too break into a smile that would glow in the dark." Well, that
smile glows all over the page here. This is anything but a ponderous tome and
the opposite of some self-indulgent, feel-good exercise. It is sad, funny,
tough, moving, uproarious, witty, lyrical, passionately articulate and, yes
(I'm not the first to say it) wise. Go ahead, do yourself a favour: sing to
the cat, make art in the yard, throw a hat party, read this book.

Are you having enough fun in your life? Enough play? Do you feel a lack of self expression welling up inside you? (It may not even be said, only felt). Remember when you used to dance, and frolic, and sing, and make up ditties, and hang out more often? This book reconnects you to that place, and to heart and soul, without being sentimental or infantile like a lot of creativity workshops or New Age pablum. This is a book that integrates the rarest of combinations - meaning and play (and soul). You know, like party with a purpose. It's hard to describe what goes on here, but it's sure to bring sparks and fun into every day of your life. And it's WAY cheaper than a workshop or therapy!
I've taken many workshops with Nina over the last six or seven years, and this book distills ALL of what she teaches and more. It's a gold mine for your self - and your friends. A perfect book to give for any occasion - birthday, graduation, wedding, Christmas. Who couldn't use a book like this?

(from an article by Caren Goldman): Nina Wise shows us that we don't need a crowbar to cram creativity--an "inborn aspect of being alive"--into our overbooked lives. Wise, a recipient of National Endowment for the Arts grants and an award-winning performance artist (see NinaWise.com), believes that we find the keys to a creative life when we give ourselves permission to allow whatever arises "to gain expression." Using her brief creativity exercises, we can step into the realm of our spiritual natures and onto playful and profound paths to creative self-expression--in 10 minutes or less. One simple practice that can be done almost anywhere invites us to "doodle" or improvise with our voices, like scat singers...."Solutions to both technical and emotional knots arise when we soften our minds and our hearts, when we relax," Wise adds...Ultimately, readers who follow Wise's advice will develop the freedom to experience a big, new, free, happy and unusual life and feel more alive in the process.--Body & Soul, May 2002