The Mountain Is You by Brianna Wiest was recommended to me through a coaching client. Coaching has been an unexpected and rich source of book recommendations, as clients will say, “I was reading X book, and it did x,y,z for me.” The Mountain Is You was one of those recommendations that I didn’t just make note of but immediately ordered.
I was drawn immediately to it because of its title, recognizing in my coaching work and in my own life experience that we are the biggest obstacles in our own lives. “Your mountain is the block between you and the life you want, ” Wiest writes. She also adds, “Facing it is also the only path to your freedom and becoming.”
The book is a quick read, sharing little vignettes of common habits we have as humans that keep our lives running in loops. She focuses on what she calls self-sabotage, common behaviors like procrastination, negative self-talk, and avoidance of opportunities are some examples. The book is more of a surface skim than a deep dive, which allows her to cover a lot of material.
From living in disorganization to spending time with the wrong people, there are habits that apply to any reader and are the habits Wiests claims are self sabotaging. After naming these habits, she moves into practical exercises to help readers transform these habits into self-mastery.
Rather than “aha” or “breakthrough”moments, Wiest believes that micro-changes are the way forward – like building a plan to workout out daily rather than shift an entire lifestyle towards health. Atomic Habits is similar in this approach.
The book then digs in deeper into the why behind our self-sabotage, ties to the past and tools that Weist believes helps create foundations progress. “As we carry unresolved emotions from day to day, we gradually move our past trauma into our future lives,” she believes. Wiest shares a technique for revisiting past memories to write a new narrative for them, gradually diminishing the power they hold. I have done this type of work with a healer and was excited to explore the self-administered technique she shared.
Wiest finishes on the future, sharing tools and ideas for how to combine the work of memory release, new habits forming and creating new principles that drive your like.
The book has some great, easy to read nuggets that are illuminating. Admittedly, I lost interest as the book progressed int the psychological techniques and methodologies.
Nevertheless, The Mountain Is You is an easy, fast read to gain insight into behaviors we all carry and that, by giving some attention to them, we can open the pathway to a more fulfilled life.
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