Article first published as Book Review: ‘Joyous Expansion' by Brett Dupree on Blogcritics.
January 28, 2014
Joyous Expansion:
Unleashing your Passions to Achieve an Inspired Life
Brett Dupree
Aviva Publishing (2013)
ISBN: 9781938686696
New Book Teaches Readers How to Go from Negativity and Fear into Joy
Brett Dupree has written an inspiring, heartfelt, and truly thoughtful book in Joyous Expansion. The feel-good title really says it all—this book will meet you wherever you are at in your life and show you how to move beyond whatever is holding you back so you can experience joy and a greater sense of wellbeing.
Joy is at the top of the vibrational scale of emotions, with other emotions like anger, fear, and depression at the bottom. Drawing on ideas from many authors and spiritual teachers, including those who teach about the Law of Attraction, Brett walks readers through the steps needed to reach a state of joy. Along the way, he tells brave personal stories of his own shortcomings and how he overcame his own fears, from being shy around strangers, to dealing with dating, as well as tales of a fictional character named Tom, who is on a quest for enlightenment but can’t help but swear when he gets cut off in traffic. With plenty of humor and more energy than you would think could fit inside a book, Brett becomes the reader’s personal coach to greater happiness and a truly joyous expansion of life.
Brett’s own story is inspiring because he has overcome some real obstacles in life, including being born to a fifteen-year old girl, watching his parents get divorced, dealing with the deaths of loved ones, and his own low self-esteem issues. Much of what he has gone through, and which he realizes is common for all of us, can be linked to the fears that hold us back. Brett teaches us how to overcome fear and negativity in our lives, in humorous ways that become memorable and get to the heart of the matter. For example, I loved his description of how fear sets in when a man might try to talk to the opposite sex:
“When you act out of fear, your brain starts to run automatic programs that are in your unconscious. It is like you are a computer and you run the programs in the background while you continue to work. That is why you can do things and then wonder why you did them after you are finished. It is like having a computer program, and when something happens that you are afraid of, the program will launch.
“For example, if you are the type who gets shy in front of beautiful women and a beautiful woman talks to you, your brain would run: BeautifulGirlTalkingToYou. bat. BeautifulGirlTalkingToYou. bat run the executables, Freeze. exe, Lookaway. exe, SaySomethingStupidBecauseSheMightLikeME. exe, and would leave the coup de grace YouShouldHaveSaidSomethingDifferentYouDummy. exe.”
Brett also talks about why most people fail at their goals because they are motivated by fear or pain—for example, people fail when they try to lose weight because they are motivated by pain, not pleasure, and so part of the book’s purpose is to teach people instead that there’s a way to live by moving toward pleasure, rather than just away from pain.
Negativity and the need to set positive intentions also is a major topic of discussion. For example, Brett states that we create negative intentions that become underlying beliefs that then keep us stuck in life:
“You are consciously reinforcing the intention until it becomes an unconscious intention. You no longer need to declare the fact that heavy traffic will ruin your day; you have built the unconscious intention that when traffic is heavy, you will be upset. Habits are just intentions that you have built into your unconscious brain. You also create intentions about meetings being boring, parties being lame, people not liking you, jobs being hard to find, money being tight, and all of the other intentions you set during your day to make you upset.”
I have read a lot of self-help books, books about the Law of Attraction, and inspirational books in general, but I found Joyous Expansion to be a true breath of fresh air because it is written by someone who really knows what the reader is going through in terms of fear and self-esteem issues, and yet, Brett has overcome those issues to become a truly dynamic force of positive energy, and if he can do it, so can you. Readers of this book will come away from it with a greater appreciation for life and looking forward to all the many joyous things just waiting to happen to them. I can’t think of much else in life that sounds better than “joyous expansion” so grab this book and get started on the rest of your life in which the best is yet to come!
For more information about Brett Dupree and Joyous Expansion, visit www.JoyousExpansion.com.
— Tyler R. Tichelaar, Ph.D. and award-winning author of The Best Place
