Article first published as Book review: ‘Loving You to the Moon and Back: How to Overcome Life’s Struggles and Still Love Yourself by Barbara Weber on Blogcritics.
February 22, 2018
Loving You to the Moon and Back:
How to Overcome Life’s Struggles and Still Love Yourself
Barbara Weber
Aviva Publishing (2017)
ISBN: 978-1944335960
New Book Offers Way to Shift to Soul Perspective and Reap Rewards of Self-Love
In Loving You to the Moon and Back, Barbara Weber shares her personal story of spiritual growth and courage, describing how she left a small town and a restricting life to live her life fully, focused on healing herself and others. More importantly, she encourages readers to do the same—develop love for themselves and live to their full potentials. In these pages, she shares how to achieve that most important mission—loving yourself.
Life is full of obstacles for all of us, but within those obstacles lie miracles, as Barbara has often discovered the hard way. In fact, much of the book builds upon what she has learned through A Course in Miracles as well as creating daily practices for herself to nurture her soul. She is a firm advocate for starting a daily practice—whatever suits you—to help you deepen awareness of yourself and what is most important in your life. That practice could be meditation, keeping a daily journal, or some form of exercise.
One of the most important points Barbara makes about learning to love yourself is to stop comparing yourself to others. As she states, “We all tend to do three things that cause us to lose sight of our soul’s eye and see the world in shallow terms—comparing, justifying, and judging. Together these make up the ‘comparison ruler.’ They are all negatives that will put you in a contracted state, the same as fear does. Letting this comparison ruler guide your life keeps you from seeing your true self because if you only see yourself in comparison to others, you are only seeing their reflection, not your own.”
Another big part of loving yourself, according to Barbara, is learning not to react to other people’s baggage, especially that of your family members. She advocates creating harmonious relationships with others and yourself. By doing so, you can shift from a sole perspective to your soul perspective, let others’ issues go with love, and learn to do what is best for you. When you do what is best for you, ultimately, you do what is best for everyone. Barbara relates this process to Ho’oponopono, the Hawaiian concept that means “to make things right.” She defines making things right as “doing whatever is necessary to support harmonious relationships between people, nature, and spirit.” To achieve this goal, she uses the mantra: “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.”
I love when Barbara talks about the importance of not overthinking situations. Instead, we need to find a quiet, calm place within ourselves—a place we can reach by meditation and by adopting a soul perspective. She explains, “Thinking negates your experiencing; this concept is difficult to comprehend, but it’s easier to get when you just do it. So just get into doing what you love; be so charmed by doing what you love that you melt into the present moment. That’s when you are without thought. That melting into the present moment is also your aim in meditating; you want to stop those millions of rushing thoughts that occupy you and cause you stress.”
Obviously, I don’t want to spoil your reading experience by describing everything in the book, but I’ll just add that there are twenty-five chapters, total, and some of the chapter titles include: Dwelling in Wholeness, Staying in Joy, Turning Off the Inner Critic, Embracing the Mystery, Finding Your Passion, Drifting Awake, and Choosing Love All Ways. With all of those topics, you can feel assured that Barbara has every aspect of how to love yourself covered.
Toward the end of the book, Barbara talks about healing grief. In the final chapter, she tells the story of her daughter, Rebecca. Rebecca used to end their phone calls by telling her mom that she loved her “to the moon and back”—which became the inspiration for this book’s title. When Rebecca passed away, Barbara certainly experienced grief, but she also found purpose and love in caring for her grandchildren.
Loving You to the Moon and Back is a short book, but one full of wisdom gained from a lifetime of experiences and full of heart and soul. Barbara Weber writes in a tone that reminds me of Eckhart Tolle or Gary Zukav, one that makes you know she is speaking from that still quiet place in the heart where the greatest wisdom lies.
For more information about Barbara Weber and Loving You to the Moon and Back, see teh book at Amazon.
— Tyler R. Tichelaar, Ph.D. and award-winning author of Narrow Lives and The Best Place
