Book Review: White Hot Truth: Clarity for Keeping It Real on Your Spiritual Path from One Seeker to Another

Has your self-help become self-criticism? A wise and often hilarious exploration of the conflicts between spiritual aspiration and the compulsion to improve, from Oprah Super Soul 100 member, Danielle LaPorte. Like a wise girlfriend you can totally relate to, Danielle cheerleads you to own your wisdom and self-worth by having a good laugh (and maybe a good cry) at the ways you've been trying to improve on your self-improvement. Rooted in compassion, feminism, and spiritual activism White Hot Truth is an intimate and (hilariously) relatable account of self-help tales gone wrong, and very right. If you love Brene Brown and Liz Gilbert's authenticity, and Marianne Williamson's strong spirit, you'll adore how Danielle lays bare "Boundaries for spiritual people"; the "Discipleshit" that happens when we give our power away; a "Soul-perspective" on suffering; "over tolerance" and "foolish compassion" in relationships, sneaky self-loathing; spiritual glamour. And in her poetic and brazen way, she brings it home with the hottest truth of all: You are your own guru.

As anyone who knows me knows I am a HUGE fan of Danielle Laporte. I stumbled on her about three years a go when I first read the Disiaire Map which broke me into a million pieces. Finally, I thought someone who GETS it. I am always nervous when a new book by a favorite author comes out. I mean will THIS be the book that flops? Has their magic run out? I found this on Scribed and I started to read and OMG this is her BEST book so far.

Think that it helps that I too am a New Age self-help junkie. I mean when my depression first hit this year I delayed in getting help cause maybe I was just working on some stuff. I was and am, but I also needed professional help, and I think that is where people like me run into problems we want to do it all ourselves, and sometimes we just need someone with the right degrees to point us in the right direction.

And Danelle GETS it she has been through therapy, worked with energy healers and the like. I love how she says that we need to craft our course of action to a program that fits US as a person.

I also learned a lot from this book. Like to stay away from shit you don’t fully understand. She tells of her stone story where she had some sacred stones in her apartment, and they started doing weird shit to her. She admits that she had no clue what they did exactly and thus ran into problems. Headaches that wouldn’t go away, a lump on her forehead among other things. People told her it was the stones, but she dismissed it til she no longer could. She finally got rid of them, and all the wired stuff went away also. That is an important lesson to be learned here if you don’t know 10000 percent how something works and can control it then stay far far far away. Power can be useful, but it can also be evil.

One major thing that I learned in this book is that there is something called a Functional Dr. I looked it up ad what do you know they have a clinic thingie at Cleveland Clinic. I am thinking about making an appoint if the take my insurance. The best that I understand it is that it is where East meets West and during my time in Africa I can tell you that unless you have Malaria or something that their traditional meds work a damn lot better than some of the shit that I have been given by traditional Dr’s. In fact apart from my audiologist and my shrink I try and stay far far away from Dr’s. You go in sick then you come out ten times sicker. My friend wasn’t feeling well, and she thought she just had bad allergies or something turns out she had Cancer. I have had several other friends who have had similar experiences.  And the shit traditional  Drs give you mostly just ends up making things worse. My mom has had antibiotics so much she has to take SUPER antibiotics when she gets sick now. I just wonder what she is gonna do when she becomes resistant to THAT.  Every time I felt bad in Cameroon, I would drink ginger, and that works soo much better than Zofran without making you sleep for 48 hours straight. Hmmph

I also like the chapter explaining what it is that everyone does. Like the aforementioned Functional Dr., I learned some neat things. Like what an energy worker is and how to use I love stuff like this so learning all of this is right up my alley. I also love how she keeps it real. There is no superiority complex with her that i have seen in other spiritual self-help junkies.