Pete walkers book - surviving to thriving

[Boatsetsailrose]

Hi
I have picked up Pete walkers book again and as much as I want to get more to understanding and working with it's contents,  I am again overwhelmed at its lay out.
Do U have experience of using the book ? Have you found ways to use it more simply ?
What sections have been helpful to you ?
I'd appreciate people's experience

[Gromit]

Hi, I read it as suggested, got to the point where I should skip ahead as I have not had physical abuse, read on from the next relevant part to the end, then started again, but this time reading it all.

It lives in my car & sometimes I pick it up when I wait for the kids to finish school. Some bits confuse me, some I relate to.

I have been looking at it the last few days to see if I could give you suggestions but it may just depend on what is relevant for you, which may not be relevant for me.

Sorry I don't know it well enough to suggest specific parts.

[Kizzie]

Hey Boats - just wanted to pop in and let you know Pete will be our guest blogger starting tomorrow if there's anything you wanted to ask him directly.  Link = http://www.outofthestorm.website/guest-bloggers/.   He's very kind and gentle (check out his responses when he was our guest about a month ago in Part 1).

I found I just had to go slowly with that book and as Gromit pointed out, pick and choose what was relevant to me. 

[Boatsetsailrose]

Thank u gromit and kizzie very helpful ..
Amazing that Pete is going to be guest blogger. What a privilege x

[LittleBoat]

Boats, I am working very hard with Pete Walker's book.  It took me a bit to get used to working with the book.  I'm sort of a "first page, go in order, get to end" linear reader.  But I realized that wasn't going to work with this book.  It's almost like taking a class, with different assignments and exercises, to do when you need to.  I learned to pay attention to his advice when he said things like, If you feel like you're going through an emotional flashback, see Appendix such and such or pages x-y.  I would stop reading, if I felt distressed and followed his instructions, going right to those pages.  There's a big post-it note, there, now.  He also urges the reader to not read from front cover to back but to review the Table of Contents and feel free to move around.   In the back is his "Tool Box."  I set up my own pages to carry out his exercises because the charts he has provided don't give me enough room to write what I need to write.  So far, I've just kept adding my own sheets of paper, folded up in the Toolbox section.  But I've since bought a looseleaf binder, to use as an accompanying workbook.  Just to structure my study of his ideas with "school supplies" has helped.  I had fun buying the supplies.  Pretty, different colored highlighters.  Ball point pens.  Big post-it notes, small ones, and just leave all these materials tucked in the book, close to bursting.  It is now filled with post-its, things I've written in the margins.  Rather sloppy, but it's my little classroom, and he's the teacher.  The book is meant to be used, as much, if not more so, than to be read word-by-word.  And going slowly as necessary, I'm finding, is essential.  All best, LittleBoat