Do you have body-image struggles?
Are you sometimes driven mad by perfectionism?
Do you have problems with any of your eating behaviors?
Do you try to escape from your problems by overworking?
Are you sometimes so stressed out that you feel you're about to explode?
Do you often feel that nothing in your life is ever good enough?
If you answered yes to any of those questions, you're not alone. Those problems torment countless millions of people.
Want to read a real-life account of success over adversity that could start you on a journey to your own mental-health success story?
If you do, read on . . .
IMAGINE . . . having a dream life of family, material affluence, meaningful work, and autonomy, but being miserable and suicidal.
The person with that dream life was me, Stuart McRobert. I have a story to tell only because I survived my mental torment, recognized I had a serious problem, sought help, and turned my life around.
For 40-plus years I battled with attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that are commonly labeled as symptoms of three psychological disorders: muscle dysmorphia, orthorexia, and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD). The consequences were grave.
Mental health seems to be the most important determinant of individual happiness in developed countries.
How this book can help you
This book explains my struggles and self-inquiry, and then describes the five elements of my psychological healing. Each element helped me, but their synergism profoundly improved my mental health, my relationships, my physical health, and my overall life.
If you struggle with your body-image and/or eating behaviors, or if perfectionism and/or workaholism affect you, my journey may especially resonate with you. Those issues are common among bodybuilders and other exercise enthusiasts, but they are also common among countless other people.
In response to their psychological struggles, many millions of people seek comfort in smoking, alcohol, overeating, overworking, or other addictive behaviors. Sooner or later, though, those comforting behaviors produce additional difficulties. But singling out those behaviors as the problems misses the root causes in each individual, which need to be dealt with in order for healing to take place.
My story explains how I dealt with the root causes of my mental torment.
You have travelled a unique path with a particular background I can never know, but perhaps reading my success story may inspire you to start your own self-inquiry that leads to your own success story.
This book does not have any instruction on bodybuilding or how to train.
Stuart was first published in the world of bodybuilding journalism in 1981, when he was 22 years old. He has now had around 1,000 articles published in print magazines. He wrote a monthly column for the UK's leading bodybuilding magazine for 22 consecutive years. He has also authored several acclaimed books including BRAWN, BEYOND BRAWN, and BUILD MUSCLE LOSE FAT LOOK GREAT, and published his own magazine for 15 years. But his success as a writer was born out of his efforts to survive the profound struggles he had because of his psychological problems. That success yielded external benefits but also produced additional mental struggles, which resulted in suffocating distress.
