‘Coming Back to Herself’ by Piyusha Abbhi comes with an expectation as it carries a byline- “A journey Through Unspoken pain and Quiet healing”. It is expected to be a quiet exploration of what happens when emotional pain remains unspoken for too long. And frankly, that is an overpromise to the reader.
Yes, there is a journey with unseen, unnamed, unheard people, like the ghost of the internal reflective journey that Meera undertakes in her transformation. Even the protagonist’s name, Meera, is rarely used. This style of writing makes the whole story feel very iterative and static.
The book ‘Coming BAck To Herself’, resonates with the idea that childhood reactions, actions, impressions, and inaction tend to shape personality. And how people mutely carry these scars that affect and define their behaviour.
It rightly provides no prescriptive solution and allows the reader to draw their own conclusions. And because it is not specifically addressed to any problem, or rather a multitude of symptoms, it is for everyone to read.
One of the best tenets that is sprinkled in multiple ways throughout the book ‘Coming Back to Herself’ is a simple thought: ‘You don’t need to become someone new to heal, you need to come back to who you already are. Because ( or maybe one should not use because here), healing is never dramatic, Growth is rarely loud, and peace is not a reward for doing more.
This could have been a far better book and more relatable if the journey had more named characters and more incidents. There is not much happening in action, and yet there is a lot that happens. That’s the shortfall as well as the beauty of the book. And in that way, I found it too philosophical. No, I am not saying it is unbelievable, unrelated, or not grounded in reality; I am just saying it does not satisfy my palate. And I have read quite a lot of books that share a similar philosophy and offer reflections in recent times. Which makes you feel Déjà vu all the time, as if you’d read it somewhere else too.
To me, I find a reflective phase from Osho that embodies the whole thought, “The way is not from the outside. You are already there; you have just forgotten it. You have only to come back to yourself.”, reframed,’ healing isn’t about becoming someone new, but about the slow, repetitive journey of returning to the person you were before the world told you who to be’.
What jars me is the long list of non-prescriptive exercises, asking the reader to cautiously select and follow. It’s like someone from NLP was trying to condense a recent workshop into a few pages. It did not do justice to the topic, the work, or NLP. I would have appreciated a few deep dives into one or two, at most three. There you have Affirmations, Reframing, Values, Release statements, uncertainty, and change a bit on relationships too, Guided reflection, daily exercises, breathing pattern and reminders. Trying to pack too much in too short a time with misplaced context that leads to confusion.
In fact, the metamorphosing journey of Meera is 49 pages in all, and there are 27 pages of NLP!, so you don’t know what you are reading- a journey or a prescription. And still, the book has enough for everyone to read at least once and try to rediscover themselves.
Despite her debut work, Piyusha Abbhi has been able to pack some gems. It’s worth the investment even if one of them resonates and finds a mark with you. This is not a transformative book. It’s something that can initiate your search and lead you to a path of discovery.
So here are some things that I related to,
‘You are allowed to take time. You are allowed to pause without explanation. You are allowed to choose rest over action, and there is nothing ineffective about staying with yourself. It may in fact be the most powerful thing you ever learned to do’
So go ahead and read the book.
Published by SHASHWAT PUBICATION, this 77-page book of wisdom, ‘Coming Back to Herself’ by Piyusha, is priced at INR 199 and available on Amazon.
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CHIMERA OF LANSDOWNE- KINDLE EDITION ALSO AVAILABLE.
