[MD] How to be Free

[Squonkriff at aol.com]

The Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment
by Isabel Losada
 
Isabel Losada leaves no stone unturned--literally--on her trip down The  
Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment. Wishing to live her life "completely,  
abundantly, joyfully and stupidly" she makes an entertaining travelling  companion 
as she describes her efforts to move away from her in-a-rut life where  
"nothing was changing". And she takes us everywhere with her: a life-skills  course 
in North London; a convent retreat in Oxford; T'ai chi in France; a  massage 
in Bath--even the past as she explores her previous incarnations. The  journey 
is invigorating and exhausting and enriched by the numerous characters  she 
meets en route.  
The book is much more than a travelogue, however. Losada describes with  
considerable skill and sensitivity the breakthroughs in the lives of people  
around her--the woman who starts to work through childhood abuse, for instance,  
and another who confronts the bullies from school--and her honesty is refreshing 
 and often surprising (her description of colonic irrigation takes the breath 
 away). Often she picks up useful nuggets of inspiration that the reader can 
take  away and digest and these are sprinkled through the text. Intercut 
throughout is  her life with her daughter in a "shoebox" in Battersea and her 
burgeoning  romance with Mark, the man she meets at a hypnotherapy seminar.  
Losada has an entertaining and witty style and comes across as somewhat bossy 
 but likeable all the same. And the stones she doesn't leave unturned?  
The first part of this new experience involved sitting up and  lying down 
again on to a row of hot stones that had been laid down to head up  the muscles 
on either side of the spine. Damned clever 
.  --Christina McLoughlin
 
'You know those people who always radiate cheerful optimism...? Nauseating  
aren't they? I want to become one of those...I want to find out how to live 
life  completely, abundantly, joyfully, stupidly. This is my quest. 
Enlightenment.' So  proclaims Isabel Losada, Starbucks addict, exercise allergic and 
self-confessed  sceptic as she sets out on the road to enlightenment. Beginning with 
an Insight  seminar where hundred people with name badges learn to 'share', 
Isabel journeyed  through a gruelling course of 'Rolfing' nude Goddess 
workshops, a weekend of  tantric sex ('Yes! Yes! Yes!') and a reincarnation session, 
not to mention a  spot of colonic irrigation. Irreverent yet open-minded, funny 
and always honest,  The Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment is also moving 
and ultimately  illuminating. For anyone who has ever been tempted to dip a toe 
in the waters of  self-discovery, Isabel Losada plunges you straight  in.