The Craggy Hole in My Heart and the Cat Who Fixed It: Over the Edge and Back with My Dad, My Cat, and Me

The Craggy Hole in My Heart and the Cat Who Fixed It: Over the Edge and Back with My Dad

, My Cat, and Me

In this inspiring and joyous book, New York Times bestselling author Geneen Roth introduces her remarkable twenty-pound cat, Mister Blanche, and her beloved father, Bernard, as she takes readers deep into the story of how each finally taught her to love without reservation and accept that she might someday lose those whom she believed she couldn't live without.

This book, however, is not about emotional eating per se, but rather about the emotions and the stories that can drive the eating.No matter what role truyen tranh hai food plays in our lives, it is inextricably linked to our desire for love and acceptance . . . and you usually don't need 6 degrees of separation to get there.Geneen addresses these issues better than anyone I know. She has lived her life untangling them and teaching the rest of us how to do the same. For example, in regard to her fear of her beloved cat's death:"It occurs to me that I can spend the rest of my life (and his) in low-level panic, or I can take a leap into the suffering, and make friends with fear, pain and sorrow.

It is the same juncture I reached with food, when I realized I could keep being frightened of going off the diet and eating so much I'd end up weighing a thousand pounds, or I could stop dieting and discover if there was a bottom to my hunger."Again and again Geneen lays it all on the line this book is fresh, vulnerable, edgy and funny.

In it, she confronts the honest, raw truth of her life, of her relationships . . . and takes us all along for the ride. And what a ride it is! Geneen tells us the story of how she sold her soul for the love of her father, how she learned to love (with 20-lb. cat,Mr. Blanche in tow), to BE loved and to confront the truth.In coaching,

I sometimes ask my clients, "What's the lie?" meaning where are you lying to yourself? With integrity and courage, my clients learn to face the truth by shedding the lies.In shedding her lies, Geneen also sheds the skins of her childhood. Psychological researchers now believe that we do NOT have to be prisoners of our childhoods. As human beings, we are amazingly capable of rewriting our childhood stories.

I am not a cat person or a dog person, so when a friend told me I had to read this book, I was willing to pick it up, but a bit wary.The title is way too sentimental for this incredibly deep, brilliant, laugh and cry out-loud book. From the first page, I was hookedand I never put the book down. Once I finished it, I started it again. Like all of Geneen's books, you have the feeling that she is talking right to you, about you, about your life, your family, your friends, your feelings. One more thing: this is not a book about animals.

Okay, I admit it: I'll pick up almost any book with the word "cat" or "dog" on the cover. I'd never read Geneen Roth before, and I didn't expect to like this book very much. But this book won me over the way Blanche won over the author: slowly and subtly.Roth was in a position to be a great cat-owner. She lived in a city with access to alternative veterinary medicine as well as cat therapists, groomers and more. So when Blanche entered her life, Roth's love spilled over. And it couldn't happen to a nicer cat.I must admit I turned the pages a little faster when Roth panicked about losing her cat.

Blanche is tougher than he looks, I wanted to say. Many people will find parallels with Roth's family in their own lives or their friends' lives. Roth tells the story movingly, but matter-of-factly, without self-pity.But Blanche remains the hero of this book and Roth's life. Perhaps the most telling passage comes when she writes that, "Blanche is like food once was he doesn't talk back, he doesn't hit, he doesn't go awayalso, and I think this is important, he doesn't have any calories."Blanche really does fill a hole in the author's heart but, unlike food, Blanche helps Roth grow and accept new relationships.

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