Saturday, October 8, 2016

Starting Over by Dave Ferguson & Jon Ferguson

Purchase links:
     Amazon.com
     ChristianBook.com

Starting Over: Your Life Beyond Regrets by Dave Ferguson & Jon Ferguson is about learning from your past regrets in order to move on from the Sorry Cycle, find redemption, and live beyond your regrets. This book is divided into four sections. The first explains the Sorry Cycle, the three types of regret (action, inaction, and reaction), the God longing, and the need to learn to love your regrets. The second explains how to break out of the Sorry Cycle by recognizing your regrets, releasing your regrets, and redeeming your regrets. The third section focuses on the most common categories of regret (spirituality, relationship, health, finance, and purpose), walking you through examples of each and suggestions on how to break free from the Sorry Cycle that each may trap you in. The last section is about starting over every day, learning to turn the Sorry Cycle into the Starting Over Loop. There is also a "living beyond regrets work sheet" at the back to help you break down your biggest regret(s) and follow the authors' step-by-step process in order to find healing and peace.

The letting go process for each regret is the same; ask forgiveness of others, forgive others, ask forgiveness of God, forgive God and the world, and forgive yourself. The concept behind this is that if you're stuck ruminating over a regret, then you need full spectrum forgiveness to truly be free to learn and move on. This is great for those regrets that hold your focus and keep you from letting go enough to reach your potential. However, I personally found that my biggest regret (trusting someone I shouldn't have) is not quite the match for their prescription. It's categorized as a reaction regret (regret over something someone did to me) in the relationship category (chapter 7). So far so good. But when the shockwave effects of some things go beyond those replays and reenactments in your head, their problem solving method is somewhat lacking. This is not to say that I don't agree with their method; on the contrary, I think it's wonderful - for the right degree of regrets. If your regrets are the type that leave you holding yourself back because of what you did or didn't do or how you did or did not act, then this book is awesome. However, if your regrets run deeper than that, and have left you with nightmares and feeling as though you have gaping wounds in your soul, then this book may not run deep enough to leave you truly feeling capable of resolving those issues and starting over. 4/5 stars.

*Disclaimer: I received a proof copy of this book from Blogging For Books in exchange for this honest review.*

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