Clear is Kind: The Quiet Art of Staying Calm, Clear, and Kind in a Loud World by Stellan CroweIn a society that thrives on meritocracy, productivity, perseverance, and being strong, loud, and in control, remaining clear headed, calm, and kind are often seen as weaknesses. This book reveals that is not so,
The core promise of the book is “How to speak clearly without being cruel. How to set boundaries without guilt. How to return to your center fast. Self-mastery isn’t perfection. It’s return speed.”
It breaks down the frequent cycle of mental and emotional suffering into easily understood and digestible steps to understand what specifically the mind, body, and heart are going through in these situations: The Voice-the narrator in your head, The Hook-the trigger that grabs your attention, The Lens-the meaning you assign to events, The Wave-emotion moving through the body, and The Return-your way back to center.
To combat this cycle, Crowe suggests The RETURN Method: Recognize what is happening and notice what parts of the cycle are active, Exhale to create the body and ground yourself physically, Tell the truth to distinguish between facts and the stories you’re telling yourself and identify real feelings and needs, Unhook from old patterns by spotting assumptions, personalizations, or the grip of old identities, and consciously stepping away from them, Respond by choosing a clear honest action that fits the moment, and Nurture the return by supporting a return to center with repair, compassion towards yourself, and repetition of those steps.
The book is divided into ten chapters and contains four appendices. The chapters include Clear is Kind, The Noise, The Voice and Listener, The Hook, The Lens, The Wave, Calm is a Skill, Boundaries That Feel Like Love, Alignment, The Return Practice, The Quiet Victory. Appendices include: The RETURN Card, One Minute Practice List with 10 Tools, Boundary Scripts for Work, Family, and Romance, 30-Day Tracker with Instructions and a Sample.
The book is neatly divided so readers can understand the whole work or search for specific sections that they want to study and improve upon. They are a combination of personal stories, lists, exercises, and suggestions to further improve oneself.
Chapter 1: Clear is Kind has Section 1 which includes Kindness WIthout Clarity Becomes Resentment with three micro-stories that illustrate conflicts in work, family, and romance.
Section 2 includes The Three Forms of Clarity,
Clarity With Yourself: “What is true in me right now?” with a microstory on self-sabotage and three questions “What am I feeling right now?” “What do I need?” and “What is my capacity right now?”
Clarity With Others: “What am I asking?/Saying yes to?//What am I saying no to?” including a micro story about work and two distinctions: Clarity is not control. Clarity is ownership.
Clarity With Life: “What can I influence, and what can I accept?” a microstory about family and two questions: What is actually within my influence and What is my boundary or response if it stays the same?”
How These Three Forms Work Together and how you feel when they are out of alignment: If you lack clarity with yourself, you feel numb. If you lack clarity with others, you become resentful or passive-aggressive. If you lack clarity in life, you become stuck in control, rumination, or false hope.
Section 3: The Daily Commitment (The Next Honest Step) features a microstory about self-sabotage, The 60 Second “Clear is Kind” Reset to pause, exhale, name the truth, choose the next honest step, and nurture, the tripwire: over explaining and apologizing for T=truth, a mini checklist and what to say instead scripts, quotable one liners, the vow: “I choose clarity with warmth. Clear is kind” and a tiny homework assignment to practice a sentence that sets boundaries such as “I can do X but not Y.”
I Am Not a Statistic: A Journey to Reclaim My Life: A Memoir of Resilience to Navigate Emotional Trauma and Discover Hope, Strength, and Purpose by Terri Sterk in collaboration with Tammy Lieberman I Am Not a Statistic tells a powerful story about resilience in the face of tough times like illness and loss.
Tammy Lieberman certainly had her share of tough times as she explains to co-author and chronicler Terri Sterk. She had a childhood marked by emotional abuse and neglect, particularly from a mother who parentified her to handle a family crisis, sacrificing college to do so. Lieberman said hat this time helped shape her own choices during motherhood. She committed herself to break the cycle of abuse that was inflicted on her so her sons would not suffer the same fate.
Some of the more interesting aspects of the book are when Lieberman admitted the emotional tolls that her tough times took on her. While most of the book encourages triumph over adversity, Lieberman made the readers fully aware of the adversity. She acknowledged that her difficult past produced some negative consequences for a long time afterwards.
As a child she fell into the parental role without question. She solved problems, comforted others, and stepped in where she was needed. This created a cycle of resilience but also an unwillingness to accept help from others. She faced her adult difficulties with strength and perseverance but a reluctance to let others inside.
Lieberman’s adulthood did not get much easier either. She was diagnosed with breast cancer when her sons were still very young. Treatments, chemotherapy, and the emotional uncertainty weakened her mind and body.
On top of the stress of cancer diagnosis, Lieberman’s husband, Eric, died. Along with a frail body, two sons going through their own difficulties, she had to adjust to grief, widowhood, and single parenthood. Lieberman said that she was caught between two mindpaths, one to stay angry and let pain define her future and the other to acknowledge the trauma but not lose herself to it. It was a hard choice but Lieberman ultimately went with the second option.
She also learned some valuable lessons about who to trust and who not to. Despite Eric serving his community faithfully as a police officer, his life insurance policy was denied leaving her and her children destitute. Well they picked the wrong woman to deny it, because Lieberman fought them. She spoke publicly about the denial and was interviewed by ABC News. Eventually the insurance was restored.
She cited friends who taught her to advocate for herself and to ask for help so she could receive answers. This challenges the isolation that she developed in the self-reliant but toxic childhood that shaped her. Her friends proved to be direct contrasts to the fair weather departments that her husband served so faithfully and turned their backs on his family in their darkest time of need.
Lieberman also cited her family particularly her sons and brother that helped her through the difficulties. Because they lost their father and their mother was going through a health crisis of her own, they were forced to grow up pretty quickly. They provided physical and emotional support for their ill and often bed ridden mother. Their strength and devotion are admirable showing that caregiving between parents and children can be a two way street.
Lieberman decided to build a corporation to make sure that her sons were cared for. Her brother, Charlie, who helped the business grow while she received medical care. She says that he handled countless responsibilities such as building, repairing, painting, and handling the material necessities for the business. Charlie became a steady rock that Lieberman desperately needed.
Besides sharing her story, the book leads by example. It combines Lieberman’s story with advice that can be used by readers for their own struggles. For example one section establishes safety by creating a safe space. Lieberman transformed her environment into a place of healing. Soft lighting, warm blankets, essential oils, and soothing music nurtured her senses and calmed her mind. Using her example, readers can create such a space of their own to destress. Creating a sacred space is essential for self care.
Lieberman also cites her faith to help her through her struggle. Lieberman's belief in God helped her live her remaining life with purpose and to fight to see the light that she felt was hidden from her during the darkness. She quoted poems and Bible verses, like the 23rd Psalm, that provided comfort and connection for her and in turn for her readers. Religious minded readers will find comfort in Lieberman's reliance on spirituality and faith.
Lieberman died in 2025 but her story, spirit, and legacy live on.
Despite what the title says, Bo Bennett’s A Mostly Magnificent Memoir: True Stories Dramatized and Somewhat Fictionalized is not a non-fiction memoir. That's important to know in light of some information revealed towards the end of the book that won't be spoiled here.
Instead it is a humorous Historical Fiction anthology based on events from Bennett's youth but told from the perspective of a fictional protagonist, Jimmy Murphy. Why Bennett chose this roundabout way of narration, I do not know but in doing so, he captures a brilliant first person narration of a childhood told with warm nostalgia, sharp wit, and acceptance of some bittersweet truths.
Instead of an overall novel of one singular youthful experience or a straight linear chronology of Jimmy's life between childhood and adulthood, A Mostly Magnificent Memoir, tells of nineteen chapters of various events in Jimmy's (and probably Bennett’s) youth involving school, friends, first crushes, bullies, causing trouble, fads, and adventures.
These are the types of adventures that are often found in those days when we ran around freely and didn't care what adults thought. Only after we cut ourselves and broke our legs did we realize that looking before leaping was good advice. When we thought that we knew everything about the world but were really just wrapped in youthful ignorance, naivete, and stupidity. When our bodies didn't ache and moan with aging and adulthood pressures. When our hobbies and entertainment interests were the most important things in our lives. When we thought that the world would always be like this.
Jimmy's friendships are what distract him and provide comfort in a toxic home life with an alcoholic bad tempered father and a loud tabloid obsessed mother. The book explains that even a simple birthday greeting for their son is enough to send them into a virulent hurricane of insults and accusations towards one another.
Many of Jimmy’s childhood experiences are flights of reality mixed with fantasy such as his fantastic tale of a beanstalk growing in his yard (told to him by his teasing father) and when he saw a monkey that escaped from a nearby zoo in their yard. There is also a seriocomic moment when his mother violated speeding laws to chase what she believed was a UFO so she could be abducted hinting at instability as well as a violent temper.
Most of Jimmy’s childhood and the book consist of youthful misadventures. He gets into fights with local boys, mourns a deceased beloved family dog, runs a baseball card trading racket, and despairs of being friend zoned by older women, and getting a perm which rendered him the scorn and ridicule of his classmates.
One of the most entertaining chapters describes the “Seek and Destroy” Missions. They were a series of elaborate pranks that Jimmy and his friends would do out of sheer boredom. One involved driving a car with a car seat and a realistic baby doll strapped to the roof. Jimmy reframes an early prank in which his friends broke into secure garage doors by accurately guessing the passcodes as a “public service to remind people to change their damn codes.”
They “had fun with technology” by using their remotes to change TV channels around town to the Playboy Channel (“Clearly the engineers behind this design didn’t have teenage boys”) and imitating a phone service to annoy randomly selected numbers creating departments like “Confusications” and “Satisfacations.”
Most of the pranks were immature but creative and not harmful but some skirted the line. Jimmy and his friends created elaborate seasonal displays that while most were harmless, one could have resulted in a serious car accident. Another resulted in a fire, community service, fines, and no more seek and destroy missions. This chapter has a biting savage humor that reminds readers that youth can contain creative exuberance, reckless abandon, and unfortunately simple mindsets that don’t stop and consider the consequences until it’s too late.
The book falls into drama late in the book, so late that it might have worked just as well without it. But it does present a finality to someone who had a childhood worth remembering during a mundane and often troubled adulthood marked by insecurity and illness. They were the days worth remembering.
