1-Sentence-Summary: The Mountain Is You is a self-discovery book that aims to help its readers tap into their own power and discover their potential by overcoming trauma, life’s challenges, and working on their emotional damages, all through accepting change, envisioning a prosperous future, and stopping the self-sabotage.
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Favorite quote from the author:
Table of Contents
Video Summary
Historically, mountains have been widely used in metaphorical terms to describe spiritual awakenings, obstacles we as humans must face, or the ups and downs of life. The Mountain Is You by Brianna Wiest focuses on the block between you and the life you want to live. The author uses the mountain to explain how all the imperfections, experiences, insecurities, and hardship you’ve faced so far built up in time and formed your personal challenge that you must overcome in order to grow.
Our purpose is to grow and reach our true inner potential. Whether we like it or not, we all mature every day. However, the way we react to this process will decide the success of our endeavors. Your old self cannot sustain your new, everchanging life. So in order to tap into your highest potential, you must reinvent yourself. To do so, you’ll have to release trauma and your old mindset and carry on forward with an improved mind frame and a pure spirit.
We’ll explore how to do so by looking at three of my favorite lessons from the book:
- Identify your subconscious commitments to address self-sabotage.
- If you’re unhappy with your life, get comfortable with radical changes.
- Listen to your gut, but know when your intrusive thoughts are taking over.
Let’s see what each lesson is all about, and go into detail to explore what they have to offer!
The Mountain Is You Summary
Lesson 1: When we realize what our core needs are, we’ll understand why we make certain decisions in life.
Our subconscious is responsible for pretty much everything we do on a daily basis. This includes big decisions too. Unfortunately, it is responsible for our self-sabotage too, and there’s only one thing we can do about it: identifying our core commitments. These are the things that our heart desires and looks for in every action we do. Find out what they are by looking at the things you struggle the most with and the things that drive you the most.
When you find the root cause for your actions, you’ll discover why you sometimes end up ruining things for yourself. Let me exemplify this for you! Let’s say you’re a person who deep down desires to be free. You may find yourself sabotaging work opportunities without an apparent reason. Or maybe your core commitment is to feel wanted and pursued, but end up refusing to be fully engaged in your relationship because you don’t want the love to “fade”.
No matter what your core commitment is, you must actively acknowledge it and work towards fulfilling it. Aligning your actions with your inner desires is what will make you happy. Hence, start with writing down what makes you frustrated, unhappy, and angry. You’ll know where the problem is! Then, ask yourself, “Where is the lesson in all that I’ve been going through?” and then build your life by doing things that answer the question “Is this serving my core needs right now?”.
Lesson 2: Seek risky opportunities, instead of accepting comfortable life situations.
As humans, we are guided by comfort. We seek the familiar and are naturally risk-averse, even if it’s not to our benefit. In situations when we find ourselves unhappy with our lives, a change could be the catalyst for a significant jump forward. Still, we fear it, as if it’s something negative, and postpone it until it feels more uncomfortable to live in the status quo than changing it.
Once we realize our nature, it gets easier to change our lives for the better. Seeking comfort is what ensures our survival, but sometimes it hinders our growth. As long as you have your basic needs fulfilled, but are unhappy with your life, change is what you need. Prepare for it by acknowledging what makes you unhappy and be prepared to feel uncomfortable, frustrated, and stressed at first.
Keep in mind that everything you’ll lose was built for the person you no longer are. Don’t get attached to your old life, but keep an eye on your new one. Then, get out of that autopilot state of mind and move past your tunnel vision. Actively engage in activities and seek opportunities that fit your true passions and desires. And if you lose friends on the way, that’s perfectly fine! You’re building your new self and your better version.
Lesson 3: Learn to differentiate between intuition and intrusive thoughts.
Our mind is a powerful tool. Most often than not, our subconscious knows what’s best for us, and it seeks the things our spirit desires, without us noticing. However, if we try to listen to it, we might get confused and receive mixed signals, because as we seek comfort, some of our thoughts may also come from fear, and not just intuition. So how can we tell which ones are good, and which ones are bad? Is there a filter we can use?
The short answer is yes. You can tell the difference by feeling your thoughts. If they’re calm, make sense and sound rational, and don’t make you feel panicked by starting a spiral of negativity, thoughts, and overthinking, they come from intuition. If they create more problems, remain stuck in your head, but not in your gut, and you feel them coming from your poorer version, the smaller you, who feels afraid and anxious, they’re intrusive thoughts. You don’t want to listen to those, as they’ll get you nowhere.
Understanding these thoughts is a great first step towards taking care of yourself and building a better you. Moreover, they improve your emotional intelligence, which is something that many people struggle with without even knowing. When you build a better version of yourself and work on understanding your core needs, aligning your brain with your spirit, and directing your thoughts to coordinate actions in that direction, your life will change for the better. These are all essential steps towards your higher purpose.
The Mountain Is You Review
The Mountain Is You explains how to actively train your mind to identify your core needs and build a life that serves them. It’ll show you how to stop sabotaging yourself and act in line with what you truly want and deserve. An empowering read that’ll show you how to fulfill your real potential!
Who would I recommend our The Mountain Is You summary to?
The 35-year-old person who feels as if they’re unhappy and burnt out and want to change their lives for the better, the 40-year-old person going through a midlife crisis who wants to navigate their emotions better, or the 29-year-old person interested in building their emotional intelligence.
Last Updated on June 15, 2023
