My relationship with religion and spirituality is complicated at best. Despite growing up in a Catholic household, attending Catholic school, and ensuring I was in my pew every Sunday at Mass, I often felt that I was at the surface level of a connection with God. In fact, the thought of God often gave me a great deal of anxiety.
Throughout college, I went through a process of deconstruction. I rejected a notion of God altogether and lived most of my young adult life without any form of religion or spirituality. When I started to become curious about a new way of living, I sought out ideas that were very different from those with which I was raised. Gabrielle Bernstein was one of the spiritual leaders who caught my eye, partly because she is diametrically opposed to the religious leaders I saw as a child. Priests are always men, often in their 50s, 60s, 70s, or even 80s. While nuns were women, I never saw one younger than my grandmother, and, of course, they took a secondary role in the leadership of the Church.
To this day, the word “God” still makes me uncomfortable, which is probably one reason why Bernstein’s books appeal to me. Spirit, Universe, and ~ing are used to describe a higher power, and because of the absence of the great “God wall,” I can more readily connect to the brand of spirituality she espouses.
Super Attractor is all about manifesting the life you want. There are a lot of The Secret-esque thoughts woven into the pages of this book, but the main lesson I extrapolated was how to live in a space of gratitude. While I can’t connect with every bit of magical thinking in this book, gratitude is something I can definitely get behind.
I’m not going to pretend that this book is masterfully written or an example of great literature. In fact, there were many times while reading Super Attractor in which I felt that the writing was rushed and repetitive. Despite these issues, I give the book four stars because it contains many useful activities and lessons that could benefit anyone regardless of their beliefs system. To put one important lesson to use, Bernstein has helped me to connect with my spirituality again, and for that, I am grateful.