Award-Winning Book Aims to Combat Celebrity-Fuelled Pressure

Award-Winning Book Aims to Combat Celebrity-Fuelled Pressure

25 July 2013, 2:05PM
Femme

An internationally acclaimed spiritual author says her new book aims to help Kiwi women combat the pressure of living up to expectations set by celebrities like Beyonce, Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie.

New Zealand spiritual author, Marnie McDermott, says ‘Beyond Happiness: The 12 Principles of Enduring Bliss’ is designed to help Kiwi females find inner peace without comparing themselves to A-Listers who make juggling many demanding roles appear easy.

McDermott’s US award winning memoir covers her 12 guiding principles of how to achieve happiness through a deeply personal account of her own experience.

McDermott was inspired to write the self-help book after a devastating house fire saw her lose everything she believed defined her.

The incident was both traumatic and liberating, as it allowed her to simplify her life and discover her true pathway to happiness, she says.

“For a long time I was caught in the ‘manufactured’ happiness trap, where I thought having luxury items would make me happy. This has almost become an epidemic in the western world,” she says.

“I obsessed with finding happiness through attaining things, and I would make constant plans about when and how I would be happy – by buying a bigger home, having flasher clothes, or earning more money.”

McDermott says that as she continued to upsize her life she just became more miserable. “I worked my way up to earning six figures as a national corporate communications specialist, and I had the wardrobe full of shoes and clothes to go with it, but somehow I still felt empty. I kept convincing myself that if I did and had more I would be happy someday,” she says.

“I kept adding distractions to my life, effectively blocking myself from happiness, rather than just pausing to realise it was already within me.”

McDermott suffered a terrible house fire which took everything but her life. She endured death, divorce and increasing despair, before unlocking the key to what had seemed like a life-long search for happiness.

“I started to study health and mind-body principles, and I discovered that I’d been looking for happiness in all the wrong places, getting caught up in the business of the modern world and thinking I’d find it in luxury items and an impressive career,” she says.

“The only thing holding me back from being happy was the fear of doing what I loved – the fear of being judged, doing a bad job, being unworthy or not being lovable. Once I learned to embrace my true self and find balance in my life I was able to find inner peace.”

McDermott says she wrote her book to help other New Zealand women battling feelings of desperation as she did.

“It’s the book I wish I’d read ten years ago, as it would have would have saved me a decade of my life spent searching for happiness,” she says.

“I wrote it for my former self, and all the other NZ women who are struggling to find the key to creating the life they really want, despite their desperate attempts to do and have it all.”

‘Beyond Happiness: The 12 Principles of Enduring Bliss’ recently won the US-based 2013: National Indie Excellence Award in the mind, body, spirit category.

Along with being an author, McDermott is a professional life coach, Reiki master teacher and chartered energy kinesiologist.

McDermott will release her second book, ‘Soul Happiness’, later this year.
‘Beyond Happiness: The 12 Principles of Enduring Bliss’ is available from selected Paper Plus stores, online bookstores such as Amazon.com and the BookDepository.com, via her publisher Balboa Press, and directly through Marnie McDermott on her website www.marniemcdermott.com.

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