On Thriving: Harnessing Joy Through Life’s Great Labors

Postpartum doula Sellerz-Jackson sets out to remind readers that “you already have everything you need to thrive” in her haphazard debut. Mixing self-help and memoir, she contends that life is defined by “four great labors”: relationships, mental health, grief, and being “othered.” Readers can move from “simply surviving to thriving” in each realm by trusting “your intuition, your body, and the teacher within” and embracing “the bizarre beauty of letting go” of life’s uncontrollable variables. Specific strategies include breathwork to boost mental health, and creating a healthy bedtime routine to help navigate structural inequalities, because “rest [is] your birthright.” Sellerz mines her experience as a postpartum doula throughout, offering an especially astute discussion of the “post-birth grief” that results after one reaches a goal (whether it be giving birth or landing a dream job) and mourns “all that was lost in the process.” Unfortunately, structural flaws abound: stories about the author’s childhood, marriage, and experiences of systemic racism are intimate but so rambling that they crowd out the encouraging lessons she tries to draw from them, and the frequent use of “plant symbolism” often falls flat. (Of a philodendron with “long winding roots spill[ing] out of her pot,” Sellerz-Jackson muses, “what if we all dared not only to reach for the sun but to take up space while doing so?”). Enthusiasm isn’t enough to save this scattered outing. (Jan.)