Spiritual Constipation by Stephen Ladd is a series of short essays on the meaning of life. These essays are designed to be confusing but in a good way. As Ladd says, he believes the state of being calm and confused at the same time will help people see how their minds work. That is his focus. That and freedom. To simplify his book in a few sentences requires me to use steps, which is something he abhors. But I’ll do it anyway in the hope of creating something of the mental state his book induces.
Emotions come from thoughts. Thoughts are always changing. Just wait. Freedom is doing the things you want to do for the reasons you want to do them.

One of my favorite examples in this book is Steven Ladd’s approach to coaching. He does not care if his team wins. He cares that the team members enjoy playing the game. That way his team is doing what they want to do and they’ll go home having had a good time. Feeling happy after a game does not depend on winning or losing. I think this is a super way to sum up another of the author’s key points: The past is thoughts. The future is thoughts. The only thing going on right now is Now. If you like having your beliefs challenged, your preferences treated as unimportant in the larger picture, and your self-image called into question, I highly recommend Stephen Ladd’s Spiritual Constipation.

Spiritual Constipation: Discover Your True Nature and Get Shift Moving is a work of non-fiction in the self-help and motivational subgenres. It is best suited to the general adult reading audience owing to some explicit language and mild drug references and was penned by Stephen Ladd. As its title suggests, this is a work that seeks to do away with the scores of rules-driven self-help books that encourage strict regimes to try to deliver eventual peace. In a work that flips the scripts and suggests that we shouldn’t overstrain ourselves to solve life’s stresses, Ladd offers great advice on bridging the gap between practical and emotional problems in order to achieve harmony.

I enjoyed every part of this book, from its sweetly sardonic authorship through to the down-to-earth, heavy-hitting advice for life that is both hard to hear and also very welcome to the most neurotic and stressed of us. Stephen Ladd delivers a well-organized work that covers everything you could want, from addressing bad habits to letting things go, nurturing love in one’s life, and being open to new philosophies. For me, the chapter ‘Ego is NOT the Enemy’ was so refreshing to hear and explore. I thought the additional audio content was such a good idea and a really accessible path toward meditation that does away with the stressful mental discipline concept. Spiritual Constipation is a book you’ll want to read whether you’re currently suffering from this condition or not, as it’s an essential primer on not taking life’s problems too deeply to heart when they come along, and treating everything in your world with the right balance.