An Open Hearted life is a mix of psychology and buddhist teachings, a sort of ‘Buddhism lite’ that provides a gateway into integrating compassion into every day life.
This isn’t a book that can be read cover-to-cover, almost none of the ideas are going to be things you haven’t heard before. Instead, it’s meant to be a series of meditations to cover on applying compassion to different parts of life.
I found the chapters on self compassion and using compassion as a means to deal with negative emotions to be the most useful, and the book contains enough practical advice that I’ve been able to apply parts of this in real life effectively.
I limited myself to reading no more than a chapter per day, and plan to revisit quite a few of certain chapters in the future.