Author Dr. Carolyn Kurle is a scientist, professor, and researcher who is passionate about helping people increase their personal authenticity and contentment. The Guidance Groove is both a tool and a gift she’s created to help you get unstuck, break free from false mental programming, and follow a gentle and supportive roadmap for navigating the flow of life. Dr. Kurle explains her divination of the title by sharing how grooves are created through repetitive action. While some grooves make the path of life easier, some are detrimental. They become ruts in which we get stuck. Understanding the distinction and learning how to guide yourself into the “liberating” grooves is what this book is all about.

But you’re not alone in this endeavor.

Dr. Kurle explains how there are “guides” all around you, waiting and wanting to uplift you and help you develop the right terrain. The challenge is recognizing and cultivating these external and internal guidance signals. One powerful guidance comes from inside. For example, Dr. Kurle opens the book with a fascinating illustration of how instincts are critical in driving decisions during extreme stress and challenges the reader to learn to rely on them creating a deep groove of guidance. All the same, one should seek out and trust powerful external guides and the author shares how to find, vet, and discover those you can trust and channel their wisdom toward your success.

“When you follow your guidance from within a framework of benevolent intentionality, you achieve outcomes that place you on your best and highest pathways.”

As you move further into the book, each chapter opens with a bold “Fear Motivator” intertwined with an obligation or scarcity groove that needs to be addressed to move forward. I love this direct approach, how she stops you in your tracks and challenges you to reflect on this “groove” or pattern that holds you rooted in place. Then she follows this reflection with the ego component, an illustrative case example. Her succinct list of commonly unproductive grooves was eye opening. Conversely, she offers concrete steps for smoothing them out, including asking for help, which is ironically, something we instinctively avoid doing. Being open to asking, listening, accepting, and tuning in are inherent strategies which, when cultivated, help counteract unproductive tendencies and counterintuitive approaches, training your brain to embrace your guidance grooves.

Image and Book Courtesy of Smith Publicity, Inc.