I Cried All The Way To Happy Hour: What To Do When Self-Help Or Talk Therapy Haven’t Really Helped - Your Roadmap To Profound Healing And Personal Transformation

“I Cried All the Way to Happy Hour" by Brian Mahan is poignant, humorous and compelling. A powerful combination of storytelling and a roadmap to profound healing. Written in an astute, accessible and beautiful way that navigate the highs and lows of life with wit and vulnerability. Brian invites readers on a journey through his experiences, and expertise while blending moments of laughter with brilliant insights into the nature of trauma and the process of healing. His candid approach, and sharp observational skills make for compelling reading, resonating with anyone who has experienced the rollercoaster of emotions that trauma inevitably brings.What sets this book apart is Brian’s ability to remove any unintentional blame or fault toward the individual while providing readers with a compassionate, empathetic approach to therapy and healing. Whether recounting awkward encounters or reflecting on life's unexpected twists, he writes with a refreshing honesty that invites readers to laugh, cry, and ultimately find solace in shared experiences.Moreover Mahan’s prose is infused with warmth and authenticity, making his narratives feel like conversations with a trusted friend. Each page is crafted with care, offering poignant reflections that linger long after the book is finished."I Cried All the Way to Happy Hour" is not just another book ; it's a testament to resilience, empathy and has shifted the focus in the way we understand and think about trauma. Brian Mahan’s expertise and unique voice shines through in every page, making this book one of the most important books I’ve read.-SM

This book and working with Brian as a practitioner came along at a time when I was thinking there wasn't much hope after an experience I had with PTSD. Reading the first couple chapters made me feel I wasn't alone, And there truly was a way out. As a healing practitioner, Brian understood so much about my experience. The relatability, Ease of the material to understand, The humor, the grace, and the love that goes into this book and Brian's work is something I shall not soon forget and be eternally grateful for.

This was a quick and enjoyable read. I saved many highlights. I am a student of Somatic Experiencing and have been on my own somatic healing path over the last year. I found Brian’s thoughts on shame and joy particular interesting and helpful. I found his writing to be a nice balance of colorful and succinct.

Brian is not only a good practitioner , but also a good writer, keeping you engaged on every page. Gives a good understanding of how the brain works and how trauma is stored, as well as the hope that the body knows how to heal itself given the right process.

This book is Amazing! It's one of the few books that is relatable to everyone regardless of where you are in your life journey. Brian did an excellent job writing this book. It's unique because it isn't a typical self-help book that feels overwhelming to read if you aren't knowledgeable in the area of trauma and shame. At the same time, it will also provide valuable new information and insight to people that are highly knowledgeable in this area. Brian is truly an expert and he does an amazing job of explaining trauma and shame and how it impacts the body. In reading this book, you can feel Brian's passion for helping people understand and heal trauma. He provides so many valuable tools and resources. This book will make you feel seen and heard. It will help you to have more compassion for others. Most importantly, it will enable you to have more compassion for yourself and it will give you hope that you can heal. Reading this book and learning from Brian has been a life-changing experience for me! I highly recommend this book as a must-read for everyone.

As a client of Brian's, I didn't start reading this book until after I started my sessions with Brian. This book gave me hope. Hope of a different future, hope that I wasn't broken, hope that eventually my life could, would and does look better than it has in the past. Brian's way of bringing humor into what most people would consider to be dark territory in the book gives a perspective that most people won't. Also, it was nice to hear Brian's story and know that we're not alone in our healing journey. This is a must-read for those considering somatic experiencing therapy and even for those that aren't considering it, but want to have another tool in their tool box on their own path forward. This book is full of insight, a personal story, a healing story, and so much more. This book came from the heart and hopefully it finds you when you need it the most.

It's nice to read a book about some of the hardest things in life that isn't filled with citations, and which is relatable in so many ways. I can look up the clinical background later. Rather, this book is from the perspective of an expert in the field and his own personal journey in the first half, which then makes the second half of concrete, often challenging but incredible advice, easier to understand and digest. You realize that you're not alone in your journey, you're not crazy, and there are 15 terms that you will now always recite to your friends as if they too such understand a cognitive disconnect and the fact that "beliefs always win." But on a more serious note, this book is once for reading for a first pass, and a second time to remember the 17 things you wanted to underline along the way, mark down, and remember. It made me understand not just the baseline of somatic therapy (or a tiny part of the baseline), but also ask myself a lot of questions about how and why I do things, and what it even means to feel life again. Oh and the single fact alone that you can reframe anger on a spectrum, where it can sometimes be helpful, is worth the price of purchase.

Easy read with some what helpful information.

Thank you so very much for your fabulous book, Brian D Mahan! It was exactly what I needed to read on my journey to healing. My only wish was that I had come across it the minute it was fresh off the press! If you find yourself feeling like you could use a dear, thoughtful friend to explain why life is confusing and how to make sense of it. It took 6 car accidents before I finally was willing to put myself, my health first and change my life’s path. I recognize now that so much of my life was wishing I had the courage to stop being the protector, support and co-dependent care provider for so many in my life. I love the wonderful insights, explanations and support that Brian offers in his book. I have already bought copies to give away as I want others to feel the support that I received from Brian’s book. Truly worth every penny and minute spent reading this wonderful resource. You must be an absolutely amazing therapist! Thank you again for your life-changing book. (A picture of my good friend Karen Rauch Carter and Brian D Mahan. I had the wonderful opportunity to meet him in person, when I traveled to Mexico.)

Game Changer. The empathy with every sentence written is heartwarming and emotionally open. . FACT: Trauma is stored in the body. Not in the mind. Talk-therapy mostly stimulates 1/3 of the mind; the rational/cognitive part. Not where the trauma is.The very day that bit of info. entered my mind to stay. I stopped fighting my own mind.The book changed the game for me after a long "psychological" process of fighting my own mind; repressing it; going against it; using all my energy to try and change my thoughts because I believed my own thoughts were wrong. I stopped thinking that my thinking was the problem. To be able to identify with another's life experiences. With one's shame. Same as mine. Probably the same for all of us.Shame makes us want to hide. It's one of life's Factory Defect. Going against our own sensations.  The book talks about a very primitive, internal; natural shame.There is not a precise word to describe. The word of shame even has other meanings. Like an animal-shame. Biological and first method of survival shame. When a survival method fails at an early age. I have felt ashamed because I am ashamed. It's a confusion of sensations. The instinctive part of our brains becomes confused? The 3PartsofTheBrain are not communicating correctly.I hope this helps other's learn about this key part of us all.

After years of on/off depression and more recent traumatic events, this was the book that made it all make sense for me. I've been in and out of talk therapy all my life and somehow, always end up back there. This book explained very clearly how trauma exists in the body. It also gave me the belief that I can rearrange my life and that perhaps brighter existence is possible. an honest account of personal experience from the author, relatable and demystifies trauma.I had read lots of books on trauma prior to this one. All of them lead me to dismiss my own experiences and write them off as un noteworthy. When I read of war vets or rapes and childhood abuse, I would think that my experience didn't measure up and also be a little horrified by the trauma of others. I'd then convince myself that my trauma was all in my head and I wasn't worthy of help .....This book opened my eyes to the undeniable truth that my trauma is in my body.My main take away, you don't have to have suffered on big traumatic event to hold trauma in your body. In fact, often times, its how many low level traumas build and foster toxic shame that have paralysing consequences. ....for me, this added up to a realisation that Im not forever broken. There is someone who can explain my trauma AND there is a way forward in repairing the damage. Lots of interesting explanation of how the brain works in processing our experience and how that appears in the physical.

This book was my companion for the longest 6 months in my life, yes, it took me that long to finish it, but every time I opened it it was just the perfect moment to go through its pages... I traveled around Japan with me, and saw me shed tears of pain, joy and heal... I really recommend this book to anyone who's going through a dark moment, I will rely on it whenever I feel I need a little support, it is all worn off and it's pages are full of notes and highlighter... Thank you Brian for sharing this piece of deep self knowledge to the world...

Let me state at the outset I am am a medical doctor and neuroscientist that helps people recover from anxiety and I read about 3-4 books a month on the topic of healing trauma. By far and away, the people who experienced trauma first hand (especially in childhood) and have recovered seem to have the most wisdom on the subject. I find Brian D Mahan's book is no exception to that observation. Personal, engaging, very well written, and ultimately informative I CRIED ALL THE WAY TO HAPPY HOUR provides a well studied way out for people who have tried everything traditional therapy has to offer and are still suffering. Traditional cognitive, "talk" therapies have been heralded as the standard for healing emotional disorders and it is clear that this type of "thinking based" therapy is failing many, many people.In my practice treating people with anxiety, I consistently find many people feel because traditional therapy hasn't provided relief for them, that they are unfixable and they are destined to suffer forever. What is missing, and what I believe Brian's book so clearly shows, is that a more body centered, feeling based, "somatic" approach provides considerable advantages that the "talking cure" just can't rival. Brian quotes research showing that the more clearly people can describe their emotions via sensations in the body, the more likely they will ultimately overcome those painful feelings. As a physician and neuroscientist, this makes so much sense to me because the parts of the brain that relate to sensation and movement in the body are often also the very same parts that are engaged with emotion, especially painful emotion. Further, as Brian so aptly points out, shame is a considerable factor in painful emotion —and shame is an emotion he has spent considerable time and energy studying and resolving in himself using a somatic focus. Again, just talking about shame (as in traditional therapies) does little to resolve this powerful negative emotion. I have had over 100,000 patient encounters in my career and I believe to truly heal, I completely agree with Brian's premise that the shame must be felt through the body to be processed and resolved. Just thinking and changing the attitude cognitively towards shame is simply not enough. As Brian so astutely points out in this book, when toxic shame is integrated into "healthy" shame, a great deal of painful emotion is resolved. This revolutionary book goes a very long way to show a different approach to healing called SOMATIC EXPERIENCING that Brian is highly trained and experienced in. So, as the title says, if Self Help or Talk Therapy hasn't really helped, you're not broken, you just haven't been exposed to the right approach and I CRIED ALL THE WAY TO HAPPY HOUR may well show you the true path to healing —ESPECIALLY when everything else has failed.