Book Talk Neal Allen & NYT Bestseller Ann Lamott

Chaucer’s Books (3321 State Street, Santa Barbara) will host Husband and Wife Authors Neal Allen and Anne Lamott (NY Times bestselling author of “Bird By Bird”)  for a book talk and signing of  Allen’s “Better Days: Tame Your Inner Critic” (Ms. Lamott wrote the forward to the book) on Tuesday, December 12 at  6 p.m.

Book Description of “Better Days: Tame Your Inner Critic”

In this life-changing book, writer and spiritual coach, Neal Allen, teaches us a stunning new method for quieting the inner critic.

What if your superego has it wrong?  That snarky little bully in your head…you know the one. You’ve lived under its weight for decades.

I’m a fraud, I’m lazy
I need to work harder
I need to be tougher, funnier, calmer…
I need to stay quiet, look pretty, stop showing off
I need to put others before me, I need to put myself first
I need to be perfect
I need to hide who I really am

 Sound familiar?  You know that its scolding voice is harmful to you, but you can’t will it away. You accept a life with short periods of peace and long stretches of stress and anxiety. But you don’t have to.

In this revolutionary new book, Better Days: Tame Your Inner Critic, writer and spiritual coach, Neal Allen, examines a critical aspect of the human psyche that often gets ignored – the superego. Building on Freud’s idea that the superego necessarily forms a person’s moral conscience, Neal explains how this voice in your head develops in childhood as a survival mechanism, but when no longer needed for protection, camps out in your mind like a personal parasite. A parasite that doesn’t belong. Through simple and engaging exercises and explorations, Neal leads you into meeting, confronting, and ultimately quieting your own inner critic.  By shedding off the burden of the superego, you can overcome tired patterns of reward and punishment, reduce the self-talk that harms you, and ultimately clear an open space for the life you deserve, one that is gentler and more peaceful. Just imagine…if all that nasty, negative chatter in your head just evaporated … what would you do next?

 Better days are just ahead.

Author Biography –  Neal Allen and Anne Lamott

Neal Allen is a writer, spiritual coach and speaker whose chief interest is removing obstacles of the ego. He is the author of Shapes of Truth: Discover God Inside You (Self Published, 2021), and Better Days: Tame Your Inner Critic (Namaste Publishing, 2023). A former journalist and corporate executive, he earned master’s degrees in Political Science and Eastern Classics. He lives with his wife the writer, Anne Lamott, in Northern California.

Anne Lamott  is the author of many best sellers. Her seven novels include Rosie and Imperfect Birds. Her twelve non-fiction works include Bird by Bird, Operating Instructions, Help Thanks Wow, and most recently, Dusk Night Dawn. She lives in Northern California with her husband and author of Better Days, Neal Allen.