In the opening chapter “Everything is Welcome,” author Jeff Foster speaks to those readers who have engaged in self-help work and yet who still feel empty.  Reflecting the book’s title, Foster emphatically tells the reader “there is nothing wrong with you.”  He talks about how welcoming the present moment is exactly where one needs to be.  Given this, his poems are offered as a form of meditation.  They are divided into four parts as outlined below.

Part One:  A Field of Meditation

Foster starts by encouraging readers to be in the now, whatever the now might bring.  The existence of conflict in the present moment is highlighted in the second poem, “The Shadows and the Light,” which reads in part:

Wanting to live, and wanting to die.

Wanting to break into newness, and wanting to hide.

Wanting to connect, and wanting to be alone.

In “The Courage to Stop Running,” Foster speaks very specifically about trauma and how trauma pushes us to run away from our discomfort.  “This is Meditation” reminds us to allow whatever comes with these words:

Let what stays, stay.

Let what dies, die.

Let what lives, live.

Throughout, readers are reminded not to try to fix their lives—or themselves.  This theme leads directly into the next section.

Part Two:  Saying Yes to the Mess

Foster talks further here about being vulnerable and embracing the messiness that is life.  This includes feelings, thoughts, and urges that may have been labeled “bad” or “wrong” in the past.  The first poem, “Bow to Everything,” is an ode to accepting confusion, anger, sorrow, and fear.  “You are Free” repeatedly gives the reader permission to “Make mistakes” and to “Screw everything up,” and the following poem, “Do It Real,” entreats:

Stop trying to do it right.

Do it real instead.

The final poem in this section, “Trust the Pain,” offers a path to the courage described in Part Three.

Part Three:  The Courage to Stand Alone

Foster introduces this section by noting that through recognizing our aloneness, we can create greater connections to others.  “No Place Like Home” is one of the longest poems in the book, spanning eleven pages and addressing issues of abandonment.  The poem which follows, “Loneliness (You are One with the Stars Now)” more specifically describes an appreciation for being alone.  Again, Foster urges the reader to welcome this experience:

Love this aloneness, friend.

Fall into it.

(Don’t worry. You won’t disappear. I am here to catch you.)

The final poem in Part 3, “You are Destined for Life,” serves as an ideal transition to the last section of the book.

Part Four:  Reasons to Stay Alive

In his introduction to this last section, Foster speaks of life’s unfathomable contrasts which make the world “too vast for us to know.”  The first short poem, “The Light,” suggests being the light for oneself.  The selections which follow seem quite apt for today’s times, including “How to Breathe When You Can Hardly Breathe” and “Rejoice, Nothing Lasts.”  The latter reads in part:

The shock of realizing

our absolute impermanence

and the impermanence of all we hold dear, and all we fear

can wake us up.

This title poem here (“Reasons to Stay Alive”) is a reminder that the reader is not broken as well as a specific appeal opposing suicide.  The book concludes with the hope, as reflected in the selections “Your Life’s Purpose,” “Trust the Darkness Now,” and “Lullaby for the Seeker.”

Foster’s writing is definitely spiritual in nature, with frequent reference to God sprinkled throughout.  His poems encourage the reader to embrace the rawness of life.  His work is likely to appeal to those, like himself, who have found a way through trauma and hardship and who have come to receive life with all of its faults.

© 2020 Beth Cholette

Beth Cholette, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist who provides psychotherapy to college students.