Book Review | The Certainty Myth

Our Communications Co-Ordinator Megan reviews ‘The Certainty Myth’ by Dr Toni Lindsay, being released in September 2022 by Exile Publishing.

Anxiety, Uncertainty, The Pandemic, And Me.

As Aotearoa is now lifting our COVID-19 restrictions, the start of the pandemic feels like a lifetime ago. That is until someone reflects on just how strange those early weeks were.

In the prologue of their book, The Certainty Myth, Dr Toni Lindsay reflects on the day they decided to drive to work instead of catching the train. It was Monday 9 March 2020 that I had the same thought. Sitting on the packed 7:35 am Western Line train at Newmarket, I only had one stop to go. Everyone around me was glued to their phones reading the news, there was less chatter than usual. Which made the odd cough or sneeze seem louder. I didn’t know then that we were days away from lockdown, our days broken up with walks around the block and learning to sew face masks. I decided at Newmarket station that I’d be taking my work equipment home that night.

Anxiety has been a constant presence in my life to help me cope and adapt to my environment, and it manifests as a strong desire to retain a sense of control. The first weeks of lockdown were scary, yes, but also a huge relief. My ability to control the situation I found myself in was completely gone. I was in lockdown, I had daily team wellbeing meetings and then the next eight or more hours of the day were filled with virtual meetings as everyone attempted to forecast what would happen in the next day, week, or month.  

It wasn’t exactly running from a tiger, but I was in survival mode and my anxiety had a purpose. That sense of relief came crashing down when we slowly started to get back to ‘normal’. All my anxieties that I’d been trying to keep down for years and had been temporarily put on hold resurfaced, and now I was also adding ‘post-lockdown’ worries, like driving in traffic again, or going back into the office because if I got sick, we’d “be shipped off to MIQ”. But gradually I found people and resources to help me to reframe some of what I was experiencing.

The Certainty Myth

 While The Certainty Myth is not a book about the pandemic - it's about managing the unexpected in general - it’s a shared experience that allows us to reflect on our thoughts and experiences.  

I could see myself at various stages of my journey in the examples and scenarios described in the book. Access to talk-based therapy was something I struggled to find for a long time, and I’m glad to see books like The Certainty Myth and others making these tools and questions more accessible. I appreciated the direct tone and questions; they helped me to frame and reflect on my own experiences.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) principles underpin The Certainty Myth, and are something that I’m still exploring and developing on my wellbeing journey. Two questions that a counsellor asked me not too long ago appear in later chapters, and I was happy to see them here as they have proven to be one of the most effective circuit breakers for me when I respond to anxious thoughts.

• How have things that have happened in my life shaped how I deal with uncertainty?

• What is the cost of those strategies?

Is this the book for me?

If my reflections resonate with your past experiences, The Certainty Myth might serve as a gentle reminder and reframing of our relationship with anxiety. If anxiety is something you’re experiencing at the moment, you are reflecting on the uncertainty of the last few years, or are looking to explore ACT Dr Lindsay presents an easy-to-read pathway for readers to identify where and how anxiety might be present in our thoughts in bite-sized chapters.  

Grounded in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, the lessons and exercises in the later part of the book focus on awareness meditations, reconnecting with our values and aligning our actions to those values. If you find these tools helpful, you might also like to explore our Whakatau Mai OnDemand, guided meditation and mindful journaling video series’.

The Certainty Myth could be a useful resource for those who are starting to explore their relationship with uncertainty and anxiety as a supplement to talk-based and holistic wellbeing practices.

Changing Minds received an advanced copy of The Certainty Myth and provided a short review and we’ve now added it to our library of resources. It will be available in stores in September 2022 or you can order a copy here.