Lynn Weimar’s new book Be Free Beyond Fifty: Stop Hiding, Unlock Your Dream, and Step into a Vibrant Life begins with the powerful words a counselor spoke to the author: “You are enough.” It’s a message many women need to hear, as Lynn knows well. Lynn works as a coach helping women struggling with emotional eating, food addiction, obesity, feeling stuck and feeling unfulfilled. Often, that feeling of being trapped is tied to a feeling of low self-esteem or hopelessness, a feeling that there is nothing they can do to improve their situation.

Because Lynn has learned to detach herself, she has now written this book to help other women step into the vibrant life she has found and knows they deserve. Be Free Beyond Fifty isn’t a book about weight loss, but as Lynn says, for many women, being stuck takes the form of extra pounds, fueled by emotional eating to cope with problems in their lives. Sometimes the weight becomes part of why they’re stuck, making them more stuck. Other times, they are stuck due to shame, guilt, regret, perhaps not forgiving a past mistake, or simply believing that they are not good enough to succeed.

Instead of focusing on calories and how to lose that extra pound, Lynn challenges her readers to look at the issues underlying the symptoms. We do this by looking at what Lynn calls the “mirror of calculus.” She explains, “This is the mirror to help you begin to understand, for you and you alone, what you’ve been clutching like a security blanket to get you through another day. This mirror leads you to your freedom, because once who understands what you’re doing to keep yourself trapped, and why you’re doing it, you’re on the road to a beautiful life.” She adds that as you look in that mirror and seek to change, it’s important that you “understand that you’re worth this journey. You’re a valuable woman.”

Looking in the mirror means seeing the real us. Too often, we hide behind multiple identities: mom, wife, perfect wife, churchgoer, etc. We also hide behind our failures, letting them define our identity. We can hide behind a desire for perfection or a fear that makes us procrastinate. In any case, we learned that behavior through our interactions with others that caused us to start thinking small. One of my favorite moments in the book was when Lynn told the story of her having to work on a school project with a friend in third grade. As they were starting out, her friend commented, “You like this, don’t you?” Instantly, Lynn felt that it was not okay for her to enjoy doing her homework, and this led her to try to be great at everything, even putting off doing her homework. Too often, we let the judgments of others determine who we are, what we like, and how we behave. Today, Lynn has learned to stop doing that and gives us the tools to change it.

Another big revelation Lynn makes is that we need to stop focusing on what other people have done to us or the mistakes we’ve made. A mistake is just a mistake. It is not those events but our beliefs about those events that shape our current state of mind. We need to change our belief or story around the event. We also have to realize that what may have been true, or may seem true, in the past is not necessarily the reality of our present.

All of these changes require a change in our thinking, and Lynn provides a great example of the simplicity of the kind of change that may be necessary when talking about a woman she knew who would be so busy with work and family obligations all her life. week you let the housework fall by the wayside; she then went on a rampage cleaning all weekend while she punished herself for not keeping up. Finally, one day she realized that she was not behind in cleaning herself. She changed her attitude to the idea that on the weekends she would clean to get ahead of the week and then have the house cleaned all week so she wouldn’t have to worry about cleaning. This change made her feel better instantly and helped her whole family feel better because she felt better.

There are many more great tips and words of wisdom in Be Free Beyond Fifty, but I’ll conclude by mentioning one that may be the most significant. Lynn offers a profound realization here:

“Nothing happens to us, it only happens to us. When we really start to believe this, it changes everything. It takes us out of ‘why me?’ and puts us in gratitude. As it does? Embracing this belief that everything happens for our ultimate good puts us in a different frame of mind. It puts us in the attitude of looking for the lesson in every circumstance. When we carry this attitude with us, it puts us on the lookout for what we can learn from this situation. We started looking for that ray of light in the dark cloud.”

I myself have come to believe in this perspective, difficult as it may be at times. And now this book has come to reaffirm it for me. Perhaps now this book has arrived so that reading it and applying its message can also be something that happens to you.