Ok, What the Bleep Do We Know?! kind of changed my life when I saw it. I was obsessed with quantum physics for a long time after that, especially the idea that our lives had infinite possibilities at any given moment. The water experiment was trippy, too, because it suggested that words, prayers, music, and environment could affect reality in ways I had never considered. It made everything feel a little more mysterious and a little more possible.

So imagine how excited I was when a press release about one of the movie’s co-creators hit my inbox. Betsy Chasse wrote a new book called Tipping Sacred Cows, and in it she gets spiritual all over again, mostly about her personal journey since the movie’s success. It’s a funny, engaging, and brutally honest read, and it insists that life is messy and nirvana is not the point. Embracing where you are right now is what counts. That is part of what makes it feel so human.

In the book, Betsy describes how her four year-old daughter was playing with a friend when the other child pointed to her belly and said, “you look pregnant.” Her daughter was devastated and started crying, and it showed how early body criticism begins. Betsy said she had two kids and two c-sections, so her stomach would never be perfect, and after divorce she had to learn that men did not really care. She got tired of not loving her body, and choosing fun made her feel more sexy.

We are programmed with images of women and beauty, but all our brains do is run the programs we give them. If you let your brain run amok, you will be miserable, so give it new input and tell it you are going to have a good time. Betsy says she picks three outfits that will look good and three that are hideous, then laughs at how ridiculous they look. When she makes herself laugh, doubt has less room to grow, and that is a great strategy.