Review: Saving Me First III by Hui Beop

In the third volume of her self-help series, author Hui Beop takes a dynamic look at Korean and other medical systems to help us analyze how and why we feel and act the way we do in Saving Me First III: Unlocking What’s Always Within Us.

Hui Beop’s manual begins in full spin, declaring that each of our five major organs – kidney, heart, liver, lung, and stomach – is essential for life and each carries within it both physical and psychological or emotional tendencies. One whose health is dominated by a strong heart, likes to have an audience and avoids confinement; s/he will accept gifts of money with gratitude and “a kiss on the cheek.”

Contrast this with someone with a strong liver, who will carefully assess the gift, perhaps donating some of it, and who likes quiet contemplative activities like reading and listening to music, and dislikes being disgraced. For determining one’s organ makeup, there are clues such as face shape. Hui Beop supplies a questionnaire directed at each organ type to further assist the reader in analyzing her/his type, remembering that we might be affected by more than one of these major factors.

Her exploration also includes such things as colors associated with each organ, and offers further tips to recognition of the organ’s dominant themes: weak vision indicates weak liver, while a keen sense of smell is linked to strong lung energy. Further chapters elucidate the behaviors and symptoms associated with the five organs and offer ways to read the signals from each and make improvements in one’s health based on these signals. Her advice includes nutritional guidelines and even presents recipes for the necessary changes in eating habits, examining personal strategies of self-help health standards in the light of the Covid outbreak and its impact on the five major organ systems.

While Hui Beop’s theories are similar to the signs of the Zodiac directing our everyday lives – and readers may recoil or be compelled based on their outlook towards more esoteric ideas – her clear knowledge of physical needs does bolster her convictions regarding spiritual realities. Her writing is strong and direct, using experiential examples including her own, and enhanced with illustrations by Julie Kim. At times, however, the claims being made are stated with too much certainty, when the theories being expressed are no doubt speculative. There are many approaches that are sensible and rooted in science, such as being wary of overusing technology, but others feel more like conjecture.

On balance, any of Hui Beop’s claims can be used to good effect – her recovery centered on herbal and similar medicinal systems introduced through a dedication to Zen and other Eastern philosophies is informative overall, and so the book offers a primer on how the East and West can be melded for a more well-rounded wellness routine. This is not a new idea, but Hui Beop’s focus is original, and fascinating in its approach.

An innovative and far-reaching guide to wellness, this third entry in the Saving Me First series is somewhat uneven in its claims, but it also offers unique insight and inspiration for maintaining a healthier lifestyle.