Published September 9th, 2024

Review

Simple Verses For A Better Self — A Review of “Clarity and Connections” by Yung Pueblo

by Joyce Bou Charaa

Diego Perez, known as Yung Pueblo, is an American-Ecuadorian author and meditator. He gained great popularity through social media, especially on Instagram, where he has more than 2 million followers from around the world. On this platform, Perez shares all of his writings, thoughts, and verses, letting his followers comment and express their own views on different topics in the comments. Along with a strong social media presence, Diego Perez is a #1 New York Times bestselling author for his first two published books: Inward and Clarity and Connections.

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Clarity and Connections (2021) by Yung Pueblo is a poetry book that is centered on having a healthy connection with ourselves and with others. The poems are more like self-help verses and give advice on life, such as dealing with mistakes, toxic relationships, and mental issues. Each poem gives the reader the motivation to get better, to change, to improve, and to move away from negativity and high expectations.

At the beginning of the book, Yung Pueblo talks about inner peace and self-love, saying that we must accept ourselves just as we are, and most importantly encourages “not being afraid of change” as one should always start working on something new. For Yung Pueblo, inner peace is the real happiness; enjoying life with a calm mind, filling ourselves with good energy to keep ourselves clear of damaging thoughts; life is all about being kind to ourselves.

Yung Pueblo also focuses on self-awareness, healing from things that happened in the past, making efforts to achieve goals, and many more things:

“Self-awareness is noticing the rhythm of your thoughts.”

Some thoughts can harm us, but others can make us feel better and safe, and that’s the importance of maturity: realizing what’s actually going on  in our minds, which thoughts are true and which are not, and what to believe and what to let go. Yung Pueblo assures us that we are the masters of our minds, that we can let go of anything that might keep us overthinking all day long, and that we can stay on the right track of positive thinking if we become aware of what’s happening inside our minds.

Yung Pueblo also explains through his verses the process of healing, which is moving away from past memories, traumas, and old relationships. Yung Pueblo says that healing helps us “overcome many complexes and help[s] us see that there is much room for improvement.” 

Throughout the book, Yung Pueblo emphasizes the idea of a collective sense of feeling, where every person in the world goes through the same cycle of emotions. However, each one of us has a different kind of experience:

“All human beings are united by birth, life, death, and every emotion in between.”

Yung Pueblo adds that we should strive to understand our emotions and our changing moods better, and he thinks that “it is not about managing your emotions; it is about managing your reactions to your emotions.”

Speaking of relationships, which play a really big part in our lives, Yung Pueblo talks plainly about mutual relationships and the need to maintain an excellent connection, as well as having good friendships that can support us and allow us to heal. The best relationships are the ones where we can be happy for each other away from jealousy and hatred.

According to Yung Pueblo, there’s no “perfect partner or a flawless friend.” We all make mistakes and have bad habits, however, a strong connection to other people can fix a lot in this case.

Good communication allows two partners to understand each other, to heal each other, and most importantly, to  accept each other as they are. In other words, we must all strive to build a healthy relationship, and here communication is the key to maintaining such relationships, where each partner must accept the needs and complexities of the other. Yung Pueblo broadly states that relationships must be based on “clear communication and connection,” but not on attachments.

In any friendship or relationship, maturity is the foundation of a healthy connection to understand and associate with each other. Understanding each other is the true meaning of love, which makes everything around us look better.

Yung Pueblo's book is primarily about the need to change and start a new lifestyle, that is, to take new risks and new opportunities that might lead us to a better place. For Yung Pueblo, living a life of growth, maturity, and progress is the ultimate goal that everyone should aspire to.

In this book, most of the poems are about the power of letting go of any thought that hurts our mind or puts us in a deep tunnel vision with no end in sight. The author emphasizes the need to let go of the past, mistakes made, and hard feelings. After all, everyone needs and should have the will to heal, to change, and to embrace every single moment.

Clarity and Connections is definitely a must-read book. It has a lot to do with each one of us: our feelings, our fears, our problems, and all our anxieties that sometimes keep us stuck in bad places. So, to sum it up, this poetry book is an excellent guide of simple verses for a better self.