5 Book that changed the way I think
1
women who run with the wolves - clarissa pinkola estés
This is one of those reads that takes time to digest. I’ve had it on my bedside table for what seems like a year and keep coming back to the pages over and over. What strikes me most is the continual uncovering of meaning in the words of simple stories that Estés shares with us. This book is about culture, nature, women, consciousness, empowerment, undoing, love, being brave, truth. If your copy is anything like mine, the pages will be turned down, scribbled on, re-read. It’s a masterpiece of story-telling and critical thinking. As Maya Angelou is quoted on the front cover “Everyone who can read should read this book”.
Think about this: “Remember, we say that a flower is blooming whether it is in half, three-quarters, or full bloom.”
2
UNTAMED - glennon doyle
“I’m willing to lose anything that requires me to hide any part of myself.” If you now me personally or read my story, you’ll know I while ago I walked away from a whole life I’d spent 27 years building because at the root of it, over the years I had hidden myself with layers of other people’s opinions, should do’s, and ticking boxes. To me, Untamed is a story of undoing and becoming, the formidable force we all have within us when we follow our intuition, our knowing.
I remember Glennon Doyle talking about how she wrote Untamed in a podcast interview, she spoke about how she wrote the book several times but each time it didn’t feel right. She had been following the rules, and it wasn’t working. Eventually she decided to re-write the whole book, where it’s whole essence was Untamed. She wrote with no rules, no format. She skips around in time and relationships to tell the story of her family, her love and her hope for the world to be wild, free and untamed. Untamed is one of those books that you underline, turn down corners and come back to time and time again. There is wisdom on every page. And everyone needs to read, especially anyone who feels they’ve lived at some point, caged.
Truth bomb: “I’m a grown-ass women now and I do what the fuck I want. I mean this with deep respect and love - and with the desire that you, too, will do what the fuck you want with you own singular precious life.”
My favourite chapters: bloodbaths, permission slips, lies.
3
The alchemist - Paulo coelho
A book we should all read at least once, particularly at a time of transition or deep questioning. The story follows a shepherd, on a long journey across countries to discover treasure we dreams of. It’s a book about finding treasure in the every day moments, in what we already have - whilst listening to the wisdom we all have within. It inspired me to keep going, to keep listening and surrender to the path that unfolds naturally if we are in tune with ourselves. “What you still need to know is this: before a dream is realised, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realising our dreams, master the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve moved toward that dream. That’s the point when most people give up. It’s the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, ‘one dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon.’ “
Essential Wisdom: “when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.”
4
Conversations with God, Book one, An Uncommon Dialogue - Neale Donald WalscH
I first read this book at a very turbulent time in my life, and it helped me to understand that how I was living was my choice, it empowered to trust the process of life unfolding just as it’s meant to and that I was right where I needed to be. A philosophy I still live by now. Don’t let the G word in the title put you off, at the time of reading the book I wasn’t comfortable with this word myself so I replaced it with ‘nature’ or the ‘universe’ and found that helped, or just think of it as a dialogue between a teacher and student. I can’t say much more, other than it’s a must read if you’re looking for permission to start living.
Words to live by: “True masters are those who have chosen to make a life, rather than a living.”
5
the midnight library - Matt Haig
A book about choices. I think of this book often when I’m feeling indecisive, not knowing which direction to take. The wisdom of this book is not in the many tales of Nora’s adventure in the Midnight Library, but in the subliminal messages that Haig weaves into this writing. That life isn’t necessarily about gravitas and flamboyance, but lived in the mundane, the every day choices and decisions that steer our course. And not to worry about the decisions we do make, but to be content with our choices and trust however those choices shape our lives.
Print it out, look at it often:
“Nora had always had a problem accepting herself. From as far back as she could remember, she’d had the sense that she wasn’t enough. Her parents, who both had their insecruitues, had encouraged that idea.
She imagined, now, what it would be like to accept herself completely. Every mistake she had ever made. Every mark on her body. Every dream she hadn’t reached or pain she had felt. Every lust or longing she had suppressed.
She imagined accepting it all. The way she accepted nature. The way she accepted a glacier or a puffin or a breach of a whale.
She just imagined seeing herself as just another brilliant freak of nature. Just another sentinet animal, trying their best.
And in doing so, she imagined what it was like to be free.”