If you are at all interested in learning more about my personal journey to greater contentment in life, then I invite you to read Intuitive – Seeing Her Truth. This book (the 3rd in The Art of Grace Publishing House’s ‘Intuitive’ series), is extremely close to my heart. I am one of the 17 co-authors of this multi-author compilation. My contribution is found in Chapter 7 and is entitled, “A Journey Home to Love.”
Being part of this project in 2022, in the company of 16 other incredible women was liberating, empowering and cathartic. Over the years I have had a tender relationship with my intuition and know it was what always protected and guided me, even when I spent many years not fully understanding and/or suppressing it. My story shares how I learned to wholeheartedly trust in my intuition and reclaimed its’ rightful place as the voice of my truest self. It now helps me to not just see my truth but to live my truth, moment by precious moment.
If you want to be inspired and empowered to see your own truth, then the 17 personal stories found here will show you how you can amplify your own inner whispers and reconnect to who you are truly meant to be! Each story is as unique as the woman who tells it. You will be moved, challenged, encouraged and deeply touched by the courageous stories shared here.
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
I found this book as I was beginning to more deeply explore my own Mindfulness practice. It is a book you can come back to again, again and again.
In it, Eckhart Tolle begins by sharing his own extraordinary story of how the simple joy of presence transformed his life.
Though it is broken up into ten chapters, it is written in a question/answer format. Every question you could possibly ask about the mind, pain, being in and avoiding the now, your inner world, stillness, enlightened relationships, finding peace and surrender is covered here.
There is depth but such simplicity and exquisite joy to be discovered in what is covered within these pages. It may feel like a lot if you are beginning on your journey but if you are willing and open and take it in small bite sized pieces, it has the power to open the door to a whole new way of being. A being that feels like liberation.
Bronnie Ware is better known for her book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying (also a wonderful book to read that shares great wisdom from her time working with people in palliative care).
This is her memoir where she shares her story of becoming a mother in her mid-forties and the lessons she learned from the challenges that arose in her life at this time. Returning to her home town and looking forward to settling into the journey of motherhood was impacted by the onset of a chronically painful auto-immune condition that she still deals with to this day (her daughter is now 11).
I deeply resonated with her story as have also been managing chronic pain since 2019 and her perspective greatly encouraged me and made me feel less alone.
With a profound gentleness she takes the reader along on her journey, sharing her ups and downs, her joys and sorrows; always moving forward throughout it all with courage and conviction that life was indeed happening for her. She documents her lessons in surrender and how her illness has taught her to traverse each day honouring her own needs and how she sought support and help for her basic needs from family and friends.
Bloom is a deeply moving account of a life filled with the awe and wonder of nature, the joy of simplicity and the love for self that brings us to a deep knowing of interconnectedness. It is a courageous woman’s account of making the most of every day and how despite the challenges, every day of our lives is an incredible gift to be cherished, enjoyed and lived on our own terms.
The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, The Four Agreements reveals the source of self-limiting beliefs that we are all prone to and that rob us of joy and create needless suffering in our lives. By offering a simple, yet powerful code of conduct it encourages us to transform our lives to ones of freedom, true happiness and love.
This book is only 140 pages long and can be easily read in a single sitting. It is totally worth making the time to read it this way. I, personally, could not put it down until I had read it from cover to cover.
It just made perfect sense to me and is an indication of the deep wisdom and insight of our ancient, indigenous cultures which I believe we need to heed.
Let the words shared by Don Miguel Ruiz guide you into deeper awareness of the meaning of life and the human experience.
This book is subtitled, ‘Four questions that can change your life,’ and this is certainly the case! Though I have been aware of Byron Katie’s ‘The Work’ for a while now, I have only recently purchased and dug into it in detail and read this wonderful book.
Within its’ pages Katie (as she is known), shares her framework for addressing the stressful thoughts we have about others, situations and ourselves. It is a way to address the mind’s endless ‘stories’ that so often are the cause of our own suffering.
By beginning to examine these thoughts by applying those four simple questions, we can unravel and get to the core of the beliefs that are creating our stories and return to a deep inner peace. We are invited to live in the here and now – which Katie calls ‘reality.’
The book describes the framework of ‘The Work’ (which can also be accessed at https://thework.com/) and then takes the reader through written transcripts of Katie herself taking individuals through their own examples on a variety of topics including relationships, work/money, underlying beliefs. As each person finds resolution to the specific issue they are working through (first prepared by them on a written worksheet – which she provides for the reader to do for themselves), they are often left with the understanding that if this comes up again, they can simply continue their inquiry and keep doing ‘The Work’.
This is such a powerful framework to empower us to take an honest look at ourselves and how we see others and events that occur in our lives. We are reminded that we are more than our minds and our thoughts. Katie shows us, with a tender compassion and understanding (gleaned from her own journey and subsequent awakening), that we so often just overcomplicate and overthink things. By applying stillness and a willingness to know the truth, we can question our conditioned selves and return to peace and our true selves.
You are not Broken by Christopher Michael Duncan
So often as we begin to become more aware and seek personal growth we encounter so much ‘noise’ out there and are marketed to endlessly! We can easily fall down the rabbit hole of being made to feel that we need to fix ourselves. The tactics used often exacerbate our false beliefs of not being enough or unworthy. This can have us chasing our tails and sometimes going around in circles for years but never really getting anywhere.
As I began to unravel and rewire my belief system I came to realise that even though I was in pain, felt broken and was seeking to heal – what I was really doing was returning to my natural state of wellbeing. I understood, that this would take patience, dedication and time. All of which I was worthy of giving myself.
Despite this, I still succumbed and spent time/money/energy on things that promised me a faster result. Until I stopped. The realization came that there was just a lot of lies out there distracting me from simply doing the work needed, choosing a better way for myself and making those incremental changes over time.
Sadly there are those out in the world simply trying to convince you otherwise so that they can line their own pockets.
I was drawn to You are not Broken because it was different.
Christopher Michael Duncan has himself travelled the road of endless personal development. He is now on a mission to break through the BS and support as many people as he can that are desiring to take charge of their life and create something new for themselves to do so, using a simple 5 step process outlined in this book. It is cited as harnessing ancient wisdom, cutting edge neuroscience and the power of structural tension to create miracles.
Duncan outlines living as a ‘Superconscious’ creator with the premise that we are all beings born with a creative spirit and that through the process of our human experience are conditioned to individuation and broken/failing structures that no longer serve us.
He guides the reader through the journey of returning to who they truly are, reminding us that we are not broken, we have simply taken on some false beliefs about ourselves on our life’s journey in order to stay safe/survive. He outlines a way to ‘recode’ and as such return to the pure, creative spirit we are, using creative structures that will empower us to create whatever we desire for ourselves in life.
An empowering book and an incredible path to take yourself on if you resonate with it. Duncan provides this book for the price of postage and handling on his website and gives the reader many tools/practices to enable them to move forward powerfully in life and create life on their own terms.
Your New Beginning by Brian D. Ridgway
This book has been recently re-released and was first titled ‘Break your Self-Help Addiction.’ I first read it in 2021 and upon wanting to re-visit it this year have come across this new, updated version.
An extremely powerful work also written to dispel the many myths perpetuated by the self-help/personal development industry. It empowers the reader to examine their core paradigm and use the power of presence via conscious breathing to address emotions often long stored in the body/repressed that may now be coming to awareness and asking to be addressed.
Ridgway shares his own personal gift/tool to assist and support the reader to break free of the limiting beliefs and unhealed trauma often held within our bodies/minds/spirits. He shares how our work is actually in unknowing all we think we know and accepting a return to our true nature as infinite, unlimited beings of unconditional love.
Incredibly simple, yet powerful and liberating, I am finding Ridgway’s work to be extremely refreshing and easy to apply moment by moment.
The basis of his work is freely available as it his desire is to impact as many people as he can with it. If this resonates with you, and you’d like to cultivate more peace and stability in your life, check out his free videos outlining his conscious breathing technique.
I hope that you find some inspiration in the books I’ve outlined here for you today. All of these titles have really made a difference to my life and will continue to do so.
If you have a book that has really impacted you, please share it with me by leaving a comment below or sending by me an email to YourWellbeingMattersCoaching@gmail.com.
To your wellbeing always,
Katrin
Your Wellbeing Matters Coaching 