“If a book is well written, I always find it too short.” ~Jane Austen
Cheryl Strayed’s Wild
From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
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I am in lust, love and infatuation with this woman’s story of backpacking the Pacific Crest Trail; her 1,100 mile solo hike from the Mojave Desert to Washington state. I saw the movie and later read the book during a gutting period in my life, one of realizing my marriage was decimated and the realization that he hadn’t just broken my heart, I had also broken my own heart with my lack of integrity, alcoholism, and loss of identity.
Cheryl’s story seared through in familiarity, not every detail mind you but our shared pain was palpable. It was indeed “art that is meant to comfort the grieving and confront the comfortable.” It’s firmly in my Top 3 favourite novels of all time.
There is a story I read about how Cheryl’s surname came to be ‘Strayed.’ When Cheryl was finalizing her divorce, she was presented with the opportunity to go back to her maiden name…or any new name for that matter. Cheryl chose Strayed as an encapsulation of her story that I found particularly vulnerable, honest and raw. Strayed is her chosen name now.
“I’d finally come to understand what it had been: a yearning for a way out, when actually what I had wanted to find was a way in.”
Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way
A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
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After a great aunt read my cards in my late teens, she impressed upon me the significance of purchasing and doing the weekly exercises and assignments of this book even if I couldn’t claim for myself the title of Artist. Her mystical reading had such an impact on me that I knew this book would be pure medicine.
I felt as though Cameron reached out and took my hand as she showed me a path through life, a way to connect to my Creator and lovingly counselled me through every doubt, every hang-up and every barrier or block I had. Thus, I felt free to pursue anything under the umbrella of making, playing, discovering or dreaming. I credit this book with my very first spiritual awakening. I was able to leave an incredibly toxic on/off relationship soon after reading this glorious text. It still remains the book that I have read the most at 4 times over.
“In filling the well, think magic. Think delight. Think fun. Do not think duty. Do not do what you should do–spiritual sit-ups like reading a dull but recommended critical text. Do what intrigues you, explore what interests you; think mystery, not mastery.”
Katherine Wayward-Thomas’ Conscious Uncoupling
5 Steps to Living Happily Even After
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This is the second book/course I’ve ever read that helped me through a relationship ending. Prior to this one, was an exploration of the stages of grief when I was a much younger woman. I listened to this as an audio-book and also had a Conscious Uncoupling therapist to assist me through the workbook that is provided with it.
I have vivid memories of walking in the evening with ear-buds in, listening to Katherine’s buttery smooth voice soothe the ache in my heart as I came to terms with the ending of my marriage. Her superb creativity with the lexicon, aligned value-systems was a consistent nudge towards a path of high integrity during one of the messiest, and darkest times of my life. Her teachings on core values and where they originated as well as getting to the heart of where our original heart-wounds first started was ground-breaking for me. I still use the words “co-create” and “curate” on the regular because of her.
“Because we believed so strongly in the ‘until death do us part’ concept, we see the demise of our marriage as a failure, bringing with it shame, guilt, or regret. When we examine our intimate relationships from this perspective, we realize that they aren’t for finding static, lifelong bliss like we see in the movies. They’re for helping us evolve a psycho-spiritual spine, a divine endoskeleton made from conscious self-awareness so that we can evolve into a better life without recreating the same problems for ourselves again and again. “
Gary Chapman’s The Five Love Languages
The Secret to Love That Lasts
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I still use this exercise to identify how a person expresses and wants love expressed to them in a relationship. In readings, a common question I ask is: Do you know your partner’s love language(s)? Until this book’s emergence in 1992, I, like millions of others, kept misunderstanding how to fulfill my partner’s needs and more painfully, they just could not seem to fill mine, time and time again.
Who can resist a good quiz and personality assessment after all? Especially when the promise is one that may improve the quality of your love and satisfaction with your relationship. *Spoiler Alert* You tally points towards the areas of Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Gift Giving and Receiving, Quality Time Together or Physical Touch. Most of us have a combination of a couple of these as dominant themes but what is key, is discovering what your partner’s languages are. Talk about a game changer.
“When we choose active expressions of love in the primary love language of our spouse, we create an emotional climate where we can deal with our past conflicts and failures.”
Adam Grant’s Think Again
The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know
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We know what we know, right? Or is it true that knowledge and ideas change over time? And that they should? What are we absolutely certain about and how? Is there rigidity or creativity to your thinking? This is a book sent to challenge every single thing you think you know definitively and to coax you towards new horizons of IQ and EQ. What blind spots have created our biases and assumptions?
At times, this one is a total mind bender. At other times, it is terribly confronting as it’s like a mirror shining any of our narrow-mindedness back to us. This book lives up to its title…I thought and re-thought through an incredible amount of information while reading this book. My particular favourite was the article about the prejudices inherent within astrology, even though I am still a huge advocate of its assistance to help us understand ourselves.
“In a constantly changing world, it pays to change your mind.”
James Fray’s A Million Little Pieces
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The picture painted by this painful memoir of the ravages of addiction is a choppy, poetic minute by minute style the likes of which I had never read before. The language is not fancy but it is raw. It was my first look inside what detox and recovery was like and the resilience required to endure the pain, confrontation and loss that accompanies life in recovery from addiction.
This critically acclaimed Pulitzer prize winning book, was debunked and rebuked by various critics as it was proven not to be a non-fiction as the author had claimed. Yet, the poignancy of the story was nonetheless a haunting and imprinting story of the grind and grit required to get clean and sober and stay that way.
“The wounds that can never heal can only be mourned alone.”
Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love
One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
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This memoir stayed on the New York Times Best Seller List for 187 weeks! It is relatable in a way that when we read her heartbreak story, we see parts of ourselves in her. Parts of ourselves that wish we’d had the lady-balls to hop a plane to Italy, then India and top it off with Indonesia when life had kicked us down. The key here is that all the countries she visits in this riveting novella start with “I”, which is what Liz is searching for: Herself.
“The Bhagavad Gita–that ancient Indian Yogic text–says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection.”
“This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something.”
Honourable Mentions:
Melody Beattie’s Codependent No More
How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring For Yourself
A comprehensive look at how to cope with being in a relationship with anyone suffering or recovering from addiction. Eye-opening albeit confronting, as it becomes evident that codependency is nearly impossible to avoid if you love an addict.
Rupi Kaur’s The Sun and her Flowers
A beautiful and relatable new school Canadian poet who also illustrates the concepts of her poems in scribbles. This book’s chapter topics of Wilting, Falling, Rooting, Rising, and Blooming are haunting and feel almost like I could have written parts of them myself. Revelatory and approachable. Plus, the illustrations become her secret sauce.
Scott Peck’s The Road Less Travelled
A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth
Full disclosure: I read this book when I was 19 so I have no idea if the book would be as phenomenal a read at age 44. At the time, it was earth shattering for me. Maybe it is only an after-shocks kind of book. “Certain pathways in life are less travelled because they’re more challenging, but, in this case, the path to enlightenment is also far more rewarding.”
Authored by:
Sarah Mayes
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