Well-Being Inspiration

Welcome to today’s new list, my top five spiritual well-being reads . This is Day 2 in my series of Reading Lists for this period of total confinement. Yesterday I shared the Top 5 Reads on My TBR.

There is a tab above with links to more authors and books in this category and a short intro to the author and what they specialise in.

Many of my suggestions are Hay House authors. Hay House is a publishing company founded in 1984 by Louise Hay when she was 58 years old. In the 1970’s she wrote a pamphlet known as ‘Heal Your Body’ which later became the bestselling book ‘You Can Heal Your Life’.

I have an affinity for Hay House authors as I often listen to their free radio HayHouseRadio.com when I’m cooking dinner. Many authors have a weekly radio show where they interview interesting people and invite callers to ask questions. Ordinary and extraordinary life questions that receive spiritually enlightened answers from what I perceive as pretty grounded, high functioning empathetic teachers, with open-minded perspectives on the Divine.

Top Five Spiritual Well-Being Books

1. Raise Your Vibration by Kyle Gray

I came across Kyle Gray thanks to Christiane Northrup, a protégé of Louise Hay, she invited him to present at an I Can Do It event (gatherings of kindred souls to share similar experiences, expand awareness and reach higher levels of consciousness) when he was 22-years-old. It’s so heart-warming to see a young man inspiring so many in such a grounded, reassuring and confident way.

Raise Your Vibration is the perfect bedside read and daily practice. Vibration is a similar term to energy, we all vibrate energetically at a particular frequency. The lower the frequency, the denser your energy, and the heavier your problems seem. The higher the frequency of your energy or vibration, the lighter you feel in your physical, emotional, and mental bodies. We experience greater personal power, clarity, peace, love, and joy. You have little, if any, discomfort or pain in your physical body, and your emotions are easily dealt with.

Kyle refers to his practices as vibes. So raising our vibe is good. It’s not necessary to read more than one per day and we benefit more by doing this as often the day will show us something that relates to what we’ve read. I loved this book because it opens us up to serendipitous events and makes us more aware of them. It’s informative, uplifting and can be life changing.

2. Making Life Easy: A Simple Guide to a Divinely Inspired Life by Christiane Northrup

Christiane Northrup is great. A woman with a foot in both camps, a medical doctor, OB/GYN physician who specialises in women’s wellness and has published lots of health related books (with terribly unappealing covers) I’ve never read on menopause, physical and emotional health & healing, ageing, mother-daughter genetic health legacies and more.

I had heard her often on the radio but only began to read her after she wrote Making Life Easy, the book in which she “comes out of the spiritual closet” and shares many of the alternative, more spiritual practices that have guided her through the years.

3. The Four Insights – Wisdom, Power and Grace of the Earthkeepers by Alberto Villoldo

I came across Alberto via Colette Baron-Reid, they have worked together and produced a Mystical Shaman Oracle deck, which is a great way to learn about this ancient wisdom, Alberto writes wonderful books which really help deepen one’s knowledge. A medical anthropologist who thought he knew a lot (PhD’s etc), he spent years investigated the effects of energy healing on blood and brain chemistry and spent years in the company of shamans, a humbling experience that changed the course of his life and views. He writes with simplicity and gives examples from his own experience as well as those of clients.

The Four Insights is an excellent introduction to this ancient wisdom and energy medicine, explaining the four levels of perception with suggestions as to how we can how we can alter our own reality, by shifting perception into a higher realm. It is a pre-requisite to Shaman Healer Sage, How to Heal Yourself and Others with the Energy Medicine of The Americas. 

4. The Grief Recovery Handbook, The Action Program for Moving Beyond Death, Divorce, & Other Losses updated to include How Grief Recovery Addresses Trauma & PTSD by John W. James & Russell Friedman

I haven’t reviewed this book for obvious reasons (My Long Absence Explained), but I have to include it on the list as it is a real gem and totally resonated for me when I needed it. Ironically, I bought this for research and had it sitting unread on my shelf, when the day arrived that I needed and was thoroughly comforted by it.

“Recovery from loss is achieved by a series of small and correct choices made by the griever. This book takes on the the specific challenge of reeducating anyone who has a genuine desire to discover and complete the emotional pain caused by loss.”

5. Big Magic, Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elisabeth Gilbert – I include this because I believe creativity is an essential key to unlocking or releasing suffering. Once we understand it, we find that creativity lies at the centre of our calling or purpose in life. I don’t mean the often quoted traditional form that some take to mean art, that’s one form, not do I mean a career. I mean that thing within us that yearns for expression, the thing that we like to do that makes us feel good. That keeps us sane.

“Possessing a creative mind, after all, is something like having a border collie for a pet: It needs work, or else it will cause you an outrageous amount of trouble. Give your mind a job to do, or else it will find a job to do, and you might not like the job it invents.

It has taken me years to learn this, but it does seem to be the case that if I am not actively creating something, then I am probably actively destroying something (myself, a relationship, or my own peace of mind).”

Tell me, do you have a favourite read for your spiritual well-being? Share it with us, I’m always looking for inspiration!

Further Reading Lists in the Series for Total Confinement

Top 5 on My TBR

Top 5 Nature Inspired Reads