I loved to read for as long as I can remember. The library was one of my favorite places as a kid and still is as an adult. It’s one of the few places where so many personalities and stories reside in one place peacefully, not arguing with each other about my story is better than yours. A peaceful residence where everyone has their own shelf space and no one is trying to compete for attention. Reading other peoples’ stories and getting a glimpse of different perceptions, I think is what helped me have such an open mind. Having a chance to understand experiences different from my own helped to shape the views I had about the world and myself. I remember vividly my 5th grade teacher reading a chapter to us every day, it was probably my most favorite time of the day. It’s funny the things you remember from your childhood, the way she spoke about the characters in the book made it seem so real, I still remember the sound of her voice.
One of my favorite books is “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston. I love this book for so many reasons, one is the importance of choosing yourself in relationships and how love can look to different people and in different cultures.
On my healing journey a few books that have tremendously helped learn and unlearn a few things about myself:
“Return to Love” Marianne Williamson
“I Need Your Love, Is that True?” Byron Katie
These 2 books were so helpful to me navigating me post divorce. Of course I knew about self love and choosing myself, these helped really break it down for me. I really started to challenge my thoughts and question everything I knew and thought about myself. My thoughts aren’t always true and are not to be taken as facts when trying to make important decisions. Return to Love helped me feel good about actually loving myself and feel comfortable doing so and not be apologetic about it.
“Boundaries in Marriage” John Townsend and Henry Cloud
The Boundaries in Marriage was a crucial for me, a complete game changer about marriage.
When I got married, I was really naïve about marriage and just wasn’t taught or aware of the dynamics of navigating marriage. This book helped me in so many ways and I highly suggest it to anyone regardless of your marital status.
Books have always helped me, either learn new things or learn new things about myself. It’s the one thing that’s free and you can learn so much from other’s experiences and life lessons and it really allows you to travel to places in your mind that you may not physically be able to get to.
There’s so many other of my favorite books that I’ll save for a different post, so until then…enjoy my friend.
love always,
Photo by César Viteri on Unsplash