4 Books That Changed My Life

I love a book that stays with you long after you finish it. Not just one that was interesting or entertaining, but one that actually changes the way you think about your life.

These four did that for me.

I read them at different times and for different reasons, but each one gave me a completely different perspective on grief, thoughts, emotions, healing and even what we may be capable of changing in ourselves.

Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian Weiss

After experiencing so much loss in my life, this book found me at exactly the right time. Struggling with the why we are here, why we experience such profound loss…I was searching for answers through pain and this book really resonated with me.

Brian Weiss graduated from Columbia University and went on to receive his medical degree from Yale. He was a highly trained psychiatrist and Head of Psychiatry at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami when one of his patients, during hypnosis, began describing what appeared to be previous lives. This guy was at the top of his field, so it is hard for me to believe he would risk his career by just making something like this up. Especially considering this was the 80s, when society was not exactly open to alternative theories about the afterlife. 😂

Whether you believe every part of the story literally or just stay open to the possibility that there may be more going on than we understand, I found the whole thing fascinating.

Obviously, this is where some people may immediately check out. 😂 But whether you believe every part of the story literally or just stay open to the possibility that there may be more going on than we understand, I found the whole thing fascinating. What interested me most wasn't necessarily proving whether past lives are real. It was the bigger idea behind it all and how much we may still not understand about consciousness, life, and what happens after we die. The idea that our souls may continue beyond one lifetime, that we may travel through different lives with some of the same souls, and that we could be here helping one another learn, grow and evolve gave me a completely different way to look at loss.

There was something incredibly comforting about the thought that the people we love may not simply disappear from our lives forever. After losing people who were such huge parts of mine, I needed that possibility.

It didn't erase grief, obviously, but it gave me hope that our connections might be much bigger than this one lifetime.

The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer

This one changed the way I deal with my own mind.

One of the simplest ideas in the book probably had the biggest impact on me: you are not your thoughts. You are the one noticing your thoughts.

It sounds almost too simple until you really think about it. We all have that constant voice running through our heads. It analyzes everything, replays conversations, predicts disasters that haven't happened, and for some reason loves bringing up something embarrassing you said ten years ago at 2am.

For a long time, if my brain gave me a thought, I automatically entertained it. And sometimes gave it snacks and let it stay awhile. 😂 This book helped me realize I don't have to do that.

I can notice a negative thought without following it all the way down the rabbit hole. I can literally think, there's my brain doing that thing again, and move on instead of creating an entire story around it. That one realization has helped me tremendously with negative thought loops.

Do I still have them? Of course. My brain is still my brain. But I'm so much better at catching myself before one random thought turns into a full blown imaginary crisis.

For me, this was one of those books where one really simple concept completely changed the way I think and, honestly, the way I live.

The author's other book, The Surrender Experiment, is also really good. It's more of an autobiography, but he shares how he actually applied these ideas to his own life, and let's just say his life took some pretty wild turns.

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

This book was fascinating and, honestly, a little scary.

The central idea is that trauma doesn't only affect the way we think about an experience. It can also affect the nervous system, the body and the way we respond to stress long after the original event is over. That made so much sense to me.

I think many of us were taught to push through difficult things, stay busy, keep going and not spend too much time sitting in uncomfortable emotions. And sometimes that absolutely feels easier in the moment. But this book made me think differently about what happens when we continually suppress things instead of actually processing them.

I have always thought of emotion as energy. It’s something that needs somewhere to go. Whether that's talking about it, crying, moving your body, breathing, praying, writing or simply allowing yourself to feel something instead of immediately trying to get rid of it.

What I took from this book was that healing isn't always just changing the way you think. Sometimes your body and nervous system need attention too. It gave me a much deeper appreciation for how connected our physical and emotional experiences really are.

Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Dr. Joe Dispenza

This is the book where, for me, spirituality and science start having a really interesting conversation.

Joe Dispenza explores how repetitive thoughts, emotions and behaviors can become patterns that we unconsciously repeat day after day. Eventually we can become so accustomed to thinking and reacting in certain ways that they start to feel like our personality.

The question the book asks is basically: what happens if you stop automatically being the version of yourself you've practiced being for years? That idea fascinated me.

We know the brain is capable of change. We know habits can create strong neurological patterns. And I also believe there is something powerful about intention, visualization and becoming very aware of where we're directing our energy and attention.

What I liked most about this book was the idea that you don't necessarily have to wait for your outside circumstances to change before you start becoming a different version of yourself. You can begin changing your thoughts, reactions and habits first.

That doesn't mean thinking happy thoughts magically fixes everything. But it does mean we may have far more influence over our internal patterns than we realize.

And once you recognize a pattern, you have the opportunity to interrupt it and change it.

The Common Thread

Looking at these four books together, I realize they all helped me with the same thing in different ways: seeing life from a bigger perspective.

Many Lives, Many Masters helped me look at loss differently.

The Untethered Soul changed my relationship with my thoughts.

The Body Keeps the Score changed the way I think about emotions and the body.

And Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself made me think about how much of who we are is actually a collection of patterns we can learn to recognize and change.

I don't think you have to agree with every idea in every book for a book to change you and sometimes one sentence is enough.

Interested in reading these? Click the titles to purchase on Amazon!