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Reading
This is for you if:
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You enjoy reading (or at least it doesn't feel like a chore!)
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You would like to understand yourself / what you're going through better by reading books written by authors who are well-known in the field of therapy / psychology / psychiatry / self-help
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Here are my book recommendations:
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I love reading, and I read a lot. But I reserve this short list only for treasured books that have impacted me profoundly and revolutionised the way I interact with this world. For each book, I share how it has changed my life and a summary of it through my lens (for more ‘traditional’ synopses, I’ve included links to Goodreads/Amazon). May you find life-changing wisdom in these books too!
I would love it if you share your thoughts on these books (if you’ve read / are reading them) and recommend some books to me too! You can do so here.
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How to do the work, by Dr. Nicole LePera
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Untamed, by Glennon Dyole
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The myth of normal, by Dr. Gabor Mate
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In love with the world, by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
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Conversations on love, by Natasha Lunn
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Attached, by Dr. Amir Levine and Rachel S. F. Heller
How to do the work, by Dr. Nicole LePera
How it has changed my life:
This book is therapy in itself. It literally taught me ‘how to do the work’. It gave voice and meaning to my emotions, experiences, and healing work.
As I continue doing the work, I feel myself soften towards myself and the people around me. It made me realise: How can we not be kind, if we’re all struggling in our own ways?
This book through my lens:
This book helps us understand why we are the way we are, and in particular how our parent-figures have played a huge role in this.
Some people may be uncomfortable with the idea of attributing some of our current traits / behaviour (especially negative ones) to our parent-figures; perhaps we wonder if blame-finding is even productive, and we ‘feel bad’ for doing it.
The book helps us understand that it is not about finger pointing. Rather, when we recognise that our sometimes unhelpful thoughts, habits, beliefs came from ‘somewhere’ (and we will begin to realise it is often from our parent-figures), and is not innate, this helps us ‘forgive’ ourselves. It is only from this point that we can begin to let go of what doesn’t serve us.
The book also helps us develop compassion for people around us - we learn to see that as human beings, the struggles we go through in life can manifest in different ways but underlyingly, we are all connected and want the same things.
This book provides us with the knowledge we need to be empowered to choose a path that best serves us, not just for ourselves, but for those around us.
Untamed, by Glennon Doyle
How it has changed my life:
For the first time, I felt so seen - by a book. I read this book in a particularly turbulent phase in my life, and I sobbed so many times.
This book marked my turning point towards complete self-acceptance. I finally accept that I absolutely dislike thrilling activities that make my adrenaline run, and I’m not timid / a spoil sport because of that. It is simply a choice. It is me.
"Brave does not mean feeling afraid and doing it anyway. Brave means living from the inside out. Brave means, in every uncertain moment, turning inward, feeling for the Knowing, and speaking it out loud... Sometimes being brave requires letting the crowd think you're a coward. Sometimes being brave means letting everyone down but yourself... be true to [yourself]. They are not divided between what they feel and know on the inside and what they say and do on the outside. Their selves are integrated. They have integrity."
This book through my lens:
“Who was I before I became who the world told me to be?” I see this as the central question the book poses to us.
Who are we, deep inside, before being layered with social conditioning and becoming a version of ourselves that we don’t even recognise - that perhaps we don’t even love?
This book tells us that we are okay, just as we are. We do not need to feel divided within because what is at our deepest core is not aligned with who/what the world wants us to be.
It is only when we are ‘so okay’ with ourselves that we can finally bring our true selves to the table, and live our fullest life.
The myth of normal, by Dr. Gabor Mate
How it has changed my life:
I no longer deny my own trauma. I see it and I acknowledge it. Then I could begin to heal.
I used to deny my own trauma because I would compare it to what others have gone through and feel like ‘mine wasn’t that bad’. I didn’t realise that by doing so, I was suppressing it, and it was hindering me from showing up as my true, authentic self.
This book reframed my view of trauma - that trauma isn’t meant to be compared, that trauma is ‘not what happens to you but what happens inside you’. Our feelings and experiences are all valid, and we need not convince ourselves otherwise.
The book through my lens:
We are all victims of trauma. Most of us don’t see it, because the ‘traditional’ definition of trauma is some big event that had some huge, visible impact on us.
Only that it is not. Trauma simply ‘represent(s) a fracturing of the self and of one’s relationship to the world’. It can be as subtle as a conversation, or something that a teacher said to us when we were very young. We are often told these are ‘small things’ and are ‘normal’, so we repress what feels true for us. This book tells us that only our interpretation of the experience matters. Nobody else (including society) should have a say on the extent to which something has had an impact on us.
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This book explains what exactly is ‘trauma’, how trauma manifests, and what we can do to begin this healing journey. This book is a sobering reminder that as we heal ourselves, the world heals. We often talk about wanting to make the world a better place - it begins with our inner work.
In love with the world, by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
How it has changed my life:
This book gave me a sharp but simple answer to a question that has always been on my mind since I was a child: If we are all going to die one day anyway, what’s the point of it all?
The answer was: Why waste time thinking about it then?
The book also made me consider what I’m attached to, and who I would be / who I am if not for these attachments.
And it brought me closer to understanding this ageless question: Who am I, really?
This book through my lens:
This book is a meditation in itself: You’ll feel like you’re being brought along Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche’s journey of leaving a familiar and comfortable world into the unknown, and through his near-death experience. You’ll hear the conversations in his mind, and how he stays aware of all these thoughts without identifying with, or grasping at it.
It is a sobering reminder that we so often grasp on to the familiar because of fear, and how much this actually holds us back. It urges us to consider what is the cost of our preoccupation, and whether it is worth it.
It tells us that we already have everything within us. We just need to be present and listen. To learn to be more aware and alive to what’s around us.
And the most important lesson from this book: There is life, death, and everything in the middle. This thing in the middle, it is in transition and in flux. Yet we try so hard to hold on to it. Imagine how we would feel?
“What would it take to perceive a tree as a process rather than as an object, as a living-dying form that grows, ages, dies, and transforms? What about the person we most love, or… what about ourselves?”
Conversations on love, by Natasha Lunn
How it has changed my life:
This book helped me understand ‘love’.
I always felt like I needed to define it to know what it is; at the same time, I found any prescriptive definitions of love suffocating - a nagging feeling that the depth of it can’t be so simply captured in a few words.
My personal takeaway from this book is that love is (1) something within (2) something that we put out in the universe. Any further definition is futile. And to experience true love, I need to be myself and let people in. Being ourselves is always a risk (and extremely vulnerable), but one that is worth taking.
This book through my lens:
We frequently think of love in terms of categories - romantic love, familial love, self-love. But what about other forms of connections - with friends, acquaintances, strangers, trees, animals?
This book offers an expansive view of love and how to navigate them. It is like the antidote to a connection we feel but cannot explain; the answer to a connection that we cannot fit into one of those ‘traditional’ categories of love.
It helps us understand that sometimes love defies definition, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, or is ‘wrong’. It helps us realise that as humans we need and crave for different forms of love because ‘no one can see the whole of who [we] are’, and ‘we need different people in our life to see different parts of who we are’.
It also offers us a view into grief, the other side of love that is less talked about, and how grief and love interact in such intricate ways that we often struggle to see. The book discusses and celebrates love in all forms, and leaves us walking away experiencing the world through a whole new dimension.
You might also think, what world was I living in before I read this book?
Attached, by Dr. Amir Levine and Rachel S. F. Heller
How it has changed my life:
I identify with being anxiously attached. Before this book, I never understood why I feel compelled to do and say certain things in my relationships - especially things I know don’t make logical sense. It has, at times, led to a lot of frustration.
This book helped me understand myself and people around me with other attachment styles (avoidant and secure). Most importantly, with this knowledge, I now know how to respond and communicate more productively and effectively, so that I can cultivate deeper and more fulfilling relationships.
This book through my lens:
There are many facets of our Selves, and one facet is how we function in our relationships.
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The three attachment styles (Anxious, Avoidant, Secure) explains so much of our behaviour and what underlies the frustrations, arguments, and unhappiness in our relationships (and the good stuff too, of course). It teaches us why certain attachment styles clash (and also explains why certain relationships are so toxic yet we don’t want to get out of them), and what we can do instead.
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Knowing why we (and people around us) are the way we are helps us cultivate empathy and compassion for each other, and pave the way for more fulfilling relationships for everyone.
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I’m sold on this attachment style theory because if we can identify our own style, we know what to do to be a better version of ourselves. In a way, I see it like a personality test.
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While this book focuses on romantic relationships, I find the content very applicable to other kinds of relationships too. Overall, it is a useful handbook on understanding ourselves and working towards thriving relationships, regardless of the stage and nature of the relationship: existing friendships, making new friends; looking for a romantic partner, during a romantic relationship, navigating a (possible) breakup.
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You can do the quiz to find out your own / your partner’s / your date’s attachment style here.