Books to read for healing and widen our perspective?

[Xara]

During the process of understanding conditioning, feelings etc, among others, reading books has helped a lot. I had began with Sarno, then came in touch with Claire Weekes and afterwards " met" Gabor Mate,
Bessel van de Kolk and Peter Levin. Also Alice Miller, Winnicott, Freud, Pete Walker, enough searches and case studies and scientific articles because of my studies.
I recommend almost all the above.
But...
Are there any other recommendations which are worth reading?
Additionally, we can have a thread in which we can recommend films, music, theater or other art, if helped as unlock feelings or have deeper understanding ( which in my case was crucial).
Waiting for answers!

 

[Cactusflower]

My recommendation is to slow down. Unlocking feelings (not really sure what that means) .. working with emotions is inner work that often happens over time (for many, continues after pain subsides) and is about your interactions and relationships with real people.. so go live life and focus a bit less on the “doing” and more on real life being!

 

[Baseball65]

Are there any other recommendations which are worth reading?

Reading Eckhart Tolle's "Power of Now" gave me one of my first perspectives of 'watching the thinker'... and realizing that all of this noisy point of reference from which I think is just that.. a lot of noise.
It helped me look at 'me' from a quiet, non judgmental point...well, I judged it (damn, I suck!) But it is essentially the place you need to be when imagining what kind of stuff your unconscious tries to keep you from knowing about yourself.

 

[Xara]

My recommendation is to slow down. Unlocking feelings (not really sure what that means) .. working with emotions is inner work that often happens over time (for many, continues after pain subsides) and is about your interactions and relationships with real people.. so go live life and focus a bit less on the “doing” and more on real life being!

Thanks for reminding this. I totally agree. Someone needs time to relax, act and think but in my opinion needs also "clues", experiences, enlighting thoughts etc etc. You read something and you may face it - or realize it in real life after months, even years.

 

[Cactusflower]

Thanks for reminding this. I totally agree. Someone needs time to relax, act and think but in my opinion needs also "clues", experiences, enlighting thoughts etc etc. You read something and you may face it - or realize it in real life after months, even years.

This is far more evident for me reading fiction. I'm actually super surprised at how many fiction writers explain emotions of their characters with physical sensations. Something I was completely oblivious to "before". However, I think that we probably need LESS thinking (thinking is doing!) and just hanging out and being. Frankly that is when my biggest insights have happened, perhaps because I've stepped away from that judgemental mind just a fraction.
You have to balance the facing things months or years away with how they are effecting your relationships NOW. The now is by far the most important in all of this. The stuff in the past only shows us the patterns that created the habits we held on to that no longer serve us. Digging and figuring out "clues" can be fixing, so can reading and thinking about TMS a lot. This is the intellectualization that can cloud our experience of feeling into things and being part of the experience and for folks who intellectualize (over think) as habit, it can foster your brain thinking that there must be something "wrong". If you really feel the need to read something, I think @Baseball65 's recommendation is a great one because what I am saying here is part of what that book is all about.

 

[Ellen]

It's been around awhile, but Byron Katie's Loving What Is was transformational for me. As the title suggests, it is mostly about acceptance of the way things are, including ourselves and others. Getting to a place of acceptance calms down my nervous system and frees me from the constant state of trying to "fix" things.

 

[Xara]

This is far more evident for me reading fictio

I mean this, too. Reading literature is an open window to feelings, to watch behaviours and realize the universality of needs, feelings, worries and pains. Also, the books I mentioned contain many examples of real people, so it is easier to realise things.

. Digging and figuring out "clues" can be fixi

I am not sure of I get it, but I have entered a stage where I recognise a feeling, connect it with the past and sometimes I don't know how to handle it at present.
Many times there are not symptoms at all.

thinking is doing

I hadn't thought of this before... Food for thought.

 

[JanAtheCPA]

Well, I understand the desire to read a lot of different things early on - doing so opened my mind to different ideas and methods. I actually did not get very far into the SEP (deep dark confession) because I was accessing so many other resources and learning so much. My favorites are listed after my profile story.

I also enjoy coming across references to emotional awareness in fiction, but one source of material that keeps surprising and delighting me is the discussions that so many well-known (ie: famous) creative people are having in interviews these days. They are all over the place! NPR is a great source for these programs. For instance, there's a new NPR podcast called Wild Card, which is entertaining but also interestingly deep and I highly recommend it. The episodes are not very long and all of them are with well-known creatives. The one I listened to just today was with Lena Waithe, and a few days ago it was Chris Pine. Last week I heard an episode of Fresh Air where Terry Gross interviewed Questlove , who's got plenty to say about emotional discovery and growth as well as racial and generational trauma. It's important and compelling. The TED Radio Hour, also on NPR, is a great source of brain topics. Of course the beauty of podcasts is that you can listen anywhere (you bet I've got my waterproof BT speaker for the shower!)

So much good stuff, so little time!

 

[louaci]

Dr. Gabor Mate "when the body says no", very similar principles, but it seemed that Dr. Mate has not heard of Dr. Sarno?

 

[JanAtheCPA]

but it seemed that Dr. Mate has not heard of Dr. Sarno?

Or he chose not to acknowledge Dr Sarno's work, we have no way of knowing, but in my profile I have listed When The Body Says No as the third book that saved me after Dr Sarno and Claire Weekes.

 

[rand]

This one isn't about mindbody healing but I was really moved and inspired by it nonetheless - Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost At Sea by Steve Callahan. He was sailing solo across the Atlantic when his boat sunk in a storm, he drifted for 76 days on a tiny inflatable raft, spearing fish, overcoming the most dire, brutal conditions you could possibly face as a human on Earth, till he finally reached the Caribbean islands. His raft popped at one point and he had to find a way to repair it using what little he had. I read this in Spring 2023, and it was legitimately a turning point for me, when I decided to truly go all in and start facing my fears and challenge my symptoms. In a way I felt like Steve Callahan, drifting alone out on the ocean, and I just thought if he could overcome that hellish nightmare, and just never give up even in the face of constant game-ending setbacks, then I could too. Tbh reading what he went through made me feel like my situation wasn't all that bad, made me feel quite grateful for what I had, which is very easy to lose sight of when you're in the throes of health anxiety. I emailed him after I read it and told him how much his book resonated with me and how analogous it was to my situation and he sent me a very nice encouraging response.