Going to Cheat

List three books that have had an impact on you. Why?

Three? Are you nuts? I can do four books in one series! So I will play fast and loose with the answer as always!

Firstly I have read hundreds of books and from self-help through to novels I’ve found a great deal of inspiration for life. There are little gems everywhere if you look.

“Big Magic” by Elizabeth Gilbert is written for creatives but works brilliantly for everyday life. However…

Still cheating here…we move on to…

Book one

“You Can Heal Your Life” by Louise Hay.

I learned so much from her, but the key thing for me was that I was raised by a frightened father.

He had severe acute anxiety in a day that wasn’t allowed to be a thing. Especially for a man. You had to be an idiot instead, and eye rolling behind your back, coupled with deep sighs at the stress he was putting you through, were the only correct reactions. Disgusting.

A girl is historically programmed to look for a bigger, stronger, male to keep her safe. It’s the way the animal kingdom works.

When I was little, if I had a bad dream, he would come in and comfort me, and he always said “nothing is going to hurt you while I’m here”. Imagine what happened when he became seriously ill in the form of scared and worried all the time.

I know what it’s like, your own mind won’t let you rest. It tells stories that aren’t true. It hears a negative thing and adopts it, then looks for evidence that it’s right. It’s like an alien possession. Especially for people like dad and I, if anyone knew how to laugh it was us! Not so much the rest of the family, which explains a lot.

So that key piece of information was a game changer for me, and led to:

Book 2

“Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway” by Susan Jeffers

In Waterstones in Croydon, South London, they kept three self-help books under the counter, “You Can Heal Your Life”, this one, and one I forget.

I recommended this to a colleague one day, she arrived at the shop, had forgotten the title, went up to the counter and said a friend had recommended a fear book to her. The guy reached under the desk, handed her the book, and said “It will be this one, we always keep it here, have you read these two?”

Understanding what fear is, is so important. It boils down to I can’t cope. You know yourself when you’re very low a broken shoe lace, fingernail, you’ve run out of milk and need tea; these things feel like absolute disasters because you just can’t take anymore. Not one more thing.

Fight and flight is the natural response, which puts you into a place of anxiety, which is a form of fear. Except unlike running from a lion, always assuming that’s possible, it’s not a real fear it’s all made up through sheer emotional and mental exhaustion. You’ve got adrenaline running rampant and nothing to run from to work it off.

TIP: Breathe in for a count of five and out for a count of eight. It tells your brain that you aren’t in danger so stop putting out adrenaline. Very handy for panic attacks. Will also help you to stay calm under pressure. Good breathing saves lives!

Anger is often a fear and pressure response, when you just can’t take anymore. An oddly familiar feeling to anxiety with a different reaction.

The book is invaluable. Just buy it.

Books three

Yes I can spell 🤣. This is where the cheating really kicks in.

“The Celestine Series” by James Redfield

Are they adventure stories? Are they spirituality/Buddhism light as some insulting people tend to call them? Who knows.

Important note: It is okay to live life in the lightest way possible and learn whilst also having fun and enjoying yourself. ‘Worthy’ trash talk and learning through suffering are to be avoided at all costs by sensible people. If you’re going to seek change enjoy every second of the experience. Struggle is overrated.

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed each book, learned a great deal from them about life and how to think, and I’m seeing the evidence in “The 12th Insight” starting to appear now. If you approach spiritual learning in the right way , the new way, it’s pure practical magic. My groups will tell you that.

Plus plus plus

So many books. “The Law of Attraction” by Esther and Jerry Hicks must get an honourable mention. For me personally, by far the best book of its kind. Might even have been the third book under the Croydon counter.

Where it differs is that instead of telling you about the Law of Attraction, it consists of Jerry’s notes taken from channeling sessions where Esther, who believed nothing vaguely weird but loved her husband enough to go on his ‘strange’ journeys of exploration with him, landed up channeling a group of light beings (souls) called the Abraham. Jerry was a novice at the time so he asked all the logical (to me) questions I would have asked.

I could go on, but you know the rules, those who read learn all the time and stay youthful. Okay so it’s my rule lol. But it’s a decent one!

So there’s my three-ish, more like 8 going on 40 books.

Happy Monday

Deb xx