The Guides - 10 Books To Help You Live Free
No-one has all the answers. No-one can give you your own individual answer. but, With help, You can find your own answers.
The Guides are the ten books reviewed below. They are not intended to be the only books you ever need to read but these are the books that provided the most answers for me to find freedom for myself. As such I consider them my Guides. No doubt you will find your own Guides but the books below are great sources of learning.
I relate each of these books to stages in The Roadmap and if I was starting from scratch I would read these in the order in which they’re presented below. That said, the order isn’t essential though I would always recommend starting with Mindset as it is applicable to all learning as well as helping us understand how society and our upbringing influences us. (Stages 1-7)
Healing Back Pain, Cured & When The Body Says No explore the importance of health, without which your time and energy to explore anything else is hampered. They also explore the role of learning, social pressures and the emotions on your life. (Stages 2-4)
Not Nice, The Happiness Trap & Self-Therapy explore the many aspects of what makes us who we are and how we deal with the world. (Stages 3-4)
No Bad Parts also focus on how we relate to the world, but from a perspective that includes a fuller sense of what it means to be human. (Stages 4 & 5)
Finally, Fear & The Power Of Now take us beyond the everyday world to see our existence as something both exactly as it is and far beyond all thought or analysis. (Stages 5, 6 & 7)
Please Note: Each book review is intended to provide an overview of the content and it’s main benefit to the reader. Though I recommend reading a book alongside following The Roadmap, I am in no way connected to the author or publisher or them to me or this website.
This book is a fundamental text for me. To be open to new ideas you must learn your learning mindset.
Though taglined “The New Psychology of Success” this book is much more an exploration of why people start, keep at, or give up on any part of their lives, whether education, sport, art or love.
Without first knowing how you think about learning you are blind. And, without learning how to learn through developing a growth mindset is like trying to read without first learning your alphabet.
Even if you are one of the few people who has never experienced some form of back pain, this book is a must read. The tagline here – “The Mind Body Connection” is why this book should be read by everyone on this planet.
Sarno devoted his career to helping people discover their own way to cure pain, realising that many of the treatments for back & joint pain and onumerous other ailments were incidiental to what was really causing the pain.
By focusing on the emotional reasons for pain, Sarno opens up the world of Mind Body medicince and the importance of unifying the psyche to heal the body.
Rediger’s book takes you on the same journey he went on from skeptic about the connection between the mind and illness to full convert.
The power in this book is that you follow through Redeger’s steps as well, from his place amongst the medical elite to coming face to face with incredible stories of spontaneous healing.
Gabor Mate’s book is no easy read especially for anyone who has lost a close friend or relative to disease.
Mate’s research into the prevalence of the mind to influence a wide ranging variety of illnesses is uncompromising but helps tie together the emotional, spiritual & physical realms we all exist within.
The final chapter also provides a practical resource for promoting Mind Body health.
If anyone has ever said “You’re too nice” do not take this as a compliment.
In this book Aziz Gazipura dissects the problems with trying to please other people at the expense of living your own life. This can lead to illness both mental and physical as well as a stunted view of yourself and life.
If you are stuck pleasing others, escaping this trap is vital and this book will help you do that.
Russ Harris is an ACT therapist and this book is an exploration of using Acceptance Commitment Therapy to understand yourself and so find your way through life with happiness as a by-product rather than the end goal.
If you have ever wondered how to define happiness or how to reach it then this book provides a good part of the answer. It also gives the reader ways to think of our minds and techniques to use that are practical and well researched.
Richard Schwartz founded IFS Internal Family Systems therapy which sees humans as mentally constructed of multiple often conflicted parts or sub personalities.
Though initially hard to get your head around, this is a therapy that makes a huge amount of sense and matches well with reality. It also explains better than any other therapy why we act, think and feel as we do and how to change and heal ourselves.
In No Bad Parts Schwartz also draws out the way IFS parallels many spiritual mystical practices that place humans within a much greater reality.
Where No Bad Parts delves into the spiritual aspect of IFS as well as some practical guidance, this book by Jay Early gives you all the tools you need to practice IFS for yourself.
Early was trained by Schwartz and the foreord in the book is by Schwartz as well. Early has a great way of simplifying IFS and making it practical and useful.
IFS is powerful and can be used to heal yourself of traumas both small and big.
Thich Nhat Hanh was a Vietnamese Buddhist monk and teacher who wrote a great many books.
This is a book about fear but it is as much about living without fear. In so many ways this book mirrors IFS’s take on our need to comfort our internal selves, past and present.
It is a book about embracing the present. Every page in this book yields something to learn.
Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now is a book that must be read and reread to see that it has the simplest of messages – live in the present moment.
That sentiment, as common these days as fat Buddha ornaments and Taoist tatoos and just as looked over.
Why are so many words and thoughts required to get to a place where words and thoughts are not required?
The Power of Now provides answers to questions every seeker of freedom and lasting happiness and some sort of enlightenment has asked.