Essential Reading

On the journey towards healing, the most important thing we can do is open our hearts and minds as much as we possibly can to the potential of growth in order to truly evolve. The following resources have been pivotal on my path back to myself, to better understand how I can do better, and to be a better human in general.

• Carolyn Myss – Creation of Health
• Don Miguel Ruiz – The Four Agreements
• Nicolai Bachman – The Path of the Yoga Sutras
• The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
• Anodea Judith – The Wheels of Life
• Eddie Stern – One Simple Thing
• Neale Donald Walsch – Conversations with God
• Mary Sue Wallace – Happyism
• Anita Johnston – Eating in the Light of the Moon
• Evelyn Tribole & Elyse Resch – Intuitive Eating
• Mary Frances Berry – History Teaches Us To Resist
• Isabel Wilkerson – Caste: The Origins of our Discontents
• Ibram X. Kendi – How to be an Antiracist
• The New York Times – The 1619 Project

Listening Gold

Some books are taken to a whole new level when listening to an audio version. The added vocal tone and feeling behind the author’s words can impress upon the reader their heart, soul, and full experience behind them.

The recorded seminars in this list are just as powerful as some include a listening audience that, again, adds to the feeling behind the speaker’s message. To me, the following is a list of listening gold.

• Carolyn Myss – Energy Anatomy
• Brene Brown – The Power of Vulnerability
• Anodea Judith – The Chakra System
• Michelle Obama – Becoming
• Trevor Noah – Born a Crime: Stories of a South African Childhood
• Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi – Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You
• Angie Thomas – The Hate U Give

Must See Films

It is time for us to take full advantage of the collective awakening in which we have found ourselves recently. Hindsight being 20/20 truly has a new meaning now. The human rights issues we are facing today requires us to wake up from the dream that any of this is new.

In order for us to truly change our society, we must change what is socially acceptable and stand up for those who are marginalized, disenfranchised, and discriminated against every day.

For our allies and those of us part of the BIPOC community, we must unite together against all forms of hate and speak up. For those still questioning the protests, still wondering why people are so angry, still not understanding why Black lives should matter or who don’t see that love is love, keep listening to the stories of people who don’t look or live like you do before you repeat another talking point and open your heart.

• Ava DuVernay’s 13th
• Bryan Stevenson’s story Just Mercy
• James Baldwin’s work in I Am Not Your Negro
• Laverne Cox’s Disclosure
• The Social Dilemma