As a Combat Veteran, I spent many years healing my mind and transitioning back into civilian life, receiving more book recommendations than I could keep up with. I have ready many books and articles on healing, self help, overcoming traumas. I would pick and choose philosophies and techniques that would work for me at the time. And that was just it; I found that there are different stages of healing that we go through as humans. There isn’t a single answer or application that can help everyone or even the same person as they continue to develop.
Here are some great book recommendations for anyone who’d like to learn about trauma’s effect on the psyche and how to heal or re-train your mind.
The Paranoia Switch, Martha Stout
Five years after September 11, we’re still scared. And why not? Terrorists could strike at any moment. Our country is at war. The polar caps are melting. Hurricanes loom. We struggle to control our fear so that we can go about our daily lives. Our national consciousness has been torqued by trauma, in the process transforming our behavior, our expectations, our legal system.
The Myth of Sanity, Martha Stout
Why does a gifted psychiatrist suddenly begin to torment his own beloved wife? How can a ninety-pound woman carry a massive air conditioner to the second floor of her home, install it in a window unassisted, and then not remember how it got there? Why would a brilliant feminist law student ask her fiancé to treat her like a helpless little girl? How can an ordinary, violence-fearing businessman once have been a gun-packing vigilante prowling the crime districts for a fight?
Waking the Tiger, Peter A. Levine
Waking the Tiger normalizes the symptoms of trauma and the steps needed to heal them. People are often traumatized by seemingly ordinary experiences. The reader is taken on a guided tour of the subtle, yet powerful impulses that govern our responses to overwhelming life events. To do this, it employs a series of exercises that help us focus on bodily sensations. Through heightened awareness of these sensations trauma can be healed.
If you are enjoying these book recommendations, we have more great Literary content on The Ritual Blog here.
The Dance of Anger, Harriet Lerner
Anger is something we feel. It exists for a reason and always deserves our respect and attention. We all have a right to everything we feel—and certainly our anger is no exception.
“Anger is a signal and one worth listening to,” writes Dr. Harriet Lerner in her renowned classic that has transformed the lives of millions of readers. While anger deserves our attention and respect, women still learn to silence our anger, to deny it entirely, or to vent it in a way that leaves us feeling helpless and powerless. In this engaging and eminently wise book, Dr. Lerner teaches both women and men to identify the true sources of anger and to use it as a powerful vehicle for creating lasting change.
Power vs Force, David Hawkins
Building on the accumulated wisdom of applied kinesiology (diagnostic muscle-testing to determine the causes of allergies and ailments) and behavioral kinesiology (muscle-testing to determine emotional responses to stimuli), David R. Hawkins MD, PhD has taken muscle-testing to the next level, in an effort to determine what makes people and systems strong, healthy, effective and spiritually sound.
More Book Recommendations to Heal Yourself
The Little Book of Consciousness, Shelli Joye
The integral approach presented here assumes that valid data may be found beyond the traditional methodologies which compartmentalize knowledge. The integral method considers information as valid from multiple and often disparate domains, always with the goal of detecting correlations among them, resonances which might offer new perspectives and alternate paradigms. The theories of Bohm and Pribram present such trans-compartmentalized bridges, offering material with which to perceive new interconnections between neurophysiology, quantum physics, consciousness, and fundamental maps of the universe. Bohm and Pribram became colleagues, working together from within their different specialties, and together a new picture of consciousness in the universe began to emerge. Their theory is quite unique yet provides a clear map for those interested in future consciousness research, or through direct experiential exploration of introspection, prayer, contemplation, or entheogenic-fueled psychonautics.
Morphic Resonance, Rupert Sheldrake
When A New Science of Life was first published the British journal Nature called it “the best candidate for burning there has been for many years.” The book called into question the prevailing mechanistic theory of life when its author, Rupert Sheldrake, a former research fellow of the Royal Society, proposed that morphogenetic fields are responsible for the characteristic form and organization of systems in biology, chemistry, and physics–and that they have measurable physical effects. Using his theory of morphic resonance, Sheldrake was able to reinterpret the regularities of nature as being more like habits than immutable laws, offering a new understanding of life and consciousness.
Becoming Supernatural, Dr. Joe Dispenza
The author of the New York Times bestseller You Are the Placebo, as well as Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself and Evolve Your Brain, draws on research conducted at his advanced workshops since 2012 to explore how common people are doing the uncommon to transform themselves and their lives.
Becoming Supernatural marries the some of the most profound scientific information with ancient wisdom to show how people like you and me can experience a more mystical life.
