Self-Care

by James Nestor
Riverhead Books, New York, 2021
280 pages

“By your 10,000^th breath, and the close of this book, you and I will know how the air that enters your lungs affects every moment of your life and how to harness it to its full potential until your final breath.”      James Nestor

James Nestor’s personal quest to improve his health led to a journey deep within and around the globe to understand the physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of our most essential practice for living:  breathing.  He calls this book “a scientific adventure into the lost art and science of breathing”, and makes it a highly informative and engaging one.  The author describes how breathing has changed over the course of human evolution, and how modern living since the dawn of the Industrial Age has not only affected our physiology, but continues to impact breathing and its effects on our health and every other aspect of our lives.

Readers will enjoy accompanying him as he uncovers the discoveries of a Civil War surgeon, a French hairdresser, a choral director, Olympians, Buddhist monks, a master yoga instructor, deep divers , health clinicians and many others who all contribute to our fuller understanding of breathing.   From ancient burial ruins and texts to the scientific labs of prestigious universities, dental offices and places you might not expect, James Nestor’s journey reveals an amazing array of knowledge and information lost and re-discovered, newly recognized and still unfolding that inform modern day breathing and healthy living.  Most importantly, this book offers helpful information, resources and tools to inform and support your own practice of healthy breathing, and its many benefits in restoring and elevating health and well-being on all levels.

by Peter Walsh
Free Press, 2007
230 pages

Much has been written about getting rid of clutter for good reason: it takes energy to maintain what you have. When you release the stuff you no longer need/want/use, you have more personal energy for yourself and the life you’d truly like to live.

This book is about far more than clutter or your home: it’s a call to re-envision your ideal life and what belongs in it. Professional organizer Peter Walsh offers an excellent framework for looking at your home room-by-room, assessing what’s important according to each room’s function and your personal priorities, and recognizing what’s just stuff. Those who are feeling challenged by the idea of letting go of their stuff may find Peter’s discussion of where people get stuck not only enlightening but empowering.

While not shying away from the clutter issue, this book’s real strength is its positive focus that asks readers to focus their attention and intention on how they truly want to live, rather than on what they don’t want to have. Filled with real-life stories, helpful techniques and new rituals for maintaining a clutter-free home, this book offers those who feel overwhelmed by their stuff a helpful road map for taking their life and their home to a new level of wonderful.

by Lauren Rosenfeld and Dr. Melva Green
Atria Books/Beyond Words, 2014
261 pages

“In the pages of this book, we will help you look deeply at the clutter in your home so that you can see that, just beneath the clutter, illuminating spiritual lessons and ah-ha moments are waiting to help you not only liberate space in your home, but also in your heart, as well as give flight to your spirit and rock your world. “  Lauren Rosenfeld and Dr. Melva Green

Lauren Rosenfeld describes herself as a “soul declutterer and spiritual treasure hunter”.   In this unique book, she and psychiatrist and spiritual healer Dr. Melva Green introduce readers  to a heart-centered way of viewing their possessions and home.  Readers are invited to become spiritual detectives uncovering the hidden meanings, memories, history, fears and other emotions that have become attached to their possessions and spaces.

Relating the real-life decluttering experiences of Lauren’s clients, they take readers on a journey room by room illuminating the spiritual and emotional importance of each, how to create a meaningful intention that is aligned with its sacred purpose, and offering helpful exercises for decluttering and transforming them.  Their approach and the ten principles of soul decluttering they share beautifully reflect the heart’s wisdom and perspective, so different  from the mind’s view .

Along the way, the authors show how this process can take readers into the deeper decluttering of their heart, emotions, relationships, roles and responsibilities, obligations and schedules with compassion,  gratitude, grace and acceptance.  By finding what is truly valuable and creates happiness, freedom and ease, readers will be able to create their own breathing room, a sacred space of peace, comfort, compassion, and spiritual expansion.

by Judith Orloff
Sounds True, 2019
372 pages

As individuals who have a highly reactive nervous system, empaths experience the energies around them deeply in ways that can affect their health, well-being and life in all areas.  In this excellent follow-up to “The Empath’s Survival Guide: Life Strategies for Sensitive People,  Dr. Judith Orloff offers a bounty of helpful  guidance, self-care practices and meditations for empaths.  As both an empath and a psychiatrist, Dr. Orloff  grounds this book in a rich foundation of  wisdom and life-experience.

Moving through the daily entries of the calendar year, readers are invited to explore ways to co-create with Nature and each season’s energies, power, opportunities and cycle of light for greater support.  Entries address the breadth of daily life experience, including grounding, healthy boundaries, physical and emotional health, the experience of emotions, love and relationships, work, money,  spirituality and much more.  Each day’s entry also shares a related intention for deepening one’s growth and self-care.

Whether read in sequence or selectively in the moment, this book is an inspiring resource for empaths who would like to engage in nourishing self-care and experience the world and their empathic gifts with greater clarity, comfort, love and gratitude.