What are you reading? How are you feeling about it?

Just last week, I had conversations with a few different colleagues about how I work on many things at the same time, and so progress on each project is slower than if I were more singularly focused. My way keeps me engaged. I do the same with my reading. It reminds me of the adage, “How you do one thing is how you do everything,” which I’m not 100% behind, but probably live more than I care to admit.

I’m currently reading Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaoaud, Sylvia Boorstein’s book, Happiness is an Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life, and New Techniques of Grief Therapy by Robert Neimeyer. I just finished “reading” the audiobook, We Need Your Art: Stop Messing Around and Make Something, by Amie McNee. And, I’m listening to Big Magic (Elizabeth Gilbert) in the car. (Oh, plus a {small} section almost every day in Walking Each Other Home by Ram Dass and Mirabai Starr, and my ongoing work with A Year to Live by Stephen Levine).

Are you ready for a breath of fresh air?

Amie’s book, We Need Your Art is so fabulous! Her content is great—the message is clear, well-articulated, and insistent — she grabs your attention and doesn’t let go. Listening to her Aussie accent at 1.2 speed is completely charming! It made me want to get in the car and drive anywhere, just so I could listen to her reading.

My suggestion is, go to your local library or to Audible and listen to a free sample— just to hear her accent and get a flavor of her sassy attitude that is just so strong, so vulnerable, and so real. She speaks about the life of creatives. While she’s referring to artists of every kind—writers, actors, musicians, painters, and more—my personal belief is that we are all the artists of our lives, and in that context, this book is for everyone. Of course, you don’t have to agree with me or my premise that we are artists–though my definition is based on the realities of personal agency, living within constraints, creating successes, failing, and learning how to move forward—life is messy.

If you pick up her book or listen to it, please let me know what you think – good, bad, or ugly. I want to hear it because I don’t think there’s any neutrality when listening to it.

For something more personal, spiritual, perhaps philosophical..

Sylvia Boorstein’s book is a balm for the soul, and that doesn’t mean that it’s sweet or calming. It means that it’s real and about everyday challenges that we face in our lives. Her writing makes what can be a big, heavy topic—how do we show up in the world— accessible and practical. I love that!

Of course, Elizabeth Gilbert’s book is such fun, and listening to her is a delight! I have to pause the book often to jot a note… Of course that does interfere a wee bit with getting through the book efficiently, as I can’t drive and write… it’s worth it!

Bob’s book on grief therapy balances the aforementioned easily accessible books. It is a treasure chest of methods for working with loss and bereavement in death and non-death losses. The work is rich, and the reading is slow (for me). The contrast between the density of the various authors’ writing styles is stark, yet all offer engaging, thought-provoking, and life-changing ideas and practices.

My almost daily practice with Walking Each Other Home and more episodic reading of A Year to Live provide thought-provoking reminders of my mortality…

What do you want from the books you read? I’d love to know!