So, as we’re all new here, I thought we could get to know each other a little better by, well, diving right in of course! And why not begin with sharing some of the wise words that have brought me here? I remember when I started learning how to read…

…being the wonderful middle child I am, the moment that my older sister Kit was gearing up to read chapter books and was embarking on adventures with my Grammy to Barnes & Nobles, made sweeter with a gigantic Starbucks sugar cookie every trip, I wanted in! Luckily, the itty bitty private school that I was attending from pre-school to 2nd grade began teaching us how to read in Pre-K. Eager not to be left behind, I was a sponge. I vividly remember nudging my mom to get me started on my very first CHAPTER BOOK! To set the scene: I was in kindergarten and my family was spending spring break in Naples, Florida, where my grandparents would snowbird. Kit had already finished her book, Sunny the Yellow Fairy (Rainbow Magic). My mom sat me down on next to her and we read the first chapter together. Maybe it was Daisy Meadow’s superb storytelling, maybe it was sheer stubbornness, but either way, I all but inhaled that book.

[Cue, years of my parents and family members indulging me as I firmly believed fairies were undoubtedly real. Thanks for that, y’all.]

While my interests and passions are subject to ebb and flow, my love for a crisp paperback book is one that I always come back to. There is no experience quite like being completely captivated by a book, being transported into a new world while your imagination runs wild. While fantasy, sci-fi, and young adult books hold a special place in my heart, in more recent years, I have developed an affinity for non-fiction reads, memoirs, and books that expand on subjects like the ego, mindfulness, biases, the law of attraction, frequency, anxiety, the unconscious mind, aaaaand more.

1. You are a Badass — Jen Sincero

   You are a badass, you know that?! Something about the bad b*tch energy of this book… it spoke to my SOUL! Sincero brilliantly writes about raising our frequency, a concept that I still refer back to, but had never heard of prior to reading this book in 2018. I also own the audiobook version to play whenever I need a solid reminder of who the f*ck I am!

   So, what is this whole “raising our frequency” idea about, you might ask.

   Well, as humans, we tend to think that our bodies are our homes and that they are about the extent of where we exist. As science is continuing to learn, and as spiritual thinkers have pushed for eons, however, is that surrounding our bodies is an energy field. [cooooool, right?] To keep it as digestible and condensed as I can, essentially, we have learned that our bodies are formulated by a variety of atoms and chemical bonds. Any basic knowledge of chemistry teaches us that each atom has a certain charge to it due to the placement and number of its electrons. These charges are the foundation for how atoms form the very bonds holding us all together! Even when comfortably situated in a chemical bond, there are still charges that exist and dictate how the bonded molecules act. And then, to bring it all together now, the emotional and physical responses that we experience in our body are technically chemical reactions. [honorable mention: Dr. Joe Dispenza — his book Becoming Supernatural outlines this far more eloquently than I]

   When we feel sadness, anger, joy, or gratitude, the chemical responses triggered by each emotion are different, and influence our energetic field as such.

   Want to feel like the badass that you are? Raise the frequency of the energy that you are releasing into the world. The law of attraction will certainly require its own blog post, but, boiled down: like attracts like. If we are in a funk and functioning from a low-vibe frequency, we are not going to feel like we are in alignment with our highest selves. BUT, as we endure life’s highs and lows, we can move ourselves back into alignment by taking a deep, mindful breath, or writing down a gratitude list, or anything, frankly, that moves us up the frequency scale where we can attract joy, love, bliss, and ease. Check out You Are a Badass for more!

2. A New Earth — Eckhart tolle

   Aw man, this book was a wild ride. If you don’t encounter the occasional existential crisis along your spiritual journey, are you really throwing yourself into it? hehe kidding…mostly. just me? Anyhoo, Eckhart Tolle is BRILLIANT. I am a sucker for Oprah’s podcast Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations and he has done a number of episodes with her, which is how I was introduced to him. I will gently disclaim that I bypassed his book The Power of Now, which is generally recommended as a pre-cursor to A New Earth, but I got on just fine with A New Earth.

   Picture this: a world waking up to the power of the unconscious mind. A world tapping into mindfulness and awareness practices. A world abandoning Ego and embracing presence— the art of simply being.

   A New Earth challenges readers to see a world outside of the material world— the world of "form” as Tolle names it. The world of form refers to anything from material wealth, to our physical bodies, to social status, to Instagram followers; the world of form encompasses all of the man-made structures that convince us that we are in a rat-race against one another. Tolle courageously states that, in the world of form, someone will always be better than you. There will be an athlete with greater talent than you. A person who is more beautiful. Someone who is wealthier than you. When we live in the world of form, we subject ourselves to a life of, yes, being “better” than some, but always also being “worse” than others.

   In the plane of being, we are all equal. At our core, at our being— when we recognize that we are not our thoughts but the awareness behind our thoughts— no one is superior, none inferior. This realization struck me: all those thoughts that bombarded me each day attempting to convince me that I was “too much” or “not enough” were thoughts from the ego, thoughts separating me from a peaceful, content life based in awareness, in being.

   Jordan Younger (@thebalancedblonde) once wrote, “we are human beings, not human doings.” That poignant reminder is what A New Earth teaches readers, through countless anecdotes and examples.

3. Live in Grace, Walk in Love — Bob Goff

   This. Book. Y’all. Well, first, honorable mention #2 belongs to Everybody, Always by Bob Goff. SHEEESH! Gooooood stuff.

   As someone who has been raised in an Irish Catholic household, I grew up being dragged to church in an itchy (but gorgeous— I see it now, Mom) smock dress, with a big a$$ bow in my hair. God was an old white man with a beard who lived in the clouds, and, honestly, he seemed pretty scary. You mean this guy sees EVERYTHING? All my “sins???” My CCD classes didn’t do much to alleviate my concerns about God, and they, too, portrayed “Him” as a punitive figure. Jesus didn’t get a whole lot of airtime, but he seemed wayyy nicer than that God guy. Also let me just say that my CCD classes gave FREAKIN’ REPORT CARDS. As if I needed anymore report card stress!

   The dogmatic manner in which I was told to interpret my faith in CCD and then at my Catholic school for grades 6-8th felt so wrong. Like, it felt itchy. It never went down well, even as I swallowed and regurgitated answers for my religion tests. Fast forward to high school (I attended a Jesuit high school #JesuLIT.. IFYKYK) and finally, there I was fed a much more palatable story of my faith. One that emphasized justice and God’s limitless, all-forgiving love.

   Then, my junior year, I accidentally purchased Everybody, Always on Amazon, without a clue that it was written by a Christian author. At this point, I referred to myself as “spiritual, but not religious,” even though I really did miss feeling a connection to God (minus all the rules and dogmas that I found out-dated and limited). Everybody, Always cracked me open and fed my heart and soul with a faith that fit my life— not a faith that anyone had to fit themselves into.

   After attending Kairos in September of my senior year, a special retreat that is part of a Jesuit education, I found myself craving that connection to Spirit again when I got home. I searched to see if Bob Goff had published anything new, and sure enough, Live in Grace, Walk in Love had recently been released. Without even reading the description, I Amazon Primed that ish immediately to get my hands on it the next day!

   What I didn’t realize when I bought it, though, is that Live in Grace, Walk in Love is a compilation of 365 days worth of daily devotionals and reflections. It is a daily check-in with my faith that offers innumerable ways to emulate pure, unbridled love through my actions and, thus, life.

   Whatever you call it— source energy, God, the Universe, Allah, Yahweh, fate, Jesus, Spirit, Love— there is a force connecting each of us. Walk in Grace, Live in Love serves as a daily reminder that I am loved more than I can ever understand, and I really identify with the pursuit of embodying the spirit of Jesus, a man who spent his entire life associating with people on the margins. He loved society’s undesirables, His enemies, His betrayers; He loved everybody, always. And that, my friends, is a spirit worth modeling.

   Loving big, furthermore, and this year-long journey, has exponentially increased my self love, too. Each day, this beautiful book echos the message that we are all flawed, and yet we were intentionally created to be exactly who we are. We are lovable, not only as the people we are becoming, but also as the people we already are.

4. LITERALLY ANYTHING BY mALCOM GLADWELL

   I am a Malcom Gladwell stan. I accept that the statement I just made is possibly the nerdiest phrase you’ve ever read, but I promised realness, OK?

   MALCOM GLADWELL IS A GENIUS AND IT IS MY GOAL TO READ ALL OF HIS BOOKS. So far I have read The Tipping Point, Blink, David and Goliath, and I listened to Talking to Strangers as an audiobook. That leaves What the Dog Saw and Outliers… you already know what is on my “To Read” list.

   I could passionately ramble about why each of his books is beyond relevant to your day-to-day life and why you need to read it. I will attempt to give a few blurbs about each and let you make your own decisions. I said I’d try… no promises. First up, The Tipping Point, is the book that began my passionate, one-sided love affair with Gladwell. This book, 2 1/2 years later still pops up in my head. Have you ever been waiting for a crosswalk to turn to the “walk” sign, but then someone brushed past you to cross the street before it turned? And then you look and there’s still no cars coming so you, too, rebelliously defy your functional fixedness and learned norms and cross the street after him? That is just one example of how our behaviors and choices are influenced by our peers. That, “well they did it and nothing bad happened, I might as well do it too.” is a concept that Gladwell expands upon over and over in The Tipping Point, where he moves to describe how trends are set, how smoking becomes an addiction, and how cleaning subway trains and enforcing paying subway fare helped stop crime in the 1990’s in NYC. It is fascinating.

   Blink, Talking to Strangers, and David and Goliath challenge your brain in a different way. Both books address seemingly unconscious biases that we hold without quite knowing. They ingeniously explain to readers the (false) beliefs we hold, what we get wrong about other strangers, and the powers of disadvantages. I never put down a Malcom Gladwell book without muttering, “Wow.”

   Gladwell’s books are the perfect blend of science and storytelling. He incorporates the tales of C.E.O’s of Goldman Sachs, New York and Kansas City policing, Sandra Bland, teachers, medical professionals; he writes accounts of both the wildly successful and the average American. Each page turned offers a newfound understanding of why we do what we do and how we can use that knowledge to better ourselves and our world.

5. The Power of Habit — Charles Duhigg

   I’ll give it to you straight— this book was Malcom Gladwell-esque. Is that why I loved it so much? It is possible.

   The Power of Habit is a powerful work that eloquently enraptures readers and smacks them with the reality of just how influenced they are by their habits. Like, the saying “people make choices and choices make people,” is an accurate summary of The Power of Habit, because our habits, over time, essentially dictate who we are and what we do. Duhigg provides the science behind this truth, all while holding on to readers’ attentions with his concise writing and relatable examples.

   At the time I was reading The Power of Habit (and this holds true in a lesser sense even today), I was nursing myself through my first real break-up. That sh*t is not easy. What this book (along with a Ted Talk or two on heartbreak. y’all, I was desperate. no judgment.) helped me realize is that my brain was going crazy because I no longer would be able to partake in all the little habits I had made within the sphere of my relationship: texting/FaceTiming/spending time with that person a great deal, leaning on him for support/validation, showering him in love/affection, going to him first with good news, allll those relationship things we do. While this was beautiful and I am so grateful for the space he held for me, I had to grapple with a whole lotta habits that would take time to be re-wired into new ones. Duhigg refers to keystone habits, which are basically a central habit that trigger others. If my ex-boyfriend was my old keystone habit, Duhigg would tell me that my greatest chances of successfully ridding myself of this habit would be to replace my old keystone habit with a ~new and improved~ one. * I am not telling you people to jump into a new relationship to get over your ex * By investing some willpower into creating a new keystone habit— journaling— I slowly but surely was able to feel the ripple effect of new habits entering my life. Here again we can see the law of attraction in action; I shifted my focus from feeling like there was a void in my life to instead filling my cup by journaling, meditation, calling my friends more, and reminding myself that all I love and validation I am seeking externally, I have the ability to give myself. Only you can give yourself the acceptance that you’re really looking for.

   I believe that this book opened my eyes to my own agency in a way that had previously felt blocked for me. A much-needed sense of empowerment stemmed from learning tried-and-true methods to change my habits and break away from habit loops that no longer served me. Anyone who is looking to better understand themselves, build a healthier lifestyle, raise their self-esteem, move through heartbreak, or prepare to enter the business world is sure to benefit from reading The Power of Habit.

   I hope that these books can be the change-makers in your lives that they were in mine. and, I think we are certainly getting to know each other better! remember to subscribe on my “community” page to be notified when new posts are up! Also, Be sure to follow me @freetobefi on instagram and message me or comment below with your thoughts or if you have read/plan to read any of these books! I look forward to hearing from you.

   here is to learning and empowering ourselves— in whatever way that feels right to each of us individually— with the knowledge that we need to live freer lives, full of living as our truest, fullest, most vibrant selves!!!

   With love, Fi