Books That Helped Me Find Back to Myself

Have you ever gotten to a point in your life when you didn’t know what you wanted, who you really were?
Let me share with you, which books helped me find back to myself in that blurred period right after my
burn-out.

I don’t remember how, but I came across this tiny booklet The WHY Café by John Strelecky. It made me ask myself profound questions like why the hell am I here on earth? Definitely not just for paying the bills, so why? What’s my gift? Am I doing anything to contribute to the world?
It’s an easy read and I really recommend it if you got to a crossroads in your life.

Gaining a different perspective of things we are dealing with is a great way to get out of the rabbit hole. I read a book by Andy Andrews, The Traveler’s Gift when I was in the States visiting a lovely family, and I remembered how much I loved his narrative style and the insights I got. I looked him up and picked his next book The Noticer. You know, whether we feel happy or irritated, it only depends on our perspective, how we see things. This book shows it perfectly. It helped me see my current state in a different light, it made me weigh up things and pointed out that there’s a gift in every situation.

Sometimes to think outside the box, you gotta get out of that box. Try something we would have never thought we’d do. Get lost to find ourselves. Elisabeth Gilbert’s memoir Eat Pray Love is the perfect example of it.
We never know where we’re going to land until we take the first step. For me, her story also symbolizes that if we want to find our real self, we have to be bold, build strong boundaries and go on that journey we’ve been planning for ages.

Even when it seems we have it all, we are not necessarily happy. An amazing career, a partner and a nice apartment could mean we have figured it all out. Then something unexpected happens that shifts our point of view and we realize we’ve been living the life of somebody else. We gave in for the expectations of society.
But are we really happy? Do we live a meaningful life? A novel by Lori Nelson Spielman, The Life List shows this in a beautiful way. I think we all have written a life list at one point, maybe in our childhood, maybe as an adolescent or even adult. What happened then with that list? Have we been working on it and ticking off all the activities or have we just forgotten about it totally? Let’s not wait until our last days to recognize we haven’t truly lived yet.

Rather than just revealing their stories, I wanted to give you a framework about how these books can impact our way of thinking positively. We all can google. 😉

Now I want to reread all the books. 😃 Which one is your favorite?