My 30s
Eckhart Tolle
Thank you for helping me connect with my spirit🙏🏼
“If your mind carries a heavy burden of past, you will experience more of the same. The past perpetuates itself through lack of presence. The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future.”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
The Power of Now challenged so much of what I thought I knew up to that point, and opened up a whole new perspective on mind, body and spirit. I was deeply humbled and profoundly changed by the words of Eckhart Tolle. To date, I consider him my life’s spiritual teacher (Marianne Williamson is a close second) and I’m still blown away by his ability to describe the indescribable. I will be forever grateful for the comfort and guidance he offered at a time when I felt lost, alone and confused. I spent hours compiling and organizing favorite sections of his teachings on audio, and though his voice took a bit of getting used to, eventually just listening to him speak brought me instantly back to my breath and slowed my racing mind.
Brene Brown
Thank you for teaching me what it means to have my own back.
“When we spend our lives waiting until we’re perfect or bulletproof before we walk into the arena, we ultimately sacrifice relationships and opportunities that may not be recoverable, we squander our precious time, and we turn our backs on our gifts, those unique contributions that only we can make. Perfect and bulletproof are seductive, but they don’t exist in the human experience.”
― Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
The first time I heard of Brene Brown was watching her TED Talk on The Power of Vulnerabilty. As a fellow social worker and self-described recovering Perfectionist, I knew I’d found a kindred spirit in her. As a Shame Researcher, she’s done her homework and shares her message with a blend of warmth, humor and authenticity makes you lean in to hear more of whatever she has to say. For me, she brought heart and humanity to the heady psychological science I’d been exposed to and gave me much-needed permission to embrace my flawed, imperfect self without shame.
Early 40s
Byron Katie
Thank you for giving me a map to free myself.
“As long as you think that the cause of your problem is “out there”—as long as you think that anyone or anything is responsible for your suffering—the situation is hopeless. It means that you are forever in the role of victim, that you’re suffering in paradise.”
― Byron Katie, Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life
Described as a American speaker and author who teaches a method of self-inquiry, Byron Katie is popularly seen as a spiritual teacher, but I consider her my first teacher of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Based only on her own unique personal experience, with no background in psychology, she basically boiled CBT down to 4 questions, which she coined “The Work.” This deceptively simple tool opened my mind and humbled by ego by practicing a process that could help me free me myself from mental suffering in a way nothing ever had. To this day, The Work is still something I rely on and offer others as an effective method of mental hygiene.
