When I reached out to Backstory Bookshop here in Barcelona to do a community event around psychology and mental health, my initial thought was to pick a specific book to facilitate a conversation about. But when I thought about it more, I realized that what could be even more supportive is to explore how we relate to these kinds of books as a whole.

Below are my reflections as well as a link at the bottom to a list of book recommendations to add to your beach (or indoor air-conditioned) reading list.

Updates

Before we jump in, though, I wanted to give you a couple of quick updates with what is to come starting this September:

• Online and in-person workshops for working with resistance

• In-person group for breaking addictions & building habits

• In-person group for getting unstuck in trauma work

Keep an eye out here for dates and more specifics!

Seeing Myself

I will never forget the feeling of being 12 years old in a corner of the middle school library, tearing through pages that met a need I didn’t even know I had. While I don’t remember how I ended up with the book, Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul was the first real mirror I had for my internal world. The collection of real-life stories lived up to its title, giving me the warm, overflowing sense of recognition that I would become familiar with over years of reading personal growth and self-help books.

Given how strongly that first book resonated with me, it’s kind of surprising that I didn’t see then the therapist I would grow up to be. But at that point, my foray into the less-talked-about aspects of the human experience wasn’t about me supporting other people. It was about me getting the support that I so desperately needed. It was about making sense of what was happening inside of me and in my life.

Many of us who have had challenging upbringings often seek refuge in what Peter Walker describes as “the community of books.” Just like he describes in his own book about complex trauma, books can give us enough safety to start to see ourselves and the world in new ways. And that was exactly my experience. It was safer for me to see myself more fully in a book than to have to navigate the complexity of a real-life human.

The Magic of Maps

Once I got into high school, the Chicken Soup books faded into the background as I got swept into the immense stresses of my life at that time. It wasn’t until about six years later that the next self-help book I would ever read made it into my hands.

It was a sweaty-hot August day at the end of my first summer working full-time on a farm, just a week before I would turn 20. After some challenges with my coworkers and a whole summer of getting to know me in close quarters, one of the farm owners gifted me “A New Earth” by Eckhart Tolle. The book came gently (but pointedly) wrapped in the suggestion that I also look into therapy, alongside the recognition that I might not yet be totally ready to take in the book until after I had a few sessions under my belt.

After six months of therapy and with a little more internal space, I was inspired to pull out the book. Within three pages, I was transported back to that wide-eyed middle schooler - completely enthralled that anyone could put words to any aspect of my internal landscape, which seemed to be such a mystery to everyone in my life up until that point.

But this time the book wasn’t just a mirror. It was also a map, showing me paths forward that I had only just started to know exist through my time in therapy. The difference was that I could pull this map out at any time and it wasn’t just restricted to the weekly hour in my therapist’s office.

Finding My Own Way

As the years went on and I continued to plough my way through personal growth and self-help books, I started to feel some confusion. The more I read, the more I came into contact with the multiplicity of different perspectives, including the ways they conflicted with one another.

At first this felt stressful. Which was the right map? Who should I believe? Do I need to transcend my ego and become pure being-ness? Or do I need to treat my mundane life as the sacred path with my ego as a helpful companion along the way? Do I put myself aside to support others? Do I put myself first?

I also noticed that some of the maps integrated seamlessly into my life while others seemed to miss the mark.

But over time, I have learned how to discern between what resonates with me, what doesn’t, and where the jury is still out. I started to bring in a healthy doubt as I continued to read, right alongside my curiosity. Rather than blindly following whatever path they laid out, I started using these books as reference points for making my own maps, taking what I liked and leaving the rest.

By the same token, I also learned not to just throw out a particular map because it challenges me in some way. I explore what’s going on when I feel stuck or resistant as I’m reading, letting that deepen both my growth and my discernment.

My Council of Mentors

I will never forget the four days I spent in vigil as my grandmother went through her process of dying. When I knew that I was flying across the country to say goodbye to the woman who had such a huge (albeit complicated) hand in raising me, I knew that I needed the steadiness of a reliable companion. One that I could count on to guide me back to myself and to stay connected to all that is bigger than myself, to support me in supporting her move on to whatever was next.

I immediately knew who that companion would be: my well-loved copy of True Refuge by Tara Brach. I had already read that book more times than I could count. And that was the point. I knew I could rely on Tara’s words to reflect back my experience and add another piece to my map, helping me to move through the completely uncharted territory of death and loss.

Over the years I have built a collection of these books, which serve me as mentors that I come back to over and over again throughout the years. They are the ones that have stood the test of time and that I continue to reach for as old, trusted advisors when I’m feeling disconnected or when times get dark or difficult.

Getting the Most out of Self-Help Books

When I first started my journey into the realm of self-help and personal growth books, every page was like a drop of water in the desert. I honestly didn’t question much (if any) of what I took in because I was so desperate for something to help me make sense of and navigate my life. So if it resonated enough, I took it in without much thought.

When I started to notice that the mirror seemed to not have the clearest reflection or the map didn’t quite match the terrain of my own life, I tended to doubt my own experience and blame myself. Maybe it was my lack of discipline or childhood trauma that was getting in the way - that’s why I couldn’t just see myself as a badass or get myself to meditate an hour every day.

But this is the same self-blame and self-doubt that we might have had as a kid when the mirrors and maps that our parents or caregivers gave to us didn’t fit or feel good.

As I built more confidence in my own experience of myself (and coincidentally began to heal the self-blame and self-doubt from my childhood), I began to engage with these books more critically. Rather than simply taking everything I read as the one and only truth, I started to see each book as offering me something that I could either take or leave. I began to question what I was reading, to see how it felt against my own lived experience, and to experiment with the ideas and practices they offered.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to get the most out of your reading:

When reading a new book:

• How do I see myself reflected in this?

• Where does it miss the mark?

• What parts of the path or map presented here make sense?

• What parts do I feel hesitant/doubtful about?

• Is there anything else I’ve read that came to mind as I was reading this?

• How does it compare?

When rereading a book:

• What new angles do I see this from at this point in my life?

• What has changed between now and then?

• What does the guidance in this book mean for me now?

When you feel stuck trying to apply what you’re reading:

• What is my motivation hoping to get/feel/experience by implementing or applying what I’ve read? What is it trying to get away from or change?

• What is my resistance trying to avoid by not implementing/applying it? And what is it trying to move towards?

• What is the story my judgement tells about me when I feel stuck here?

If you want to get more support around getting unstuck, check out The Resistance Reframe.

Book Recommendations

For a list of recommended self-help and personal growth books, check out the rest of my blog post.

As always, thanks for being here and feel free to reach out with questions or feedback.

Take care and stay cool!

Warmly,
Virginia

As I write my first newsletter, I’m emerging from the surreal experience of a nation-wide power outage here in Barcelona.

I was lucky enough to be on the train waiting at the station when everything went down and could just walk home, but there were others who were not so lucky. There were people stranded in the middle of nowhere on long-distance train rides or stuck at the airport with nowhere to go. There were people who whose electric ventilators cut out, who got in accidents when the stoplights failed. All of this while there were rumors flying around about whether the outage was caused by a cyberattack and fears that it would last not only into the night, but into the coming days (if not longer).

And while I was immediately fine, between the uncertainty and fear about what was going on and not being able to get in touch with my loved ones, I felt the familiar pang of panic and helplessness.

Enter: my dissociative parts. They pulled me out of my body and into my head, pushing all of the anxiety and fear to the side and laying the foundation for my protective parts to step in and get me through.

I hustled with dissociation-induced calm to find anywhere that was open to get some food and water to tide us over for who-knew-how-long.

After finding an open bakery and placing a much larger order than was probably necessary, I counted out my cash and realized I didn’t have enough. The woman at the bakery smiled and asked, “Well, what do you have?” And without a second thought, she said, “Don’t worry, that’s fine,” and handed me the food. In that moment, I felt my survival and dissociative parts look up in surprise and step aside for long enough for me to express my genuine gratitude.

I felt myself relax as I stepped out onto the street with the heartwarming feeling of being on the receiving end of people genuinely looking out for one another.

After I downed my Spanish tortilla sandwich and a slice of cold pizza, I snapped back into the reality of being totally disconnected and without any clue about what was actually happening with my family.

The best course of action for my protective parts seemed to be to get dissociative and get busy. So my doing parts swooped in to save the day. I vacuumed my apartment (thank you battery-powered vacuum!), put some prints in their frames that had been sitting in the office for months, and then finally starting to hem those extra-long Ikea curtains that had been sitting in a bag for even more months.

But as I sat sewing on my living room couch, I noticed the sun coming through the window and the murmur coming from the sea of neighbors in the plaza outside of my house.

As I woke up to what was also going on around me (not just what was going on inside of me), my protective parts seemed to look around as if to say, “Oh, maybe it’s okay to take a breath and take this in.”

I felt myself soften and take in multiple truths at once:

• I am okay right now.

• I am scared and uncertain right now.

• And everything I’m doing is an attempt to take care of myself right now.

The point of sharing this is to give a little window into what it can look like to be with our parts as they do their jobs without making any of them wrong. Healing doesn’t mean we never dissociate or distract ever again. Or that we never feel panic or helplessness. I certainly felt and did all those things on Monday.

It just means that we can accompany and appreciate our system as it does its thing, and we have more space to take in all of what is happening.

This relationship with dissociation, including my appreciation of it, didn’t happen overnight, though. Far from it. And if you find yourself wondering if it’s even possible for you to feel like this about dissociation (or any other way you try to take care of yourself, for that matter), then my recent blog post about working with dissociation is for you.

I hope everyone affected by the power outages is safe and sound. And if not, please feel free to reach out and let me know how you’re doing.

Take care and thanks for joining me here!

Warmly,
Virginia

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I only ever share about experiences that have been worked through and integrated. Know that there are still places where I’m in the messy middle, myself. And while I do share once I’m on other side of that, I know all too well what it is to not be there yet (and to be afraid that you might never be!).

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