My third read by Richard Rohr was Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. It came to me at around the same time as Rowing Upstream, by Mary Pipher, and as they both dealt with aging, I wanted to combine them into one post.
What did they have to offer?
I heard about Ayelet Waldman’s book A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life on Tami Simon’s podcast Insights At The Edge. It isn’t a podcast I normally listen to; it’s more aligned with the Chaplain’s interests. But when he saw an episode featuring an interview with Waldman, he sent it my way, knowing my interest in psychedelics and microdosing.
Since I started this journey, I’ve felt like I didn’t want to spend my time defending my interest in and use of psychedelics, not in person or on my blog. But recently, I was expressing frustration with the Chaplain about the way anti-drug groups are still spreading false information about psychedelics, the safety of certain drugs, and grouping drugs like psilocybin in with heroine and opioids.
Disclaimer: I didn’t get all the way through this book before I had to return it to the library because someone else had requested it. When I found out I only had two days left, I powered through the sections that were most important to me, browsing at times. What I did read was interesting and powerful, so I wanted to share the book with you even though I didn’t get a chance to read it completely.
Still with me? Ok. Let’s talk about trauma. With the under-reporting of sexual trauma, broken homes and families, and the many other ways people can be hurt in this world, everyone has some connection with trauma. Either you’ve experienced it, or know someone who has.
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, by
So, reading Furiously Happy opened me up to reading more books about anxiety.
I decided to acknowledge anxiety as the uncool friend who never leaves you alone when I had my third kid. My first inkling that I was the nervous type was a day in my high school cafeteria when a guy friend suggested I was a little too uptight (*shrug* I probably was). But until now, besides the general work I’ve been doing to better understand what makes me tick and how I can cope better with my life, I had never done any reading specific to anxiety.
In typical over-achiever fashion, before I’d even finished Furiously Happy, I chose three MORE anxiety titles, for a total of four, and planned an anxiety book-reading binge. This whole time, I had a nagging feeling that an anxiety book binge was a bad idea.
I started with the brain books. Then, a little while back, I shared my favorite books on sex and marriage. Here are the rest of the sex books I read, along with my thoughts.
Want to see the books without their paper covers?
