Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. May was a transition month for me. I only finished two books, but that is not a fair representation of how much reading I did. In the first few days of June, I have finished two more books, but those will go into next month’s book post. Summertime is traditionally the hardest for me, and last year my health completely feel apart during this time, so my #1 focus right now is prioritizing health and the rest and self-care that helps me maintain it. I also began teaching weekly classes in the PBT Institute community this month. More on that below, and on my YouTube channel here.
The Mind-Gut Connection
The Mind-Gut Connection has been recommended to me several times. I am currently working with a Functional Medicine doctor, and the content of this book overlaps with our conversations. It was within the last year and a half that another doctor told me that serotonin is made in our gut. We know serotonin is important for our brains, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who didn’t know it comes from the gut. That makes the gut important just for that one thing, but it affects so many others. I have to confess that this book is very heavy on technical language. I found myself saying, “Okay, thanks, I believe you. Now what do I do about it?” That comes near the end of the book and I’m oversimplifying it by saying, “Each a variety of vegetables and less meat.” That was frustrating for someone who eats a ton of veggies and can go days without meat. However, when I feel bad it’s very easy for me to slip away from those good habits, so this was a nice way to reinforce them.
The best thing about this book to me was its critique of the way doctors treat symptoms instead of looking for the root cause. I also appreciate the evolution of the way we learn about our bodies. Tying to the Industrial Revolution, we’ve been taught that our bodies function like an automobile – a system of independent parts. We are well into the Information Age and should shift our idea to more of a computer model of interdependent software and hardware that must be synced for health to occur. If you love science, you should read this. I gave this 3 stars, because it was dry and I wanted more “what to do about it” content.
How to Heal Yourself When No One Else Can
This was a book club pick from one of my support communities. Despite having been cautioned that the audiobook wasn’t very good, I elected to use an Audible credit to get it. The reader is kind of terrible. It hurts me to say that, because I am a huge audiobook fan, but she over enunciates every syllable and reads the book very slowly. I found that turning the speed up to at least 1.5x helped, and I was able to listen to the whole book. Getting past the quality of the audio, I really loved the content of the book. My chief complaint about the other book I read this month was that it didn’t contain enough practicable advise. This book has lots! I could see a benefit of having a text version of this to use as a reference, and I might acquire that at some point. Some of the techniques were familiar to me, such as EFT Tapping, but there was a lot that was new to me and helpful. This is very much about the mind-body connection and emotional healing for physical health. It might sound a bit too “woo” for some people, but I am 100% on board with these methods, even if I struggle to consistently add them to my daily routine. These are the kinds of things I have to continuously remind myself of. I benefit every time I expose myself to these ideas and eventually they sink in. Amy Scher has other books in the same vein, and she reads those audiobooks herself, so I will be exploring those in the future. I only gave this book 3 stars due to the audio quality, but I’m considering changing that. If you suffer from chronic illness or pain, check it out an let me know what you think!
Why I only read two books in May
Earlier this year, I was given the opportunity to take a coaching course in one of my online support communities. The PBT Institute community is founded by Dr. Debi Silber, author of several books, the newest of which you can find on Amazon here. This is a community for people suffering from Post Betrayal Syndrome. I have a history of some serious betrayals in my life. Some I still won’t talk about publicly, some I will, some were public whether I wanted them to be or not. As I define it, betrayal is when someone promises to have your back then stabs you in it. This has happened to me too often, and I’m not just talking about romance here.
I had mastered the art of resilience, but resilience is just bouncing back, getting back to the status quo. The betrayals that happened to me in 2019 and 2020 consecutively led to the bottom finally falling all of the way out. Caput. Done. My body and brain literally shut down. Getting back to good wasn’t going to be good enough this time. I decided to opt for a complete and total transformation. The PBT community helped, and now I am helping others.
In May, I began to teach weekly classes, and I decided to make videos of my class content and share on Facebook as well as starting my own YouTube channel. Each coach within the community has their own specialty, and mine is Self-Development. This is a topic I am passionate about, as you might guess from the non-fiction books that I read. It also fits well with the betrayal recovery program, because the difference between betrayal and other forms of trauma is the way that betrayal attacks our sense of self. I decided to make my first four classes spell the word SELF and focused on strengths, elevation, legacy, and focus. There were five Mondays in May, so I also taught a class on turning your love language into a self-love language. This has been a positive experience so far, and I’ve even had one individual coaching session, which is an add-on available to community members. I’ve always been a firm believer that things happen for a reason, so doing this helps give purpose to the betrayals in my life. Teaching others is also a great way to continue my own journey of growth and healing. Feel free to check out my videos or click the image below to take Dr. Debi’s quiz. She also has a podcast and two Tedx talks you can find here.
Next month…
I’m reading and doing lots of cool stuff in June, including a short vacation in my home state to attend an interesting event, so subscribe in the box on the right to be notified of my next post! You won’t want to miss it!