If you know me at all, you’ll know I’m a complete bookworm. And I’m pretty sure that you are too!
So, I’ve put together a list of 13 inspirational books that are sure to float your boat as a fellow unbound woman. Some of them are relatively new. Some of them are classics. And I’m sure there will be at least a few that you’ve read already.
Each book relates to one of the five principles of living unbound (sometimes directly, sometimes in a more subtle way).
Take a look through the list and see which you feel called to at this time
1)WOMEN WHO RUN WITH THE WOLVES BY CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTES
In the classic Women Who Run With The Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes tells us about the ‘wild woman’, the wise and ageless presence in the female psyche that gives women their creativity, energy and power. For centuries, the ‘wild woman’ has been repressed by a male-orientated value system which trivialises women’s emotions. Using a combination of time-honoured stories and contemporary casework, Estes reveals that the ‘wild woman’ in us is innately healthy, passionate and wise.
I’ve read this book over and over again and each time it activates deeper levels of connection with my Unbound Self. If you’ve never read it, go get yourself a copy. And if you’ve read it before, maybe now’s the time to revisit this powerful book?
Principle of Living Unbound: Shadow
2) PUSSY: A RECLAMATION BY REGENA THOMASHAUER
With this book, you’re being handed the keys to a turned-on life – a life that is authentic, radiant and open to pleasure and joy. Regena Thomashauer (aka Mama Gena) has long noticed that ‘pussy’ is one of the most pejorative words in the English language. No one calls you a ‘pussy’ when they want to tell you how radiant you look, how capably you work or what an inspiring life you lead.
But all that’s about to change. In this remarkable book, Mama Gena reclaims the word for what it rightly is: the highest of all possible compliments, a sacred living prayer. Pussy has been written to reacquaint you with your own power source.
The first principle of living unbound is to allow pleasure to be your guide. With Pussy, Mama Gena gives us everything we need to connect with the only GPS we will ever need.
Principle of Living Unbound: Pleasure
3) CODE RED BY LISA LISTER
There’s a code.
A lady code.
It’s ancient, it’s deeply spiritual and more than that, it’s powerful. Fiercely powerful.
So powerful that it’s barely been spoken about in over 2,000 years.
Your menstrual cycle.
The second principle of living unbound is to harness the power of your cyclical nature and in Code Red, Lisa Lister, offers us everything you need to do just that. This book is a powerful rallying cry that dares you to explore, navigate and most importantly, love your lady landscape.
Principle of Living Unbound: Cycles
4) WITCH BY LISA LISTER
A witch is a woman in her power She’s wise, a healer, someone who is aligned with the cycles of Mother Nature and the phases of the Moon. Yet for so long, the word ‘witch’ has had negative connotations – being used as an insult, a slur and to perpetuate fear.
In this book, third generation hereditary witch Lisa Lister explains the history behind witchcraft, why in past centuries the word ‘witch’ has led women to be tortured, drowned and burned at the stake, and why the witch is now waking once again in women across the world today.
Like Women Who Run With The Wolves, this book activates a deep sense of remembering for the unbound woman – remembering our power, our magic and who we truly are.
I challenge you to read this book and not have goosebumps!
Principle of Living Unbound: Shadow & Sisterhood
5) SACRED RETREAT BY PIA ORLEANE
Drawing on the wisdom of ancient cultures, the natural cycles of life, and her own groundbreaking research, Pia Orleane, Ph.D., offers a template for how we can restore balance to our emotions and health, ease tensions between the sexes, and heal our fractured culture by honouring divine feminine consciousness and re-embracing natural cycles, including our innate need for rest and retreat.
This is another book to help you harness the power of your cyclical nature, working in alignment with your feminine energy and allowing the ebbs and flows that we’ve been taught to override in the past.
An essential read for any woman who’s ever felt guilty about making time to rest.
Principle of Living Unbound: Cycles
6) SACRED PLEASURE BY RIANE ESLER
Riane Eisler shows us how history has consistently promoted the link between sex and violence–and how we can sever this link and move to a politics of partnership rather than domination in all our relations.
This is a rich and deep book that helps shed light on why so many of us struggle to connect with and allow our own pleasure. It’s a long read, but extremely powerful at providing insight into how the patriarchal culture has evolved over time and what’s needed to change this.
Principle of Living Unbound: Pleasure
7) SACRED ECONOMICS BY CHARLES EISENSTEIN
Sacred Economics traces the history of money from ancient gift economies to modern capitalism, revealing how the money system has contributed to alienation, competition, and scarcity, destroyed community, and necessitated endless growth. Today, these trends have reached their extreme—but in the wake of their collapse, we may find great opportunity to transition to a more connected, ecological, and sustainable way of being.
So many unbound women find it challenging to be fully part of the current money system and end up living in scarcity. This incredible book shows us a different way of living in our gifts, having a deeper sense of connection and being beautifully supported as we do.
Principle of Living Unbound: Gift
8) ON BECOMING AN ALCHEMIST BY CATHERINE MACCOUN
Many regard alchemy as a metaphor for inner transformation. But this is only half the story. According to Catherine MacCoun, alchemy is no mere metaphor. It’s real magic.
Transforming the inner world is, for the alchemist, a way to transform the outer world. Through studying the principles of alchemy, we can achieve extraordinary effects from ordinary actions by understanding how the world really works. We can perceive the hidden connections between the spiritual and the material worlds. Knowledge of these connections enables us to influence external phenomena through the powers of heart and mind alone.
Yet alchemy is not, like some forms of magic, the exercise of mind over matter. It is the art of taking what already exists—whatever presents itself—and transmuting the harmful into the helpful, the useless into the valuable. On Becoming an Alchemist initiates us into these secrets, showing us how to think, perceive, and operate as an alchemist.
The alchemy of shadow integration is another of the five principles of living unbound and this is one of the most powerful books I’ve read in relation to this. You’ll find yourself having insight after insight, as you’re activated to move to deeper levels of acceptance for yourself and your experience.
Principle of Living Unbound: Shadow
9) RISE SISTER RISE BY REBECCA CAMPBELL
Many women have spent their lives trying to succeed by ‘making it’ in a man’s world. But things are changing – more and more women are realising that this way of being is no longer sustainable.
Rise Sister Rise is a call to arms for women to rise up, tell their truth and lead. It’s a guide to co-creating a whole new archetype for women in these awakening times – a woman who does not keep herself small in order to make others feel more comfortable, a woman who knows that she is not her body weight, her sexual partners or her career. A woman who understands the true meaning of sisterhood, and that alone we are strong but together we are fierce.
For me, this book was a key part of moving away from the unconscious need to go it alone and towards sisterhood. The unbound woman thrives in sisterhood and Rise Sister Rise will inspire you to create more connection and community around you.
Principle of Living Unbound: Sisterhood
10) YEAR OF YES BY SHONDA RHIMES
In this poignant, hilarious and deeply intimate call to arms, Hollywood’s most powerful woman, the mega-talented creator of Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal, reveals how saying YES changed her life – and how it can change yours too.
Profound, impassioned and laugh-out-loud funny, in Year of Yes Shonda Rhimes reveals how saying YES changed – and saved – her life. And inspires readers everywhere to change their own lives with one little word: Yes.
I loved this book when I read it earlier in the year. Unbound doesn’t mean unboundaried, but it’s also vital to be open to the magic the Universe wants to send your way. Year of Yes inspires just that!
Principle of Living Unbound: Pleasure
11) SOCIAL MEDIA FOR A NEW AGE BY KATIE BROCKHURST
Many of the women I know struggle with social media, finding it draining and overwhelming. But there is a different way!
In Social Media for a New Age, Katie labels success as creating a platform you enjoy, a community that you cultivate through a strategy of love, having a creative outlet and a social media practice that supports and rewards you in many different multi-dimensional ways…
If you don’t believe that social media can be a spiritual practice, think again! This book will shift your perspective in the most powerful and magical way.
Principle of Living Unbound: Gift
12) HEAL YOUR INNER GOOD GIRL BY NICOLA HUMBER
Let me take you back to where it ALL started with my very first book, Heal Your Inner Good Girl.
If you constantly find yourself putting others’ needs above your own, striving to ‘get it right’ and end up piling a whole heap of pressure on yourself or holding back from saying what you really want, because you don’t want to ‘make a fuss’, then this book is for you.
Heal Your Inner Good Girl will help you discover how to let go of people-pleasing, perfectionism and trying to fit in, so you can connect with your unbound self.
Principle of Living Unbound: All of them!
13) UNBOUND BY NICOLA HUMBER
From a very young age most girls are taught to spend their lives trying to fit in, please others and follow the path of approval. This has left many women living a kind of deadening half-life and suffering from an epidemic of chronic dissatisfaction.
No more. In UNBOUND, I’m sending out an invitation to all women to rise up and become their fullest, freest, most magnificent selves.
In these pages you’ll learn the five principles of living unbound and how to integrate them in your everyday life. You’ll discover the challenges that come from being an unbound woman and how to use these challenges as ways to enhance your personal power rather than diminish it. And finally you’ll be given the high potency practices that will support you on the unbound path, as you become the YOU you were always meant to be.
Principle of Living Unbound: All of them!
So, there you have it! 13 incredible books that will help you be more YOU. Comment below to share which one you’ll be reading first.
And if you’re feeling the call to write your own book in 2019, I’m gifting you free access to a powerful visualisation to connect with the book you’re REALLY here to write at this time. It’s waiting for you over in the UNBOUND Community Portal and you can click here to get access now!
