Recommended Reading

The Book in 3 Sentences

Pia Mellody is internationally recognized as an expert and authority in codependence, addiction, and childhood trauma. In my research, Pia offers the most thorough and complete understanding of Codependence available. She is the only person I have seen who recognizes the two subtypes (on one side, the over-empowered/falsely empowered, and the polar opposite, the under-empowered) of codependence, and this understanding is key. The under-empowered is the classic example of codependence we think of. Feeling less than, needless and wantless, too dependent, chaotic, an inability to say no, lacking boundaries, give themselves away and caretaking. The less known sub-type of codependence is the falsely empowered. This side of codependence is seen as the model for a successful adult in our society when it is just as dysfunctional. They are arrogant, grandiose, ant-dependent, avoidant, achievement-oriented, invulnerable, perfectionist, walled-off, and controlling. If you think you might or know that you are struggling with codependence, this is a must-read.

Impressions

My personal belief is that this first of her three books quite literally should be required reading for every adult if they want any chance of having a successful relationship with themselves or a significant other. This book is that important.

Who Should Read It?

Any person who wants their life to be filled with inner joy, peace, calm, consistency, and connection. In the event, your romantic life has included a divorce, a narcissist, physical, emotional, or sexual abuse. Constant fighting, breakups, chaos, and confusion. FInally, if there was any dysfunction or trauma in your childhood.

How the Book Changed Me

This book gave me the first glimpse into why my life and relationships were so chaotic and dysfunctional. For the first time in my life, my childhood, my thoughts, feelings, and behaviors made sense. This book showed me that we are all raised co-dependently. Nobody escapes childhood without this affliction, and therefore I was not alone, bad, or worthless. I was just like everyone else. Because of this book, I now know what healthy relationships look like, how to create them within myself and others, and how to live in adult maturity and moderation. I can actually contain myself and not be affected by others’ thoughts or feelings. This book gave me the first taste of my own personal empowerment.

My Top 3 Quotes

“We got the idea that the way our families behaved toward us was correct, and our caregivers were good. This meant by unconscious deduction that since we weren’t happy or comfortable with some things that went on, we were not “good.” Also, we apparently couldn’t please our parents by being what we were naturally. This delusion that the abuse was normal and we were “wrong” locks us into the disease of codependence with no way out.”

“I have come to believe that dysfunctional, less-than-nurturing, abusive family systems create children who become codependent adults. In addition, our culture’s inherent belief that a certain kind of parenting is normal contributes to the difficulty of facing codependence.”

“The term abuse is much broader than most people think. It includes more than the overt physical beatings, injuries, and sexual incest or molestation we commonly associate with the terms. Abuse also takes emotional, intellectual, and spiritual forms. In fact, when I talk about abuse, I now include any experience in childhood (birth to age seventeen) that is less than nurturing.”

The Book in 3 Sentences

Pia Mellody is internationally recognized as an expert and authority in codependence, addiction, and childhood trauma. Suppose you have been curious as to why “opposites attract,’ this book describes why. Most often, it is that a love addict and love avoidant have found each other. However, it also shows that while a person might have recovered from codependence, they can still become enmeshed with their partner or avoid love altogether. This book will take your understanding of relationships to a whole new level.

Impressions

My personal belief is that this second of her three books, quite literally, should be required reading for every adult if they want any chance of having a successful relationship with themselves or a significant other. I would even go so far as to say that no adult should ever even go on a first date before reading this book. These dynamics are so prevalent in the typical relationship model we have all been taught to pursue that they feel healthy and normal when they are highly dysfunctional and the source of most everyone’s relationship difficulties.

Who Should Read It?

The person who is stuck romanticizing and fantasizing about the perfect partner or on the polar opposite side, those that have completely given up on finding love. These are two of the many hallmark signs of love addiction and love avoidance.

How the Book Changed Me

I will never forget the day I started reading this book. I could not put it down and nearly read it straight through. For the first time in my life, I understood what caused the back and forth closeness and distance I saw in all of my relationships and everyone else’s, how nearly every model we have ever seen of a relationship through tv, movies, love songs, and novels were actually advocating and training all of us to pursue a dysfunctional form of love. We are not actually pursuing love but intensity. That “butterfly feeling.” I saw for the first time what true love, intimacy, and connection could look and feel like. I also felt tremendous sadness that so few of us have ever been taught any of this and that lack of information was creating the divorce epidemic. If only we knew that everything we saw in our parents and the media left us with virtually no chance to find and create the love we deserve and long for.

My Top 3 Quotes

“It is often said that we are either addicts or codependents. Still, I believe that most of us are addict-codependents, experiencing addictions to relieve the pain of our untreated codependence.”

“These two fears—of abandonment and intimacy—bring up the agonizing and self-defeating dilemma of the love addict. Love addicts consciously want intimacy but can’t tolerate healthy closeness, so they must unconsciously choose a partner who cannot be intimate in a healthy way.”

“Love avoidants don’t share who they are realistic. Instead, they conduct life from behind protective walls, and, like unseen puppeteers, they continually try to control the choices of other people with whom they seek relationships.”

The Book in 3 Sentences

Pia Mellody is internationally recognized as an expert and authority in codependence, addiction, and childhood trauma. Intimacy is the foundation of any healthy and lasting relationship. This book provides the tools to achieve that. Tools none of us have seen modeled by our parents or taught in school.

Impressions

My personal belief is that this third of her three books, quite literally, should be required reading for every adult if they want any chance of having a successful relationship with themselves or a significant other. I would even go so far as to say that no adult should ever even go on a first date before reading this book. To achieve the love we desire, we need to know what true intimacy is and exercise boundaries. Without these two fundamental skills, deeply loving relationships are not possible. This book gives you those skills and tools.

Who Should Read It?

Those who recognize their childhood were less than perfect and left them with an unclear example of true intimacy, connection, love, and boundaries. It would also be a great benefit for those who are codependent, have been with a narcissist, have a history of tumultuous or chaotic relationships, and have often felt broken-hearted or disillusioned by love.

How the Book Changed Me

This book was the final piece to the puzzle in Pia’s trilogy of books. It brought home the concepts of intimacy and boundaries and gave me concrete examples of how they can be sought out, achieved, and put into practice in my relationships. Like most of us, I never saw a consistent, authentic expression of intimacy and boundaries in my childhood, so I had no frame of reference to guide me. This became the guide and the teaching my parents couldn’t provide since society and their parents had never taught them.

My Top 3 Quotes

“Achieving Intimacy is like tuning in a radio station. At first, there is a lot of buzzing and indistinguishable noise; then, you find the signal and can hear it clearly. If you continue to turn the dial, however, you lose the signal.”

“By recovering from the psychological damage that keeps us from intimacy, we learn to experience renewed self-esteem, personal power, and faith, which gives us the ability to have intimate relationships.”

“The truth about self and respect for the truth of others are the portals through which true intimacy and spirituality enter. No intimate relationship is possible without them.”

The Book in 3 Sentences

Louise Hay was a metaphysical teacher and the best-selling author of more than 20 books. She is considered by many to be the best teacher for those looking to find lasting self-esteem and self-love. This book is her seminal work and shows you just how to accomplish both. Her heart-centered and loving writing style walks you down the path to begin loving yourself authentically and shows. You that your thoughts and feelings about yourself determine your health. She offers the reader a detailed process to heal their inner pain.

Impressions

I have never encountered a book wherein, just the first sentence, I could literally feel a person’s kindness, love, and heart jump off the page. Yet, in all of her work, I am always swept away at how I have a visceral reaction that leaves me with a sense of warmth, safety, and comfort.

Who Should Read It?

I believe this book is the single greatest book ever written on how to develop self-love and self-esteem. In part because of the visceral feeling that emanates from the book and her process and method, this book is a must for any person wanting to develop authentic self-love and esteem. This book would also be great for those who struggle with health issues. Modern science is finally beginning to come around to what many have known for a very long time; our emotional condition determines our health. This book provides you a detailed symptom list of many illnesses and health issues and how those conditions are directly tied to creating your health problems.

How the Book Changed Me

This book really helped me as a coach. Learning about the power of mirror work and passing that skill onto my clients has made a dramatic impact on their lives. It has also allowed me to help clients improve their health. Her detailed list of how emotions lead to specific illnesses and diseases provided me with a tool to share with them. In every case, the client overcame their health problem when we worked on the underlying emotion that created it. It personally helped me in these areas as well.

My Top 3 Quotes

“The abundance of the universe is available to everyone”

“True prosperity begins with feeling good about yourself”

“Relationships are always a mirror of ourselves. What we attract always mirrors either the qualities we have or the beliefs we have about relationships. You could not attract them or have them in your life if the way they are didn’t somehow complement your own life.”

How Emotions Are Made – Buy the Paperback or Buy the Audiobook – Lisa Feldman Barret

The Master and His Emissary – Buy the Paperback or Buy the Audiobook – Ian Mcghilchrist

Spy the Lie: Buy the  – Buy the Paperback or Buy the Audiobook – Philip Houston

The Tapping Solution – Buy the Paperback or Buy the Audiobook – Nick Ortner

In an Unspoken Voice – Buy the Paperback or Buy the Audiobook –  Peter Levine

Trauma and Memory – Buy the Paperback or Buy the Audiobook – Peter Levine

Waking the Tiger – Buy the Paperback or Buy the Audiobook – Peter Levine

Complex Ptsd: From Surviving to Thriving – Buy the Paperback or Buy the Audiobook – Pete Walker

In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts – Buy the Paperback or Buy the Audiobook – Gabor Maté

When the Body Says No – Buy the Paperback or Buy the Audiobook –  Gabor Maté

Scattered Minds – Buy the Paperback – Gabor Maté

Hold on to Your Kid – Buy the Paperback or Buy the Audiobook – Gabor Maté and Gordon Neufeld

Healing the Shame that Binds You – Buy the Paperback – John Bradshaw

Molecules of Emotion: Why You Feel the Way You Feel – Buy the Paperback or Buy the Audiobook – Candace B. Pert Ph.D.

The Emotionally Abusive Relationship – Buy the Paperback or Buy the Audiobook – Beverly Engel

The Verbally Abusive Man, Can He Change? – Buy the Paperback or Buy the Audiobook – Patricia Evans

The Emotional Incest Syndrome: What to Do When a Parent’s Love Rules Your Life – Buy the Paperback or Buy the Audiobook – Dr. Patricia Love

Evolve Your Brain: The Science of Changing Your Mind – Buy the Paperback or Buy the Audiobook – Joe Dispenza

Parenting with Love and Logic: Teaching Children Responsibility – Buy the Hardcover – Foster Cline + Jim Faye

Free from Lies: Discovering Your True Needs – Buy the Paperback – Alice Miller

The Truth Will Set You Free – Buy the Paperback – Alice Miller

The Drama of the Gifted Child – Buy the Paperback or Buy the Audiobook – Alice Miller

The Brain that Changes Itself – Buy the Paperback or Buy the Audiobook – Norman Doidge

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst – Buy the Paperback or Buy the Audiobook – Robert Sapolsky

Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life – Buy the Paperback or Buy the Audiobook – Byron Katie

I Need Your Love – Is That True? – Buy the Paperback or Buy the Audiobook – Byron Katie

The Power of Now – Buy the Paperback or Buy the Audiobook – Eckhart Tolle

The Biology of Belief – Buy the Paperback or Buy the Audiobook – Dr. Bruce Lipton

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