"When you are ready, the teacher will appear." And that teacher can come in a variety of forms. As a voracious reader, my teacher is often a book. Recently I was reflecting on my most transformational books; the ones that shifted a paradigm for me and awakened my heart even more. Please add your own powerful books to the comments!
Timeshifting by Stephen Rechtschaffen (co-founder of the Omega Institute)
This book was my first experience of an awakening. I read it years ago and it has been in and out of print every since. This book transformed my view of time, from limited and linear, to expansive and circular. He discusses how our culture has a skewed sense of time, as viewed through a scarcity lens. We are so afraid of not using our time well, we race through our days without stopping to savor our moments. In a poignant story for me, Dr. Rechtscaffen told of how he was in Bermuda (where he lives 3 months each year) at a gorgeous overlook watching the sunset. A carload of American tourists drove by, screeched to a halt at the sunset, scrambled out to take a few photos and then back to their car to race away. I realized I would have been one of those tourists. When I was in Costa Rica last winter, I thought of that story as I sat in the hammock on the veranda of my bungalow overlooking the rainforest and Caribbean Sea and just enjoyed the moment!
The Power of Intention by Wayne Dyer
I had heard of Wayne Dyer for years without picking up a book -- obviously not ready for his message. But when I was ready, the teacher was there. This book was my first book on manifesting, on being a co-creator of my life with Source. I read this book FIVE times! Each time receiving a new and deeper message.
The Power of Full Engagement by Loehr and Schwartz
Dr. Loehr spoke directly to me with this book. He writes that in our current day and age, time management is dead. We have way too much to do in our life to ever manage our time efficiently enough. What we need to do is manage our energy so we can be extraordinarily efficient. He says we can maximize our time, productivity, and satisfaction with our life by doing everything when it is most efficient for us and then give ourselves recovery time. We need recovery time microcosmically (our brain naturally cycles down every 90 minutes or so) and macrocosmically (regular evenings and weekends free as well as vacations). What a powerful message!