The Books That Built My Mind, Body, Spirit, and Heart
Today I want to do something a little softer, a little cozier:
talk about books.
Not just any books, but the ones that:
Have stayed with me for 8, 10, 15+ years
Quietly shaped how I think about health, home, spirituality, and self
Helped me make sense of my body, my brain, my emotions, and my path
Because I don’t read just one genre (hello, multi-hyphenate brain) — I read:
Fiction and fantasy
Memoirs and self-help
Science and physical health
Interior design, nature, plants
Spirituality and mysticism
To make this easier to follow, I group my reading — and honestly, my whole life — around four pillars:
Mind 🧠
Body 🩶
Spirit ✨
Heart 💗
Each pillar connects to four core values I talk about often:
Movement
Medicine
Mysticism
Mediumship (the ways we translate experiences into meaning)
Everything in our lives is connected: career, health, relationships, creativity, spirituality, environment. Books are one of the ways I weave all of that together.
Today I’ll highlight a few that have especially supported:
Body (physical health + lifestyle)
Mind (curiosity, imagination, mental flexibility)
…and touch briefly on spirit. Emotional books will probably need their own post because that list is long. 😅
Body: Books That Made Health Feel Human and Doable
1. How to Be Well – Dr. Frank Lipman
“The Six Keys to a Happy and Healthy Life”
I found this one wandering through Barnes & Noble about 8–9 years ago, during a phase where I was:
Feeling relatively confident in my body
But also overwhelmed by the noise: HIIT, macros, steps, cardio rules, “optimal” routines
I didn’t want another rigid plan or trend.
I wanted foundations.
This book gives exactly that, organized into six simple keys:
Eat – how to nourish, not punish
Sleep – why rest is non-negotiable
Move – movement as a lifestyle, not a 30-day challenge
Protect – immune system, cleaning products, toxins, environment
Unwind – stress, tech boundaries, mental decompression
Connect – relationships, rituals, and community as part of health
What I love:
It’s approachable, not medical-text intimidating
Lots of bulleted lists, visual layouts, and simple explanations
It’s not chasing whatever was trendy in 2016 or 2018; it’s rooted in basics
Every year, when I declutter my bookshelves, this one survives the cut.
Because it helps me return to the reminder:
Physical health is mostly about what’s sustainable and supportive over time,
not what’s flashy or extreme for 6 weeks.
If you want a gentle, holistic primer on physical well-being that talks about food, sleep, stress, and relationships without shaming you, this is that book.
2. ROAR – Dr. Stacy Sims
“How to Match Your Food and Fitness to Your Female Physiology”
This one is for my women / people with menstrual cycles.
So much of “mainstream” fitness science is:
Based on male bodies
Built around male hormones
Tested on male subjects
Which is… wild, when you think about how different female physiology actually is.
We have:
A ~28-day hormonal cycle (for many of us)
Different energy, mood, and recovery needs week to week
Shifting nutritional requirements throughout that cycle
Meanwhile, the advice we get is often:
“Do the same thing every day and just be consistent.”
And if we don’t? We internalize it as a moral failing.
ROAR was the book where I finally went:
“Ohhh. There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m just not a small man.”
What it helped me see:
Why my motivation and energy dip at certain times of the month
How to adjust workouts around my cycle instead of forcing myself through the exact same thing
Why some days, rest or gentler movement is not laziness — it’s physiology
How nutrition shifts with hormones, training, and recovery needs
It’s science-based without being condescending, and it gives permission to work with your body instead of fighting it.
If you’ve ever thought:
“Why can other women go hard every day and I just… don’t want to?”
…this book is a very validating place to start.
Body + Home: Turning Space into Medicine with Feng Shui
There’s another physical-health-adjacent area that has quietly changed my life:
how my home feels.
Years ago, I picked up a slim, practical Feng Shui guide (the kind you can read in a weekend and immediately start rearranging furniture 🙃).
What it taught me:
Each part of your home can be seen as connected to an area of life:
Career
Relationships
Physical health
Creativity
Travel / helpful people, etc.
Tiny shifts — like adding certain colors, elements, or plants, or moving a piece of furniture — can change how a space feels in your body
Your home isn’t just a backdrop; it’s a living system that’s either draining you or nourishing you
I’ve used Feng Shui principles in every apartment I’ve lived in since:
Tweaking my “career corner”
Playing with color in my “fame/reputation” area
Making sure my bedroom supports rest, not just storage and chaos
I see it as spiritual interior design:
A way to let your outer environment reflect and support your inner world.
If you’re into design and also into energy, Feng Shui might be a fun rabbit hole for you too.
Mind: Books That Expanded My Imagination and Mental Flexibility
These next two are technically “children’s books,” but they’ve influenced my adult brain more than many business or self-help bestsellers.
3. Matilda – Roald Dahl
This one has been with me since I was a kid — and I still think about it.
Matilda is:
The “odd one out” in a family that doesn’t really see her
Raised by parents who feed and clothe her, but don’t emotionally nurture her
Deeply curious, with parents who don’t understand (or care about) that curiosity
So she turns to:
The library
Her own questions
Her own hunger for stories and knowledge
She teaches herself.
She builds her own internal world.
And eventually, that curiosity turns into literal magic:
Matilda becomes telekinetic and starts moving objects with her mind (and yes, pulling pranks on her very questionable parents).
Why I love it:
It honors self-directed learning
It shows how powerful it is to follow your own interests, even when your family doesn’t “get it”
It offers a mirror for anyone who has ever felt like the black sheep
Matilda is a reminder that:
You can build a self, a mind, and a life
even if your starting environment doesn’t know how to support you.
Also, the movie adaptation is pure comfort. If reading feels like a stretch right now, start there.
4. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass – Lewis Carroll
If Matilda is about focused curiosity,
Alice is about… glorious nonsense.
In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland:
Alice follows a white rabbit with a waistcoat and a pocket watch
She literally goes down the rabbit hole
She ends up in a world where logic bends and nothing behaves as it “should”:
A hookah-smoking caterpillar
A disappearing/reappearing Cheshire Cat
A Mad Hatter with very questionable social skills
At the end, it’s revealed that:
Wonderland may have been a dream
Or a liminal state
Or something we’re never meant to fully understand
I love this book because:
It gives the mind permission to rest from making sense
It plays with the idea that not everything has to be logical to be meaningful
It nudges us to question:
Who decided what “makes sense”?
What if your way of seeing things is just as valid, even if it’s nonlinear or weird?
So much of adult life is about:
Making things “add up”
Being reasonable and respectable
Explaining our choices
Alice is a little portal back into:
Wonder, weirdness, and the possibility that life doesn’t have to follow a clean plotline for it to be real and important.
If you need a mental palate cleanser from productivity culture, this is a fun place to go.
Spirit: A Tiny Glimpse (Because This Needs Its Own Post)
Spirituality has been… a journey.
I was raised within Christianity (Baptist, under the broader Protestant umbrella)
As a Latina, that came layered with cultural Catholicism, colonization, and a lot of fear-based messaging
Concepts like hell, sin, and an external devil shaped my early nervous system experience of “God”
A lot of my spiritual healing has come through mystical and metaphysical texts — the kind that look at reality beyond strict dogma.
One of the books that opened that door for me is The Kybalion, a little text rooted in Hermetic philosophy that talks about:
Mentalism (the idea that “the universe is mental”)
Correspondence (“as above, so below”)
Vibration, polarity, rhythm, cause and effect, gender (in the energetic sense)
I won’t go deep here (because this post is already a lot),
but I’ll just say:
It gave me a spiritual framework that felt expansive, not condemning.
One that honored my intuition and inner experience, instead of scaring me away from it.
Spiritual reading could be a whole episode/post of its own — and it will be.
For now, I just wanted to name that books have also been a huge part of my deconstruction and re-construction spiritually.
Heart: Your Turn
I’ve shared a handful of the books that have stayed with me across:
Body – physical health and lifestyle (How to Be Well, ROAR, Feng Shui)
Mind – imagination and mental flexibility (Matilda, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)
Spirit – a tiny doorway into mysticism (The Kybalion)
Now I’d love to hear from you:
What books have shaped how you live?
Which stories or authors feel like they “raised” you?
Is there a book that shifted how you see your body, your mind, your faith, your space?
📚 Tell me in the comments (or DM me on Instagram if you’re listening to the audio version). I genuinely love adding other people’s “soul books” to my list.
And if this kind of conversation about mind–body–spirit–heart alignment is your thing, stay tuned — I’ll be sharing more:
Book lists for emotional healing
How I use reading inside my own career/life pivots
And ways to build your own “inner compass” library for whatever season you’re in
Until next time,
be well, read slowly, and let your next book meet you where you are. 💛
