The books that helped to accelerate my spiritual & personal development

List by Shirley O'Donoghue

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been teaching personal and spiritual development courses and workshops for over 30 years. I am passionate about balancing the notion of spiritual connection and grounding it to help people see this aspect of our awareness as normal rather than weird or unreal. The books I have chosen reflect the fact that connecting to spirit sometimes requires hard work and dedication, but also, there are so many different aspects to explore and learn about that it is truly a lifetime quest for everyone on a conscious spiritual path–although I believe everyone is on a spiritual path, it's just that some people aren’t aware of it!

The books I picked & why

Steps on the Stone Path: Working with Crystals and Minerals as a Spiritual Practice

By Robert Sardello ,

Why I love this book

Robert Sardello is a founding member of the School of Spiritual Psychology. He champions the concept that you can work on a much deeper level with crystals by engaging with them intuitively and acknowledging that they have a consciousness

I was recommended to read this book when I first started working with one of my publishers. It was lovely to read a book that didn’t “dumb down” crystal healing and encouraged the reader to delve more deeply into the energies that crystals hold for us to use.

I loved this book because it gave me other perspectives that I hadn't heard before, such as how Rudolf Steiner and Carl Jung acknowledged crystals for their qualities, albeit in different ways. Sardello coined the term Earth Angels to describe what crystals do for us, and I love that.

Steps on the Stone Path: Working with Crystals and Minerals as a Spiritual Practice

By Robert Sardello ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Steps on the Stone Path as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Through myths and legends, the knowledge of the power of certain gems and crystals has been preserved over generations. However, the practical aspects of how to use these precious stones to promote spiritual development have been lost to all but a few initiates. In Steps on the Stone Path, Robert Sardello offers strategies and rituals for recapturing that lost power.

Sardello starts with guided meditations and rituals for developing awareness of, and the ability to experience, stone qualities such as deep silence, form, transparency, and color as modes of spiritual consciousness. Entering these modes of silent, creative consciousness requires befriending…

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Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway

By Susan Jeffers ,

Why I love this book

It is an old book that was popular when I first started training in crystal healing. The course I was on brought up many issues that I needed to work on, especially a particular fear of being the center of attention and appreciating my talents. It came into my life at a time where I could put into practice the concepts in the book.

It has become a classic to support people who are in the process of spiritual and personal development, as the two usually go hand in hand, and it is a book I still recommend to students.

Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway

By Susan Jeffers ,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Internationally renowned author, Susan Jeffers, has helped millions of people around the globe to overcome their fears and heal the pain in their lives. Such fears may include:

Public speaking; Asserting yourself; Making decisions; Intimacy; Changing jobs; Being alone; Ageing; Driving; Losing a loved one; Ending a relationship.

But whatever your anxieties, Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway will give you the insight and tools to vastly improve your ability to handle any given situation. You will learn to live your life the way you want - so you can move from a place of pain, paralysis and depression…

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Anxiety
Fear

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Hands of Light: A Guide to Healing Through the Human Energy Field

By Barbara Ann Brennan ,

Why I love this book

Although this is a little dated, I love this book because it holds so much information for beginners on the path of healing.

The diagrams in the book show, I believe clearly, how our auras are affected by different emotional states, there’s a fascinating comprehensive dowsing chart which is great for students who are less confident with their intuitive abilities, but every time I pick it up even now I get inspired with new aspects to bring to my courses and workshops.

Hands of Light: A Guide to Healing Through the Human Energy Field

By Barbara Ann Brennan ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Hands of Light as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

With the clarity of a physicist and the compassion of a gifted healer with more than twenty years of professional experience observing 5,000 clients and students, Barbara Ann Brennan presents the first in-depth study of the human energy field for people who seek happiness and health, and who wish to achieve their full potential. Our physical bodies exist within a larger 'body' , a human energy field or aura, which is the vehicle through which we create our experience or reality, including health and illness. It is through this energy field that we have the power to heal ourselves.This energy…

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Bringers of the Dawn: Teachings from the Pleiadians

By Barbara Marciniak ,

Why I love this book

I love this book because I resonate so much with the message she is conveying. I remember being given this book to read, and it was a powerful wake-up call about our purpose here and why things are as they are.

The messages in the book are still as relevant today as they were when I first read them. I have bought so many copies that I find myself giving them away to students and friends.

Bringers of the Dawn: Teachings from the Pleiadians

By Barbara Marciniak ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Bringers of the Dawn as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Compiled from more than four hundred hours of channeling by Barbara Marciniak, Bringers of the Dawnimparts to us the wisdom of the Pleiadians, a group of enlightened beings who have come to Earth to help us discover how to reach a new stage of evolution. Master storytellers and humorists, they advise us to become media free, to work in teams, and to eliminate the words ""should"" and ""try"" from our vocabularies. We learn how to go beyond fear, how the original human was a magnificent being with twelve strands of DNA and twelve chakra centers, and who our ""gods"" are.…

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Many Lives, Many Masters

By Brian L. Weiss ,

Why I love this book

This is the classic book on past lives. When you are following a spiritual journey, the concept of reincarnation is one of many aspects that inevitably open up to consider and explore. It’s a well-written book that inspires and clearly explains the perception and theory of past lives.

It’s also a reassuring read for people dealing with bereavement as well as helping the reader to see that perhaps we are not victims in a particular lifetime but merely experiencing different perspectives and aspects of 3D incarnation.

Many Lives, Many Masters

By Brian L. Weiss ,

Why should I read it?

9 authors picked Many Lives, Many Masters as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From author and psychotherapist Dr. Brian Weiss comes the classic New York Times bestseller on the true case of the past-life therapy that changed the lives of both the prominent psychiatrist and young patient involved-now featuring a new afterword by the author.

As a traditional psychotherapist, Dr. Brian Weiss was astonished and skeptical when one of his patients began recalling past-life traumas that seemed to hold the key to her recurring nightmares and anxiety attacks. His skepticism was eroded, however, when she began to channel messages from the "space between lives," which contained remarkable revelations about Dr. Weiss' family and…

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