Here are 100 books that Neuroscience of Change fans have personally recommended if you like
Neuroscience of Change.
Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
I saved many lives as a doctor working in the hospital, the ER, and the ICU. But the people whose lives I couldn’t save fascinated me the most. Many of them found a place of peace, healing, and profound knowledge before they died. This made me question what I learned in medical training. I loved science but knew there was something beyond what we could see and measure. I wasn’t religious, but I could sense some kind of ultimate and eternal love just beyond our grasp, creating and maintaining everything. I adore books that capture this sense of radical love and show us who we really are—so we can discover it today.
I love this book because it blows my mind open to the difference between who I thought I was and who I really am. It’s a clear, concise, and hilarious roadmap to freedom from your self. Yes, I mean your self, not “yourself.”
Michael shows clearly and simply that, no, you are not that voice in your head that never stops telling you who you are and what to do. You are really the clean, clear awareness that lies behind your mind.
After I read this book, I knew what Buddha, Jesus, and all the saints and sages of the ages were trying to teach: that you can gain total freedom in life by letting go of your self.
Who are you? When you start to explore this question, you find out how elusive it really is. Are you a physical body? A collection of experiences and memories? A partner to relationships? Each time you consider aspects of yourself, you realize that there is much more to you than any of these can define. In this book, spiritual teacher Michael Singer explores the question of who we are and arrives at the conclusion that our identity is to be found in our consciousness, the fact of our ability to observe ourselves and the world around us. By tapping into…
As a youth, I longed to understand life and its meaning and purpose, and I sought books that opened me up to a world that transcended the more rational, tangible aspects of my life. I also became fascinated with psychology in high school and knew that would be my life’s path. In college and beyond, I was drawn to meditation and mind-body practices that became transformative in my life. This journey continues to this day, calling me to bridge the scientific and psychological with the more contemplative and spiritual traditions to find and help others find healing and wholeness.
I fell in love with this book and couldn’t put it down until completion. It had such a unique blend of neuroscience and psychology woven into the fabric of brilliant storytelling.
I found the storyline quite fascinating: the author’s chance encounter as a young boy with a woman named Ruth at a magic shop, which forever changes the trajectory of his life. As someone who has always loved magic and been drawn to the spiritual, as well as someone drawn to mindfulness practices for decades, this book resonated so deeply with me.
Besides having a fantastic craft for writing, James Doty’s personal story was so poignant, touching, and inspiring. I walked away with a sense of the power of compassion and connecting with heart as the true ingredients for transformation, healing, and creating a meaningful life.
The award-winning New York Times bestseller that inspired BTS's K-pop song 'Magic Shop'.
The day that 12-year-old James Doty walked in to his local magic shop is the day that changed his life.
Once the neglected son of an alcoholic father and a mother with chronic depression, he has gone on to become a leading neurosurgeon, based at Stanford University. He credits Ruth for this incredible turnaround: the remarkable woman he met at the Cactus Rabbit Magic Shop, who devoted the summer to transforming his mind and opening his heart.
In this uplifting memoir, Jim explains the visualisation techniques Ruth…
As a youth, I longed to understand life and its meaning and purpose, and I sought books that opened me up to a world that transcended the more rational, tangible aspects of my life. I also became fascinated with psychology in high school and knew that would be my life’s path. In college and beyond, I was drawn to meditation and mind-body practices that became transformative in my life. This journey continues to this day, calling me to bridge the scientific and psychological with the more contemplative and spiritual traditions to find and help others find healing and wholeness.
I found this book so compelling that I not only read it but found myself putting it into practice right away in my own life and with my patients. Jill Bolte Taylor’s story is quite remarkable in the way she describes witnessing her own massive stroke, its effect on her brain and body, and her eight-year journey of healing herself back to health and wellness.
What was most fascinating to me was her observation and description of the four quadrants of our brains and how each one has its own personality (the rational, logical self; the reactive, self-protective, emotional self; the playful, free-spirited and present-focused self; and the spiritual, expansive whole self that experiences oneness with all things).
The book has abundant opportunities to experience the workings and "personalities" that reside in your brain and psyche and learn how to help each part work together in harmony to live your…
Discover how to tap into the present moment, shift out of anxiety and gain a sense of deep inner peace by understanding the brain's two hemispheres.
At age 37, Harvard neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor suffered a massive left-hemisphere stroke that took away her ability to speak, walk, read, write or remember any of her life - and gave her an unprecedented, profound experience of dwelling in the right hemisphere and the sense of oneness and peace to be found there. Her recovery led to her writing the New York Times bestseller My Stroke of Insight, being named one of Time…
As a youth, I longed to understand life and its meaning and purpose, and I sought books that opened me up to a world that transcended the more rational, tangible aspects of my life. I also became fascinated with psychology in high school and knew that would be my life’s path. In college and beyond, I was drawn to meditation and mind-body practices that became transformative in my life. This journey continues to this day, calling me to bridge the scientific and psychological with the more contemplative and spiritual traditions to find and help others find healing and wholeness.
Deb Dana has an amazing gift of taking polyvagal theory (understanding the role of our autonomic nervous system and its evolution) and making it so understandable, accessible, and essential for our day-to-day lives.
This book truly transformed how I view the world, offering an understanding of how our autonomic nervous system underlies everything we do and feel. What I loved about this book was how hands-on it was. Deb takes you through simple but profound exercises to learn how to create a felt sense of safety in the nervous system and find your way back there when you get out of balance.
This book offers a beautiful path to resilience and well-being. It changed how I go through my life and how I work with my patients.
Harness the power of your nervous system to support healthy relationships and personal well-being.
Why is it that when you have a tense conversation with a boss, coworker, or partner, you feel like you’re staring down a charging rhinoceros? How is it that both situations cause a fight-or-flight response―and what can you learn from it?
As it turns out, the same neurological processes that cause unwanted stress can also be harnessed to summon relaxation, spaciousness, and equanimity. In Befriending Your Nervous System, clinician Deb Dana presents a simple, hopeful message: when you approach these subconscious processes with openness, mindful attention,…
There are so many good spiritual books out there that get little attention, especially books by women and women of color. I have been a meditation practitioner for three decades, running a mindfulness center at UCLA, and been teaching and sharing Buddhist and mindfulness teaching for 20+ years. I need my sources of inspiration too! Each of these books forced me to think—and brought new depth to my own meditation practice. I am interested in how the Buddhist and mindfulness teachings, which I love so deeply, can help us build resiliency and weather the challenges of the intersecting, current ecological, political and social crises. These books are a great start.
This book of short essays is a “jewel” in its simplicity and timeliness. Each essay tackles Buddhist teachings through teaching stories, but also with a clear heart and guidance for living in these challenging times. Kaira Jewel is a trustworthy guide with a big, loving heart, who can help us navigate loss, loneliness, anxiety, disempowerment, and change.
In ten concise chapters, you'll learn powerful ways to meet life's challenges with wisdom, resilience, and ease.
We all go through times when it feels like the ground is being pulled out from under us. What we relied on as steady and solid may change or even appear to vanish. In this era of global disruption, threats to our individual, social, and planetary safety abound, and at times life can feel overwhelming. Not only are loss and separation painful, but even positive changes can cause great stress.
Yet life is full of change: birth, death, marriage, divorce; a new relationship;…
As a queer teenager, I loved reading because it transported me away from my oppressive reality and into another one. My friend, writer Virginia Heffernan, calls it ‘The Trance’—when you’re so into a book, time and space fall away. Recently I learned about the work of cognitive neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf, who writes that “deep reading” of dense, poetic works (not the “skimming” we’re always doing now in our digital culture) uses, remarkably, all areas of the brain—carving neuronal pathways, engendering empathy, imagination, self-reflection, and more. No-brainer: reading is really good for you. While there’s no lack of classics that can do this, here are obscurer titles that have put me in a trance.
There’s no end of books out there on mindfulness and meditation. What I love about meditation teacher, writer, and thinker Sebene Selassie’s book is how funny, personal, awkward, and honest she is about her journey. Each chapter delivers a new perspective on how you—how we all—are connected, how disconnection is at the core of our suffering, and how the one way to get back to a sense of belonging is through the body, the breath, and presence. Selassie is that friend who gently leads you to look inward and understand the power and joy of connection.
"A POWERFUL WORK OF SPIRITUALITY AND ANTI-RACISM"-Publishers Weekly
"IF YOU READ ONE BOOK IN 2020, MAKE IT THIS ONE."-Tricycle
From much-admired meditation expert Sebene Selassie, You Belong is a call to action, exploring our tangled relationship with belonging, connection, and each other
You are not separate. You never were. You never will be.
We are not separate from each other. But we don't always believe it, and we certainly don't always practice it. In fact, we often practice the opposite-disconnection and domination. From unconscious bias to "cancel culture," denial of our inherent interconnection limits our own freedom.
Much laughter is born out of sadness. Humor can be a way to cope or even reinvent our realities in ways that bring relief—and release. There's a misconception that “serious literature” should be humorless; crack a smile and you’re a fraud. However, the worlds and characters that emerge from this way of thinking do not ring true to me. Who among us hasn’t joked to help deal with sorrow? Or to satirize the outrageous? Or simply because life--however brutal—is also sometimes funny? The more a writer allows laughter to intermingle with tears, the more I believe in the story, and the more I enjoy it. That is why I wrote a “funny-sad” novel, The Australian.
In the pages of The Interrogative Mood, Powell pulls off a seemingly impossible feat: he writes an entire novel structured as a series of questions (no answers!), all asked by the same unnamed and never described narrator. The questions range from “In your view, do children smell good?” to “Could you lie down and a take a rest on the sidewalk?” to “Are your emotions pure?” The questions force the reader to do some serious—and often deeply funny—introspection, mostly about hypothetical situations; and as they accumulate, so too does the psyche—the character, to use the word loosely—from which this riveting, rapid-fire interrogation originates.
“If Duchamp or maybe Magritte wrote a novel (and maybe they did. Did they?) it might look something like this remarkable little book of Padgett Powell’s.”
—Richard Ford
The Interrogative Mood is a wildly inventive, jazzy meditation on life and language by the novelist that Ian Frazier hails as “one of the best writers in America, and one of the funniest, too.” A novel composed entirely of questions, it is perhaps the most audacious literary high-wire act since Nicholson Baker’s The Mezzanine or David Foster Wallace’s stories;a playful and profound book that, as Jonathan Safran Foer says, “will sear the…
Charlotte and the Quiet Place is somewhat autobiographical, as I tend to crave quiet. For many years, I’ve been meditating twice a day for 25 minutes. I relax my mind and body, sometimes silently repeating a word or sound or just breathing rhythmically. I’m almost always more peaceful and energized after meditating. In addition to being a writer, I’m a therapist with a mindfulness specialty. I believe deeply that every child (and adult, too) can tap into their quiet place inside by noticing what’s happening in their mind and body, no matter what’s going on in their lives. We all need this skill—now more than ever!
I Am Peace is part of a wonderful series by this well-known team. The series explores topics such as compassion, empathy, resilience, and what it is to be a feeling human being.I Am Peace is about a child (gender not identified) who worries about the past and future and learns how to comfort and ground themselves by noticing the here and now, breathing evenly, and practicing kindness toward themselves and others. The simple, sparse text expresses these rather deep ideas in ways that all children can understand: “I can watch my worries gently pop and disappear. I let things go"; “I can hug a tree and thank it for its beauty and strength.” The back matter features a discussion of mindfulness and a guided meditation.
When the world feels chaotic, find peace within through an accessible mindfulness practice from the bestselling picture-book dream team that brought us I Am Yoga. Express emotions through direct speech. Find empathy through imagination. Connect with the earth. Wonder at the beauty of the natural world. Breathe, taste, smell, touch, and be present.
Perfect for the classroom or for bedtime, Susan Verde's gentle, concrete narration and Peter H. Reynolds's expressive watercolor illustrations bring the tenets of mindfulness to a kid-friendly level. Featuring an author's note about the importance of mindfulness and a guided meditation for children, I Am Peace will…
The question “Who are you?” has been central to my practice over the last 30 years. This inquiry led me to live in a silent monastery for eight years. If we aren’t who we have been conditioned to see ourselves to be, then who are we? Who are we truly? This inquiry has led to happiness in my own life, it’s led to happiness in the lives of thousands of teens who have been served through the nonprofit I founded–Peace in Schools, and it’s led to happiness with the adults who have come to my workshops and retreats.
I was struck by how this book is an inspiring guide for integrating mindfulness into all aspects of life. I enjoy how Tull, with her background as a Zen monastic, blends personal stories and practical exercises to make mindfulness accessible and actionable. The book’s focus on relational mindfulness really resonated with me, helping me deepen my connections with others and foster a sense of shared power.
I was particularly moved by the emphasis on cultivating deep listening and compassionate leadership. This book has truly empowered me to live more mindfully and engage in a more sustainable and compassionate way of being.
A guidebook on how to embody compassionate awareness in all of our relationships—with self, one another, and our planet—in an age of global uncertainty.
We all struggle at times with how to bring meditation off the cushion and into the beautiful, dynamic, and messy realm of relationship. At a time when humanity seems to have forgotten our inherent interrelatedness, this book offers an inspiring set of principles and practices for deepening intimacy and remembering the interconnection that is our birthright. Eden Tull interweaves heartfelt personal stories, sharing her journey from seven years as a monastic in a silent Zen Monastery…
Jean Muenchrath wrote down her story to heal herself from the trauma of a life-threatening mountaineering accident, an epic survival incident, and decades of chronic pain. She then published her memoir to inspire readers to follow their dreams and to encourage them to overcome whatever challenges their life presents. Before she became an author, Muenchrath was a park ranger with the National Park Service for over thirty years. She’s led trekking tours in Nepal and Thailand and worked in Bhutan with the World Wildlife Fund. Jean enjoys traveling to foreign lands, exploring wild places and sitting quietly in meditation.
I have given this book as a gift to friends and acquaintances who were struggling with health issues, trauma, depression, anxiety, or loss. Recipients of this book have told me how much it has benefited them—they found peace and renewed energy on their path of healing physical and emotional pain. It’s a short book packed with easy-to-practice meditations that are simple, yet profound. It is suitable for reader’s of all backgrounds and belief systems.
The true nature of our minds is enlightened and peaceful, as the depth of the ocean is calm and clear. But when we mentally grasp and emotionally cling to our wants and worries with all our energy, we lose our own enlightened freedom and healing power, only to gain stress and exhaustion, suffering and overexcitement, like the turbulent waves rolling on the surface of the ocean.
Our minds possess the power to heal pain and stress, and to blossom into peace and joy, by loosening the clinging attitudes that Buddhists call "grasping at self." If we apply the mind's healing…
