Required Reading for The Spiritually Inclined.

I love wellness. I love spirituality. I love a good woo-woo rabbit hole. But I also think there is a point where more spirituality isn't necessarily the answer.

The wellness world can be a beautiful place to explore intuition, embodiment, creativity, healing, and connection—but it can also become a place where discernment gets lost. Where practitioners accidentally position themselves as authorities on someone else's experience. Where trauma gets reduced to a few Instagram-worthy affirmations. Where every coincidence becomes a “sign,” every sensation becomes an energetic diagnosis, and questioning the teacher somehow means you're “blocked.”

No, thank you.

The practitioners I want to learn from are the ones who remain curious. Who understand their own limitations. Who are willing to question their beliefs. Who recognize the difference between intuition and assumption, spirituality and escapism, community and dependency.

So, if I were creating an unofficial reading list for wellness practitioners—and really, anyone invested in their own healing—these five books would be on it.

1. Signs by Laura Lynne Jackson

Laura Lynne Jackson's Signs explores intuition, synchronicity, grief, mediumship, and the possibility that meaningful connections can continue beyond what we can physically see. What I appreciate most about this book is the invitation to pay attention.

Whether you understand synchronicities as messages from loved ones, spiritual communication, the subconscious mind, or simply meaningful patterns we notice in our lives, there is value in becoming more observant of our own experience. For intuitive and spiritual practitioners, this is an important distinction. Being open to the possibility of something meaningful happening doesn't mean assuming that everything is a message. There is a difference between saying: “That felt significant to me,”and, “The universe is telling you exactly what to do.” That distinction is discernment.

Why I think practitioners should read it:
If you work intuitively, your job isn't to convince someone that your interpretation is the absolute truth. Your job is to create space for exploration. Signs encourages that sense of wonder while opening up a larger conversation about intuition, connection, grief, and meaning.

2. What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo

Stephanie Foo's What My Bones Know is a deeply personal memoir about complex trauma and the long, nonlinear process of healing. It is also a reminder that healing is not a straight line.

Foo explores how trauma can affect the body, nervous system, relationships, identity, and our understanding of ourselves long after the original circumstances have passed. This is especially important in wellness spaces because “healing” can sometimes become incredibly simplified. Meditate. Set boundaries. Raise your vibration. Let it go. Forgive. Move on. As if the human nervous system operates on a motivational poster. It doesn't.

Sometimes we understand something intellectually long before our body feels safe enough to believe it. Sometimes we revisit old patterns we thought we'd already healed. Sometimes progress looks like recognizing a pattern sooner—not never experiencing it again. And sometimes healing requires support far beyond what a wellness practitioner is qualified to provide.

Why I think practitioners should read it:
Because if you work with people, you will encounter trauma. You may not always know when you're encountering it, and you may not know someone's full story. A trauma-informed practitioner doesn't need to be a therapist. But they do need to understand that another person's experience is more complex than what can be observed in a 60-minute session. What My Bones Know is a beautiful reminder to approach other people's healing with humility.

3. Cultish by Amanda Montell

This one should be mandatory reading in the wellness industry. Amanda Montell's Cultish examines the language and psychology behind cult-like influence and the ways certain communication patterns can create belonging, loyalty, conformity, and dependency. And importantly, the book doesn't limit the conversation to the stereotypical image of a cult.

It explores how “cultish” dynamics can show up in all kinds of communities, movements, brands, and belief systems. That matters in wellness. Because wellness communities are often built around trust. People come to practitioners during vulnerable periods of their lives. They may be grieving, questioning their identity, recovering from difficult experiences, searching for meaning, or simply looking for somewhere they feel understood. That is a beautiful responsibility. But it is also a power dynamic.

There is a huge difference between: “Here's a tool that might help you explore your experience,” and, “I know what's happening to you, and you need to trust me.” There is a difference between encouraging someone to develop their intuition and teaching them that they need your intuition to navigate their life. There is a difference between community and dependency. Between leadership and control. Between creating a safe space and creating a space where questioning the person in charge is discouraged.

Why I think practitioners should read it:
Because self-awareness isn't just about examining our own wounds. It's also about examining the influence we have over other people. If you teach, facilitate, coach, read, heal, mentor, or hold space for others, you should periodically ask yourself: Am I helping people trust themselves—or am I accidentally teaching them to trust me instead? That is a question worth sitting with.

4. Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

Big Magic is Elizabeth Gilbert's joyful exploration of creativity, curiosity, inspiration, fear, and the courage to make things simply because you want to make them. And while it isn't traditionally a “healing” book, I think it belongs on this list for exactly that reason. The wellness world can sometimes take itself very seriously.

Everything has to have a purpose. Everything has to be transformational. Every creative practice has to become a business. Every hobby has to become a side hustle. Every difficult experience has to become a lesson.

Big Magic offers another possibility: What if you made something because it was fun? What if you followed an idea because you were curious? What if you allowed yourself to be terrible at something? What if creativity didn't need to prove anything?

For me, creativity and healing have always been connected. And my background as a performer has made me particularly aware of how easily we can become attached to roles, identities, and external validation.

Why I think practitioners should read it:
Because practitioners are people, too. You don't have to spend every waking moment healing, teaching, processing, optimizing, or becoming your “highest self.” Sometimes you need to make something weird. Dance. Sing. Paint. Write something terrible. Take a class where you're the beginner. Go play. There is healing in remembering that you are more than your profession—and that life doesn't always need to be spiritually significant to be meaningful.

5. The Actor by Don Miguel Ruiz & Barbara Emrys

This may be the wildcard on the list. The Actor uses the metaphor of performance to explore the roles, identities, beliefs, and stories we adopt throughout our lives. As someone who spent more than two decades working as an actor, this one hits particularly close to home.

Because here's the uncomfortable truth: We are all performing something. The healer. The empath. The good girl. The successful person. The spiritual person. The wounded person. The strong one. The person who has it all figured out. The person who doesn't need anyone.

We learn these roles from family, culture, relationships, religion, social expectations, trauma, careers, and communities. Eventually, some of them become so familiar that we stop recognizing them as roles at all. We simply call them “me.” But healing often involves asking: Is this actually who I am? Or is this who I learned I needed to be?

Why I think practitioners should read it:
Because the wellness industry can create some very seductive identities. “The healer.” “The intuitive.” “The empath.” “The awakened one.” And those identities can become just as limiting as any other role. The goal isn't to get rid of every identity we have. It's to become conscious enough to recognize when we're performing—and decide whether the role still fits.

So, what’s the common thread?

Interestingly, these books aren't all saying the same thing. And that's exactly why I like them together. One explores intuition and signs. One explores trauma and the body. One examines influence and group dynamics. One celebrates creativity. One questions identity and the roles we play.

Together, they create a much more interesting picture of what grounded wellness can look like. Because I don't think being grounded means rejecting spirituality. I don't think being discerning means becoming cynical. I don't think being trauma-informed means being afraid of emotion. And I certainly don't think healing means becoming some perfectly regulated, enlightened person who never gets triggered, never makes mistakes, and wakes up every morning vibrating at the frequency of abundance.

We're human. We're complicated. We contradict ourselves. We believe things and later change our minds. We experience things we can't always explain. We carry stories in our bodies. We make art. We grieve. We get weird. We grow. And sometimes we need to come back down to earth.

That's actually one of the things I value most about my own relationship with spirituality: the ability to hold wonder and discernment at the same time. I believe there is room for mystery without abandoning critical thinking. There is room for intuition without treating intuition as infallible. There is room for fantasy without confusing fantasy with reality. There is room for spirituality without making spirituality your entire personality.

And there is room for practitioners to say: “I don't know.” That might be one of the most important things we can learn. Because ultimately, I don't think the goal of a good practitioner is to become the person with all the answers.

It's to help people become more connected to their own ability to ask better questions. So read the books. Take what resonates. Question what doesn't.

And please, for the love of all things sacred, keep your critical thinking skills turned on.