Twelve Books That Changed My Life – Part Two

Fuel for the Awakened Body

*Crafted through thoughtful collaboration between Rosey and ChatGPT.

Awakening is intoxicating. It fills your veins with light, makes the world shimmer with meaning, and whispers, “You’re not crazy—there really is more.” 🕯️

But what no one tells you is that living into that more can be messy. It’s one thing to wake up. It’s another to stay awake while building a life. That’s what these books helped me do.

They anchored me. They affirmed me. And they gave me tools to integrate all the magic I’d tasted. ⚓️

These next four books met me in the messy, radiant middle: where awakening turns into embodiment, where insight turns into action, and where spirituality meets the sacred dirt of daily life.

They helped me ground what I had glimpsed. They taught me how to live it, love through it, and show up more fully as a woman, sovereign, and guide.

Let’s dive in. 🌊

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5. Women’s Anatomy of Arousal by Sheri Winston

(My most-recommended book) 🧠💦🔥

I’ve recommended this book more than any other. Hands down. I don’t even remember how it found me—it just did, right at the beginning of my sex work journey in 2020. ✨

At the time, men constantly asked me how to better please women—or confessed, exasperated, that they couldn’t. And while I was in the throes of my own sexual awakening, what felt even more meaningful was passing this book on to others. Especially to my Tantric massage clients. 😏📚

As I stepped more fully into my role as an Authenticity and Intimacy Coach, I realized just how many people—men and women—desperately needed this knowledge.

There’s a massive data gap between women and our bodies. Between our partners and the pleasure we’re capable of. Between truth and the education we’ve been given.

And bridging that gap starts here.

It’s impossible for a woman to have an authentically thriving sex life without being deeply connected to her body—her sexual anatomy, yes, but also her intuition, emotionality, and energetic rhythm. And because we’re gorgeously complex, it’s nearly impossible for a partner to fully meet us if we can’t express what we want. ✨

This book is the guide we never got.

Sheri Winston, a nurse and licensed massage therapist, weaves anatomical precision with magical reverence. Her tone is humorous, real, practical, and empowering. She breaks down cultural history, inner and outer anatomy (wayyy more than just “clitoris and vagina”), and gives clear, respectful insights on how to relate to women’s bodies in real time. 👀📖💃

I’ll leave you with this: when Brandon and I first started dating, this was the first book I recommended to him. He finished it before I visited him in Denver the following month.

That, my friends, is foreplay. 😉

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6. You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay

(Where self-love meets energetic healing) 🌈💗🦋

I read this in the fall of 2020, shortly after moving back in with my parents for the first time in years. I wasn’t exactly thrilled—but I was determined to use the time well. Most of my days were spent reading, meditating, journaling, and doing whatever I could to stay aligned with some sense of hope and direction.

A friend had given me this book a few years prior, and something in me finally said, “Now.”

It became a quiet, powerful catalyst.

Louise Hay’s words were simple but profound. She brought a deeply spiritual, energetically-informed lens to affirmations, illness, healing, and self-love. This wasn’t fluff. This was vibrational medicine. 💫

And then I found the index in the back.

Each ailment—physical or emotional—was paired with a limiting belief and a new, empowering thought pattern. As I scanned the list, one entry grabbed me and wouldn’t let go:

Herpes Simplex Virus 😳

I had been diagnosed nearly four years earlier. It had been an emotional rollercoaster—frequent outbreaks, dating challenges, shame. Seeing it on that list felt like exhaling a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

Louise wrote that herpes was often linked to shame around sexuality.

No judgment. No condemnation. Just a mirror. 🪞

It cracked something open in me.

I wasn’t broken. I wasn’t being punished. I was being invited to heal.

And for the first time, I believed I could.

My outbreaks grew fewer and farther between. My shame began to loosen. I started replacing self-criticism with curiosity, and hopelessness with compassion.

This book reminded me that we are part of the quantum field—and we don’t need permission to engage it.

We just need willingness. 💖

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7. A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century by Drs. Bret Weinstein & Heather Heying

(For the nuance nerds) 🧠🔍🌍

I first listened to this book on Audible in December 2021 during our family’s Christmas road trip. 🚗🎄 I had been eagerly awaiting the release, and was just about foaming at the mouth while it downloaded.

During the COVID era, Bret and Heather’s podcast Dark Horse was a lifeline for me and many others seeking nuanced, non-ideological perspectives. Their book only deepened my respect for them.

As someone raised by scientists and obsessed with the intersection of quantum mechanics, biology, and consciousness, I was craving a framework that explained why “woo” sometimes works—without dismissing it or worshiping it blindly.

This book scratched that itch.

Bret and Heather are evolutionary biologists with a special talent for complex systems thinking. And that means: they know how to think deeply and in detail without getting trapped in dogma.

Their book is a grounded exploration of how our Stone Age bodies interact with a hyper-modern world. Chapters explore food, medicine, sleep, sex, gender, partnership, parenting, school, consciousness, and cultural evolution. 📘🌀

It’s not fear-based. It’s not politically correct. It’s thoughtful, rational, and refreshingly curious.

I often recommend this book to people who love critical thinking but still want to understand the human experience through an embodied, whole-systems lens.

Bonus? The first thing that caught my eye about Brandon was that he, too, was a Dark Horse fan. 🖤

If you’re tired of false binaries and ready for intelligent conversation—this is your jam.

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8. The Magdalen Manuscript by Tom Kenyon & Judi Sion

(Sacred feminine meets sacred rage) 🩸👑🌹

I read The Magdalen Manuscript in Fall 2024, after years of hearing it whispered in spiritual circles. A friend and I decided to read it together, and I finished the last page while riding a train to my first ayahuasca ceremony that November. 😭🚆💫

It. Was. Electric.

This book tells the story of Mary Magdalen—not as a fallen woman, but as a Tantric priestess trained in the sacred sexual arts at the Temple of Isis. According to this channeled account, she met Yeshua (Jesus) as this energetic equal. They became sacred partners, co-initiators, and worked their magic together.

Before his crucifixion, she conceived their daughter—and later escaped to northwestern Europe to protect their lineage. 🕊️

It’s a retelling steeped in emotion, mystery, and symbolism.

As someone who left Catholicism in her teens, then discovered the Gnostic Gospels years later, and came to understand the dramatic differences between ‘paleo-Christianity’ (the grass-roots movement) and Christianity as an organized religion(s), this book felt like a puzzle piece sliding into place. 📜✨

I didn’t read this book to believe it—I read it to feel it. And what I felt was a reclamation of power. A sacred rage. A deep reverence for the feminine. And a grief that had no name until I read this story.

This book is for anyone who’s ever felt erased by tradition, overlooked by doctrine, or curious about the parts of the Christ story that didn’t make it into the canon.

It will break your heart wide open. And it might just piece it back together in a new way.

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🌻 Where This Chapter Leaves Off

If the books in Part One were medicine for a recently cracked-open soul, these books helped pour something new into that space.

They offered me a deeper understanding of the feminine, of healing, of the sacred complexity of being human. They helped me soften and strengthen, often at the same time. They mirrored my own becoming—and guided it forward.

But embodiment isn’t the final stop.

Integration doesn’t just happen in solitude or ceremony. It happens in how we structure our lives. In how we move through work, money, health, communication. In how we relate to time, legacy, and our own edges of expansion.

That’s where we’re heading next.

✨ Stay tuned for Part Three—where we get a little more practical, a little more grounded, and a whole lot more powerful. We’ll explore the books that helped me root, rise, and refine. Think: money mindset, healthy masculine/feminine dynamics, and making the leap from personal insight to collective impact. 💪💼💞

As always, I’d love to hear from you:

📚 Which books have helped you feel more at home in your body, in your path, in your power?
📖 What titles do you find yourself recommending over and over?

Let’s trade notes, friend.

With love and curiosity,
🕯️ Rose