Angel Jhang is a creative director and founder of OKAY BLESS, an upcoming platform approaching personal growth through a contemporary lens. Perceptive and refreshingly candid, Angel brings a thoughtful curiosity to self-inquiry and inner life. For this edition of Table Talk, she shares literary recommendations exploring integrity, embodiment, and meditation.

It doesn’t matter if you believe in the chakra system or if the word “chakra” simply just rattles you. This book is on a whole other level in spiritual psychology and embodiment and is in a league of its own. I read this book years back when I was deep in my study of yoga and the body and had nearly every page highlighted, folded and noted. I made the mistake of reading this out of curiosity to then find myself doing some of my deepest work. Experiencing major breakdowns through different states of memory retrieval and being in absolute awe of the emotional complexities we trap in our bodies and how that manifests in our day to day life. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to adopt a better understanding of how our emotional wounds and cultural conditionings shape our behaviour, relationships and physical health and how the mind body connection manifests in just about everything else.

“Tell the truth about how lost you are.”— Martha Beck

A lot of my life, I’ve always felt like I’d been split into two. Martha Beck’s book, The Way of Integrity explores just that and the idea that much of our human suffering comes from the way we live out of alignment with our true selves in order to meet cultural expectations, gain approval or maintain belonging and acceptance in what we otherwise call our communities. To live a life in betrayal of our true nature (our truth and our integrity) to appease our culture is to live a life in duplicity - and in quiet suffering.

If you have been feeling divided, purposeless, lost or — like myself — always in search of deeper meaning, I highly recommend this read. It’s simple yet profound and accessible - a gentle guide to living by your intuition in the way of a book.

Small, simple and an accessible read if one could ever say that about a book rooted in eastern philosophy, exploring topics of human consciousness, the ego and meditation. I have always likened Still the Mind as a great entry point into the works of Alan Watts for anyone who is curious, touching on concepts of non-duality, the art of surrendering and observation to the illusions of one's ego without being too heavy. A poetic and deeply thoughtful introduction into meditation, this book is a beautiful read for any chapter in your life, helping to cultivate a deeper awareness of yourself through practices of non-attachment, radical acceptance and simply just that - being still and in stillness.