A TBR pile that is a personal apprenticeship
Life here #OnTheCovenstead is warm, alive, and productive. I also noticed that the last high growing season my book intake dipped. Yet the quality of what time I do have for reading feels more intentional. Even the way I process a text seems to change in-season. When I’m out tending the Land there is a more natural space for thought, and if a book is in my hands, it tends to remain active in my mind.
This particular volume fits within my ongoing personal apprenticeship in mediumship. I’m interested not only in mediumship as a practice, but in the people who do it, their temperaments, their modes of perception, how they receive or deliver what they describe, and how all of that evolves as personal practice deepens. Over the coming months, I’ll be sharing more titles as part of my series of posts for WTWIR, but this book is not the beginning of that thread. Fear not, there are other subjects and genres in the upcoming TBR pile, to include parenting, tech-world current events, and, of course, fiction.
You may remember that in November 2025 I reviewed two books centered on those who speak with beloved dead and those who navigate “the other side.” At the time, I didn’t fully understand why those narratives kept pulling me in. I’m realizing now that my interest is less random than it looks. Despite having rarely encountered medium-focused work in my everyday life, I can see how my own history – being a “spooky kid,” (the kind who spoke to presences that others couldn’t see) has always left me oriented toward Spirit. It now feels clearer that I wasn’t only curious; I was being led toward information, teachers, and models that could support my own development.
I took more time with this one than usual because I was also answering questions I’d been carrying personally. And while this review is offered from my lived experience of inquiry, it’s still written for the prospective reader. I want you to approach the text knowing why it mattered to me and what kind of questions it may help you explore as well. Again, please know that mediumship won’t be the only territory we’ll travel within What The Witch Is Reading. There will be other topics and reading directions ahead in future.
What the Dead Taught Me About Living Well by Rebecca Rosen
Based on the many years of Rosen’s career as a medium, the book is part spiritual memoir and part practical life guidance (like how the dead help her navigate hired help who were stealing from her). Through a series of reflections attributed to “spirits” and her own experiences, especially around mortality, meditation, and “glimpses at the Other Side,” Rosen argues that living well is less bout achieving perfection and more about returning to compassion, trust, and self-worth.
A central message begins early: spirits view the living with kindness for what life demands, and they urge readers to stop pursuing perfection. Rosen connects this idea to a broader reframing of life goals: before each person is born, she suggests, we set ambitious plans, then we’re simply not meant to complete everything. This them becomes an actionable spiritual practice. Instead of striving endlessly, Rosen encourages surrendering the “do it all” impulse and trusting that your “Team Spirit” support system helps bring balance in “divine timing.” The emphasis is not on passivity, but on replacing frantic overreach with grounded affirmation: “Today I did my best, and I’ve done enough.”
Even the short gratitude statement, “I have a body; I am a soul. I am grateful to be alive,” reinforces her view that well-being starts with relationship – gratitude for life and a steadiness within it.
She blends emotional and spiritual self-understanding with health and behavior. She frames addictive or compulsive patterns, food, shopping, technology, drugs, entertainment, sex, excessive exercise, and overworking as signs of being disconnected form one’s power. In her view, when people repeatedly encounter the same difficulties or feel stuck in relationships or circumstances that leave them “Sacrificing, settling, or accepting less than (they are) worth,” that pattern can reflect an ongoing loss of personal power.
She goes further by linking emotional powerlessness to physical manifestations, suggesting health issues may mirror an inner state of disconnection ala pain, depression, or disease. This is one of the book’s more provocative through-lines. For Rosen, spiritual clarity can be felt not only in thoughts and choices, but in the body.
To support that shift, the author offers introspective questions that operate like a guided audit of the mind, body, and spirit. She asks the reader what a given event is trying to teach them, whether it’s connected to worth or self-value, or if the person is ‘playing small’ or giving power away. If the answer is yes, her remedy is to move from ‘less than’ to ‘worthmore.’ She discusses a fear barrier to power, providing exercises to ask your younger self who taught them they weren’t powerful or deserving and whether anyone taught them their needs should always come second.
The book pairs this with affirmations designed to rewire the felt sense of safety around strength (“I am innate and powerful…). Her writing repeatedly returns to practices that make power feel embodied, such as doing what makes one feel “strong, vibrant,” and physically powerful (e.g. yoga, walks, clean eating). In this way, the book’s spirituality is meant to be lived in everyday habits, not just believed in.
The theme of abundance expands the same philosophy into money and receiving. Rosen frames abundance as something practiced and protected by releasing fear of not having enough, separating past financial narratives from present reality, and letting go of inherited limiting beliefs – including multiple “I release” affirmations to try. She emphasizes that self-worth isn’t defined by a bank account, but also comes with responsibility and generosity, especially where spiritual talents are concerned.
Underlying many chapters in the book, Rosen argues for connection rather than isolation. While she acknowledges that humans come into the world alone and leave it alone, she says Spirit and spirits repeatedly show her that people are connected to something larger than themselves – communities, species, and “an unseen force of bright, limitless love,” which can be named in many ways (Universe, Divine, gods or goddesses, higher consciousness).
For me the book’s spiritual comfort is both relational and immediate: you’re not stranded, but rather supported. Rosen sums this tone up in grounded, daily guidance, “You are your own energy source, so take steps daily to recharge, which brings the book back from cosmic reassurance to practical emotional maintenance.
What ultimately makes What the Dead Taught Me About Living Well compelling is how Rosen ties her metaphysical ideas to simple daily reframes, like stop demanding perfection, return to gratitude, be in the now, and live from worth rather than fear (that last one I may have tattooed on my arm 😉 ).
She uses spiritual language not as decoration, but a living spell for the reader to use to trust the balance of your inner guides (what she refers to as Team Spirit), to return to a life of appreciation and thankfulness as a kind of offering, grounding the spirit in reverence, and to finally reclaim your personal power that fear has been stealing. In her telling, worth isn’t an idea you chase. It’s a doorway you walk through, until you live from “worthmore” instead of the dull pull of scarcity and shame.
Like any good magical book it invites you to practice, to shift energy, and to remember – again and again – that you are held, guided and connected by Spirit and spirits.
