Two Books that Changed my Life

From insomnia to insight—how two books changed my understanding of mind and manifestation

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In the quiet hours of our Spanish apartment, I would lie awake at 3 AM, watching shadows creep across the ceiling as my mind raced through its usual worries. These nights felt endless, until

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suggested The Chimp Paradox by Dr. Steve Peters. The book offered a metaphor that would transform how I understood my midnight battles with anxiety: we each have an inner "chimp", an emotional force that can hijack our thoughts, sending them spiralling into cycles of stress and overthinking.

In the book, Peters divides the mind into three distinct parts. The Human represents the rational, logical side of our brain, the part that makes thoughtful decisions based on facts and reason. The Chimp is our emotional, impulsive self that reacts quickly to situations based on feelings, often without considering long-term consequences—this is the part responsible for emotional outbursts, stress, or irrational behaviours. Finally, there's the Computer, which acts as a storage system for our learned behaviours and experiences, serving as a reference guide for decisions without being inherently logical or emotional.

While professional athletes have long used this book to build mental resilience and perform under pressure, I found in it something more personal: a way to finally overcome my insomnia. Once I understood that my 3 AM anxiety was my inner chimp running wild, I could acknowledge these thoughts without getting caught up in them. Night after night, this new perspective helped me transition from hours of tossing and turning to peaceful, consistent sleep. It would be years before another book would affect me quite so profoundly.

That book was Manifest. Like finding The Chimp Paradox during those sleepless nights in Spain, it appeared precisely when I needed it most. While I typically approach self-help books with healthy skepticism—Manifest offered something different: a structured approach to understanding what you want from life and exploring the limiting beliefs that might be holding you back. If you've been feeling stuck or uncertain about your direction, you might find in these pages what I did: practical tools for turning vague hopes into clear intentions.

What follows are the most transformative insights from Roxie Nafousi's Manifest: 7 Steps to Living Your Best Life, focusing on the main principles and how to apply them.