There's no better time than the present to consider all of the ways you want to grow and change, physically, intellectually, and emotionally. Through wisdom, practical advice, and personal reflections, the books below provide motivation and encouragement for your journey to embrace your inner brilliance and flourish into your truest self.
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Books That Offer Inspiration
Once you begin looking for joy, you can find it pretty much anywhere. In Jennifer McGaha's fifty-fifth year, she began to take note of simple, everyday things that struck her as beautiful or humorous or intriguing and kept a list of all the accomplishments, large and small, that actually mattered to her. These observations became her Joy Document, a radical act of reclaiming joy and an exercise in paying attention. Full of wit, heart, and reflective questions to help readers create their own joy documents, The Joy Document is a welcome companion for midlife transformation.
Winter is quieter than other seasons, sometimes lonelier, and it opens us to pay attention. Award-winning writer Marilyn McEntyre invites us into winter—when stars assume heightened significance and the ambient quiet of snowscapes (or fogscapes or rainscapes) stills us. In poems and life-affirming reflections on freedom, growth, quietude, and keenly felt hope, we learn to live in simple contentment. Without being saccharine, Midwinter Light guides us to seek and find what we need, right where we are.
It's time to rethink what clothes we buy, wear, and toss out, knowing that we can have a positive environmental impact while still looking good and dressing well. As consumers, we have the power to make a difference with the clothing choices we make. In What to Wear and Why, top fashion writer turned sustainability activist Tiffanie Darke sheds light on the unsustainable practices and immense environmental impact of the fashion industry and presents a compelling argument for why transformative change is urgently needed.
Nothing in Shannon Harris's secular upbringing prepared her to enter the world of conservative Christianity. Soon her husband's bestselling book I Kissed Dating Goodbye helped inspire a national purity movement, and Shannon's identity became "pastor's wife." The Woman They Wanted recounts the remarkable story of her courtship with Joshua Harris, her grappling with conservative Christianity's patriarchy and narrow definition of womanhood, and her journey to break free and reclaim a more authentic version of herself.
In a series of tender narrative essays written to his daughter, activist and author Brian C. Johnson shares what he's learned from his struggles, victories, and defeats over twenty-five years of advocacy work. The Work Is the Work is an inspiring collection of field notes that is perfect for new or seasoned activists who want to lead well in the work for transformational change.
Whether you're a dabbler, a career creative, or a self-proclaimed tortured artist, The Artist's Joy is for you. Professional oboist and creativity coach Dr. Merideth Hite Estevez guides artists in all levels and disciplines to build a creative life that resonates deeply with their core values. Complete with practical guides and companion playlist.
Wisdom from Black Women
Explore how your self-image and daily habits shape your relationships with others in The Love Habit (LOVE: Learn, Optimize, Validate, Experience). Bestselling author and relationship expert Rainie Howard says you have the power to break free of unhealthy cycles and to blossom into the best version of yourself. The Love Habit shows you how through chapters offering insights on embracing a love-based approach to your habits.
Join Karen Walrond in this intriguing investigation into how we can reclaim aging, cultivate joy, and resist ageism. In Radiant Rebellion, Walrond helps us radiantly rebel against the fads and assumptions that hold us back, redefine the adventure of getting older, and create a shining future of expanded potential. We might even raise a little hell while we're at it!
Many of us want to advocate for causes we care about—but which ones? We want to work for change—but will the emotional toll lead to burnout? In The Lightmaker's Manifesto, activist Karen Walrond shares strategies to help you define the actions that bring you joy, identify the values and causes about which you are passionate, and put them together to create change.
The Enneagram for Black Liberation
For too long, conversations about the Enneagram and its personality types have been centered on and by whiteness. In The Enneagram for Black Liberation, certified Enneagram teacher and trained psychotherapist Chichi Agorom reclaims the Enneagram as a powerful tool for Black women to rediscover our wholeness and worth, and invites each of us to claim the Enneagram as our tool for resilience-building in the continued fight for liberation. This paperback edition includes a new guide to practicing freedom.
Shelia Burlock, Sylvia Burlock, Melissa Burlock
Learn how to love and care for your natural hair spiritually and practically. Uplifting and authentic, My Divine Natural Hair helps Black women embrace the God-created beauty of natural hair through inspirational readings and salon chair guidance on how to heal, consistently care for, and grow their coils.
Books about Emotion Management
Of all the human emotions, anger is probably the most misunderstood. Across the centuries, rage has shown that anger can be a catalyst for change; it can also be a tool employed in fear by those resisting reform or trying to quell protests or advancements by other people. The Rise of Rage explores the nature of anger and walks us through a ten-step process to effectively and safely resolve our angry feelings, helping to free us from this much-misunderstood emotion.
Alcohol isn't going to fix the systemic lack of support for mothers. Mommy Wine Culture is a symptom of a larger issue: the mental load of motherhood and a systemic lack of support for moms. Mixing research, cultural references, interviews, and the author's sobriety story, It's Not about the Wine reveals what's really plaguing mothers and offers tangible tips for evaluating your relationship to alcohol and lightening your load.
This Book Won't Make You Happy
Happiness is fleeting. And what if you don't even need it to live a life of peace and purpose? In This Book Won't Make You Happy, therapist Niro Feliciano offers a path to something much more achievable and abundantly more satisfying: contentment. By incorporating eight simple postures rooted in cognitive behavioral science and mindfulness practices into our daily routines, we can move away from anxiety and toward balance and calm.
Books to Encourage Spiritual Growth
The pursuit of happiness, as defined by settlers and enshrined in the American Dream, has brought us to the brink: emotionally, spiritually, socially, and as a species. But Indigenous people carry forward the values that humans need to survive and thrive. Rooted in ten Indigenous values, Journey to Eloheh helps us learn lifeways that lead to true wholeness, well-being, justice, and harmony.
So many of us are leaving conservative faith traditions behind, rightly saying goodbye to toxic theology, bigotry, and harm. With wit and practical guidance, What Makes You Bloom helps us create a new spiritual practice after our faith has fallen apart. Spiritual coach Kevin Miguel Garcia shows us how we can connect with the Divine already inside us and cultivate meaningful spiritual practices that help us heal from the past, tap into the present, and imagine a delicious future.
These days, many of us live in a state of overreactive fight-or-flight response and chronic stress. But new developments in brain science have recently proven that an intentional practice of pausing for a few minutes actually rewires our brain in ways that make us calmer, less reactive, and better able to see the bigger picture. In Practice the Pause, spiritual director and writer Caroline Oakes explores how a seven-second pause practice can move us beyond the fight-or-flight responses of our ego in our daily lives and actually equip us to cultivate the common good in the world.
We all carry sexual shame. Whether we grew up in the repressive purity culture of American Evangelical Christianity or not, we've all been taught in subtle and not-so-subtle ways that sex (outside of very specific contexts) is taboo. Psychotherapist Matthias Roberts helps readers define their sexual values on their own terms, overcome their shame, and start having great, healthy sex.
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