Many of us set goals at the beginning of the year, but as the busyness of life pulls us in many different directions, it's easy for our focus and priorities to shift. There's good news, though: it doesn't need to be the start of a new year 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 to reignite your goals and flourish into your truest self.
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Books to Inspire Healthy Habits
Books to Inspire Healthy Habits
How nice it would be to clear the calendar—to just stop doing so much stuff. Except kids get sick and the work project awaits and elderly relatives need care. No matter how well you hack it, manage it, slice or dice or delegate it: in some seasons of life, busyness is a given. The solution, writes Rachelle Crawford, is not to merely declutter your calendar or unsubscribe from the busy life. The trick lies in learning how to be busy. How to Be Busy is a lighthearted, practical guide for how to live your deep, meaningful, unhurried life—right in the middle of your busy one.
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.
Think minimalism means a perfectly curated, always tidy home? Think again. Drowning in tides of toys, overflowing closets, and a crazy schedule, Rachelle Crawford assumed you had to be naturally organized to keep a tidy living space. Then she found minimalism: the messy, real-life kind that is less about perfection and more about purpose. With empathy, grace, and humor, Crawford shares doable ways to own less and live more fully. Learn to become a more conscious consumer, create a capsule wardrobe, inspire family members to join you, free up more time for the things that matter, and create a tidy(ish) home.
Books to Cultivate Creativity
Why should we make art while injustice and suffering wreak havoc? How can we justify making beautiful things? From award-winning author Mitali Perkins comes an essential companion for writers, artists, and other creatives who long for a more just world. We must keep making art infused with truth, beauty, and goodness, not to ignore a world in distress but for the sake of loving it. With vivid stories, practical ideas, and reflection and discussion questions, Just Making will inspire you to keep making beauty in a broken world.
For far too long we have relegated the erotic to the bedroom, when in reality it is a fundamental energy that helps us connect more deeply with ourselves, each other, the earth, and the creative potential within us. In Turned On, artist and musician Brie Stoner redefines the erotic, stating that it is more than just human intimacy; it can be the antidote to feeling anxious, disconnected, and uninspired. By reframing Eros as the energy of life and creativity itself, Stoner invites us to reawaken presence, playfulness, and possibility as the gateways to transformation.
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.
Books on Emotions and Mental Health
You can find peace, whether or not you forgive those who harmed you. Feeling pressured to forgive their offenders is a common reason trauma survivors avoid mental health services and support. You Don't Need to Forgive is an invaluable resource for trauma survivors and their clinicians who feel alienated and even gaslighted by the toxic positivity and moralism that often characterize attitudes about forgiveness in psychology and self-help.
Millions of us are desperately trying to rewrite our past by unconsciously repeating it—unknowingly reenacting the traumatic events in our lives in an effort to complete unfinished business or undo what was done to us. These unconscious efforts to undo trauma only bring more pain, more disappointment, and more psychological damage. Unless we process past traumas, we can't heal them. Put Your Past in the Past by renowned psychotherapist Beverly Engel will help you face your past head-on to find true and lasting wholeness.
From religious communities to therapeutic spaces, the importance of forgiving those who've wronged us is often enshrined as an unqualified good. But what about horrifying cases of abuse, predatory behavior, or systemic wrong? In these cases, forgiveness places the onus on victims, diminishes real hurt and anger, lets perpetrators off the hook, and prevents justice from being done. Not So Sorry takes us on a whirlwind tour of the many abuses of the concept of forgiveness and dares us to ask the necessary question: Is it ever better not to forgive?
Books on Self-Help and Transformation
Too many of us are stuck on the treadmill of consumer spirituality, clinging to the illusion that we are in charge of our own spiritual growth and development. But the path of true transformation, according to Hunter Mobley, isn't in doing more, but in doing less—in letting go of control and adopting a contemplative posture that will naturally lead us to our true self. Letting Go, Finding You shows how a contemplative spiritual path, informed by the Enneagram, will allow you to finally stop striving after false promises and start surrendering to the truest version of yourself.
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.
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.
Books to Help You Connect with Mind, Body, and Spirit
Weeping, one of our most private acts, can forge connection. But many of us have been taught to hide our tears. When writer Benjamin Perry realized he hadn't cried in over ten years, he undertook an experiment to cry every day. Learning to Cry explores humans' rich legacy of weeping and helps us reclaim our crying to bring us into deeper relationship with a world that's breaking.
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.
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.
To view all of our books and resources, visit broadleafbooks.com.
