Recommended Reading List

At Holistically Divine Counseling (HDC), we believe in the transformative power of knowledge and self-discovery.

This curated selection of books reflects our commitment to supporting you on your journey toward personal growth, healing, and overall well-being. Whether you’re seeking practical techniques to navigate life’s challenges, a deeper understanding of psychological principles, or inspirational stories of resilience, this collection offers diverse resources to meet your needs. Each book has been chosen with care, aiming to provide you with insights, comfort, and the tools necessary to embark on a path of self-improvement and emotional empowerment. We may earn a commission when you purchase a book using the links below.

1-18 of 65 books
  • My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies
    • Healing & Trauma
    My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies

    By: Resmaa Menakem

    In this groundbreaking book, therapist Resmaa Menakem examines the damage caused by racism in America from the perspective of trauma and body-centered psychology. My Grandmother’s Hands is a call to action for all of us to recognize that racism is not only about the head, but about the body, and introduces an alternative view of what we can do to grow beyond our entrenched racialized divide.

  • After the Rain: Gentle Reminders for Healing, Courage, and Self-Love
    • Healing & Trauma
    After the Rain: Gentle Reminders for Healing, Courage, and Self-Love

    By: Alexandra Elle

    Part memoir and part guide, Elle shares stirring stories from her own remarkable journey from self-doubt to self-love. This soulful collection is filled with illuminating reflections on loss, fear, bravery, healing, love, acceptance, and more. Readers follow along her journey as she transforms challenging experiences—a difficult childhood, painful romantic relationships, and single parenting as a young mom—into fuel for her career as a successful entrepreneur and author driven by purpose and passion.

    • Empowerment & Leadership
    Feeding the Soul (Because It’s My Business): Finding Our Way to Joy, Love, and Freedom

    By: Tabitha Brown

    Before Tabitha Brown was one of the most popular personalities in the world, sharing her delicious vegan home cooking and compassionate wisdom with millions of followers across social media, she was an aspiring actress who in 2016 began struggling with undiagnosed chronic autoimmune pain. Her condition made her believe she wouldn’t live to see forty–until she started listening to what her soul and her body truly needed. Now, in this life-changing book, Tabitha shares the wisdom she gained from her own journey, showing readers how to make a life for themselves that is rooted in nonjudgmental kindness and love, both for themselves and for others.

  • Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most
    • Empowerment & Leadership
    Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

    By: Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen, Roger Fisher

    We attempt or avoid difficult conversations every day-whether dealing with an underperforming employee, disagreeing with a spouse, or negotiating with a client. From the Harvard Negotiation Project, the organization that brought you Getting to Yes, Difficult Conversations provides a step-by-step approach to having those tough conversations with less stress and more success.

  • How to Be an Adult in Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Loving
    • Mindfulness & Emotional Intelligence
    How to Be an Adult in Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Loving

    By: David Richo, Kathlyn Hendricks

    This beloved book has touched hundreds of thousands of lives with its profound and actionable advice. Retaining the core message of becoming more mindful in our relationships, this edition includes new and revised material that addresses how we live and love today.

  • It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle
    • Healing & Trauma
    It Didn’t Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle

    By: Mark Wolynn

    It Didn’t Start with You builds on the work of leading experts in post-traumatic stress, including Mount Sinai School of Medicine neuroscientist Rachel Yehuda and psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score. Even if the person who suffered the original trauma has died, or the story has been forgotten or silenced, memory and feelings can live on. These emotional legacies are often hidden, encoded in everything from gene expression to everyday language, and they play a far greater role in our emotional and physical health than has ever before been understood.

  • Bring Yourself: How to Negotiate Fearlessly
    • Empowerment & Leadership
    Bring Yourself: How to Negotiate Fearlessly

    By: Mori Taheripour

    Contrary to conventional wisdom about what makes a good negotiator – namely, being aggressive and unemotional – in Bring Yourself, Taheripour offers a radically different perspective. In her own life, and in her nearly 20 years of experience teaching negotiation, she’s found that the best negotiators are empathetic, curious, and present. The essence of bargaining isn’t the transaction, but the conversation and human connection. It is when we bring our whole, authentic selves to the table that we can advocate for ourselves fearlessly and find creative solutions that benefit everyone.

  • Self-Love Workbook for Women: Release Self-Doubt, Build Self-Compassion, and Embrace Who You Are
    • Empowerment & Leadership
    Self-Love Workbook for Women: Release Self-Doubt, Build Self-Compassion, and Embrace Who You Are

    By: Megan Logan MSW LCSW

    Embrace who you are with this guided self-love book for women of any age and any background. This year, you’ll embark on your journey of self-discovery by learning what self-love is, and then immersing yourself in activities that help you build your self-esteem and improve your relationships. This book includes a variety of exercises to engage with your sense of self-love, and the companion journal encourages you to go even deeper with writing and reflection.

  • The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health: Navigate an Unequal System, Learn Tools for Emotional Wellness, and Get the Help you Deserve
    • Healing & Trauma
    The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health: Navigate an Unequal System, Learn Tools for Emotional Wellness, and Get the Help you Deserve

    By: Rheeda Walker

    It’s time to reclaim your mental health. We can’t deny it any there is a Black mental health crisis in our world today. In addition, the effects of under-education, poverty, and systemic racism have greatly impacted African Americans’ access to effective mental health treatment. It’s time to take Black mental health seriously. It’s time to heal our psychological distress, find community, and combat marginalization in order to thrive.

  • Positive Affirmations for Black Women
    • Empowerment & Leadership
    Positive Affirmations for Black Women: Attract Love, Success, Happiness, Wealth and Abundance, Increase Confidence & Self-Love, Improve Your Mindset

    By: Limitless Abundance

    The words we say to ourselves have immense power and impact over our lives. What you think, you become. Affirmations restructure the dynamic of our brains so that we truly begin to think nothing is impossible. This book contains a collection of affirmations written specifically for Black women. Positive affirmations are a great way to combat subconscious thoughts, by allowing you to focus your energy on encouraging positive changes in your life.

  • The Highly Sensitive Person's Guide to Dealing with Toxic People: How to Reclaim Your Power from Narcissists and Other Manipulators
    • Empowerment & Leadership
    The Highly Sensitive Person’s Guide to Dealing with Toxic People: How to Reclaim Your Power from Narcissists and Other Manipulators

    By: Shahida Arabi MA

    If you’re a highly sensitive person, or identify as an “empath,” you may feel easily overwhelmed by the world around you, suffer from “people-pleasing,” experience extreme anxiety or stress in times of conflict, or even take on the emotions of others. Due to your naturally giving nature, you may also be a target for narcissists and self-centered individuals who seek to exploit others for their own gain. So, how can you protect yourself?

  • Unfuck Your Brain: Getting Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-Outs, and Triggers with science
    • Anxiety & Depression
    Unfuck Your Brain: Getting Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-Outs, and Triggers with science (5-Minute Therapy)

    By: Ph.D. Harper, Faith

    A no-nonsense and helpful guide on how to cope with a slew of mental-health issues that are hellbent on ruining the lives of millions of people worldwide.

  • Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry
    • Anxiety & Depression
    Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry

    By: Catherine M. Pittman PhD, Elizabeth M. Karle MLIS

    Do you ever wonder what is happening inside your brain when you feel anxious, panicked, and worried? In Rewire Your Anxious Brain, psychologist Catherine Pittman and author Elizabeth Karle offer a unique, evidence-based solution to overcoming anxiety based in cutting-edge neuroscience and research.

  • Don't Feed the Monkey Mind: How to Stop the Cycle of Anxiety, Fear, and Worry
    • Anxiety & Depression
    Don’t Feed the Monkey Mind: How to Stop the Cycle of Anxiety, Fear, and Worry

    By: Jennifer Shannon LMFT, Doug Shannon, Michael A. Tompkins PhD ABPP

    Written by psychotherapist Jennifer Shannon, this book shows you how to stop anxious thoughts from taking over using proven-effective cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and mindfulness techniques, as well as fun illustrations. By following the exercises in this book, you’ll learn to identify your own anxious thoughts, question those thoughts, and uncover the core fears at play.

  • Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
    • Empowerment & Leadership
    Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

    By: Brené Brown

    Every day we experience the uncertainty, risks, and emotional exposure that define what it means to be vulnerable or to dare greatly. Based on twelve years of pioneering research, Brené Brown PhD, MSW, dispels the cultural myth that vulnerability is weakness and argues that it is, in truth, our most accurate measure of courage. Daring Greatly is not about winning or losing. It’s about courage.

  • Peace Is a Practice: An Invitation to Breathe Deep and Find a New Rhythm for Life
    • Mindfulness & Emotional Intelligence
    Peace Is a Practice: An Invitation to Breathe Deep and Find a New Rhythm for Life

    By: Morgan Harper Nichols

    Peace Is a Practice invites you to become an active peacemaker in your own life, starting right where you are, and in some of the most unexpected places. When you breathe in all the grace available to you and release everything that is outside of your control, you’ll discover peace that surpasses your circumstances. All it takes is practice.

  • The Awakened Family: How to Raise Empowered, Resilient, and Conscious Children
    • Parenting & Family
    The Awakened Family: How to Raise Empowered, Resilient, and Conscious Children

    By: Shefali Tsabary Ph.D.

    We all have the capacity to raise children who are highly resilient and emotionally connected. However, many of us are unable to because we are blinded by modern misconceptions of parenting and our own inner limitations. In The Awakened Family, I show you how you can cultivate a relationship with your children so they can thrive; moreover, you can be transformed to a state of greater calm, compassion and wisdom as well.

  • The Gifts of Imperfection
    • Empowerment & Leadership
    The Gifts of Imperfection

    By: Brené Brown

    What transforms this book from words on a page to effective daily practices are the ten guideposts to wholehearted living. The guideposts not only help us understand the practices that will allow us to change our lives and families, they also walk us through the unattainable and sabotaging expectations that get in the way.