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 53 books
  • Soul Talk: How to Have the Most Important Conversation of All
    • Faith & Spirituality
    Soul Talk: How to Have the Most Important Conversation of All

    By: Dr. Kirk Byron Jones

    Though your soul may be more mystery to you than familiar reality, you are not a stranger to soul moments. When you smile for no reason, know something for sure without having learned it, or feel peace amid broken pieces, your soul is manifesting itself. Your soul is your pool of deep wisdom, peace, and joy within. Your soul is the part of you God held last as God released your free flight into the world.

  • Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers
    • Faith & Spirituality
    Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers

    By: Dane C. Ortlund

    Christians know what Jesus Christ has done—but who is he? What is his deepest heart for his people, weary and faltering on their journey toward heaven? Jesus said he is “gentle and lowly in heart.” This book reflects on these words, opening up a neglected yet central truth about who he is for sinners and sufferers today.

  • Get Out of Your Own Way: Overcoming Self-Defeating Behavior
    • Anxiety & Depression
    Get Out of Your Own Way: Overcoming Self-Defeating Behavior

    By: Mark Goulston, Philip Goldberg

    Practical, proven self help steps show how to transform 40 common self-defeating behaviors, including procrastination, envy, obsession, anger, self-pity, compulsion, neediness, guilt, rebellion, inaction, and more.

  • Stop Overthinking: 23 Techniques to Relieve Stress, Stop Negative Spirals, Declutter Your Mind, and Focus on the Present
    • Anxiety & Depression
    Stop Overthinking: 23 Techniques to Relieve Stress, Stop Negative Spirals, Declutter Your Mind, and Focus on the Present (The Path to Calm)

    By: Nick Trenton

    Stop Overthinking is a book that understands where you’ve been through,the exhausting situation you’ve put yourself into, and how you lose your mind in the trap of anxiety and stress. Acclaimed author Nick Trenton will walk you through the obstacles with detailed and proven techniques to help you rewire your brain, control your thoughts, and change your mental habits.What’s more, the book will provide you scientific approaches to completely change the way you think and feel about yourself by ending the vicious thought patterns.

  • Try Softer: A Fresh Approach to Move Us out of Anxiety, Stress, and Survival Mode
    • Anxiety & Depression
    Try Softer: A Fresh Approach to Move Us out of Anxiety, Stress, and Survival Mode–and into a Life of Connection and Joy

    By: Aundi Kolber

    In a world that preaches a “try harder” gospel―just keep going, keep hustling, keep pretending we’re all fine―we’re left exhausted, overwhelmed, and so numb to our lives. If we’re honest, we’ve been overfunctioning for so long, we can’t even imagine another way. How else will things get done? How else will we survive?

  • Hope in the Dark: Believing God Is Good When Life Is Not
    • Faith & Spirituality
    Hope in the Dark: Believing God Is Good When Life Is Not

    By: Craig Groeschel

    Pastor and bestselling author Craig Groeschel hears these words often and has asked them himself. We want to know God, feel his presence, and trust that he hears our prayers, but in the midst of great pain, we may wonder if he really cares about us. Even when we have both hope and hurt, sometimes it’s the hurt that shouts the loudest.

  • 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.

  • Breaking Free from Body Shame: Dare to Reclaim What God Has Named Good
    • Faith & Spirituality
    Breaking Free from Body Shame: Dare to Reclaim What God Has Named Good

    By: Jess Connolly

    It’s one thing to know in your head that you were created in the image of God. Yet it’s quite another to experience this belief in your body, against the cultural ideals of a woman’s worth. And between the two lies a world of frustration, disappointment, and the shame of somehow feeling both too much and never enough in your body.

  • The Pain We Carry: Healing from Complex PTSD for People of Color
    • Healing & Trauma
    The Pain We Carry: Healing from Complex PTSD for People of Color

    By: Natalie Y. Gutiérrez LMFT

    If you are a person of color who has experienced repeated trauma—such as discrimination, race-related verbal assault, racial stigmatization, poverty, sexual trauma, or interpersonal violence—you may struggle with intense feelings of anger, mistrust, or shame. You may feel unsafe or uncomfortable in your own body, or struggle with building and keeping close relationships. Sometimes you may feel very alone in your pain. But you are not alone.

  • Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents
    • Healing & Trauma
    Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

    By: Lindsay C. Gibson

    In this breakthrough book, clinical psychologist Lindsay Gibson exposes the destructive nature of parents who are emotionally immature or unavailable. You will see how these parents create a sense of neglect, and discover ways to heal from the pain and confusion caused by your childhood. By freeing yourself from your parents’ emotional immaturity, you can recover your true nature, control how you react to them, and avoid disappointment. Finally, you’ll learn how to create positive, new relationships so you can build a better life.

  • 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.

  • Dare: The New Way to End Anxiety and Stop Panic Attacks
    • Anxiety & Depression
    Dare: The New Way to End Anxiety and Stop Panic Attacks

    By: Barry McDonagh

    If you’re tired of just managing your anxiety and want a powerful natural solution, then apply the ‘Dare’ technique as explained in Barry McDonagh’s latest book. Based on hard science and over 10 years helping people who suffer from anxiety, Barry McDonagh shares his most effective technique in this new book. The DARE technique can be used by everyone, regardless of age or background, to live a life free from anxiety or panic attacks

  • 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 Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read
    • Healing & Trauma
    The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did)

    By: Philippa Perry

    In this Sunday Times bestseller, leading psychotherapist Philippa Perry reveals the vital do’s and don’ts of relationships. This is a book for us all. Whether you are interested in understanding how your upbringing has shaped you, looking to handle your child’s feelings or wishing to support your partner, you will find indispensable information and realistic tips in these pages. Philippa Perry’s sane, sage and judgement-free advice is an essential resource on how to have the best possible relationships with the people who matter to you most.

  • Crazy Faith: It's Only Crazy Until It Happens
    • Faith & Spirituality
    Crazy Faith: It’s Only Crazy Until It Happens

    By: Michael Todd

    There are many things that seem normal or average today that at one point in time seemed absolutely crazy. Smartphones, Wi-Fi, and even the electric light bulb were all groundbreaking, history-making inventions that started out as crazy ideas. Our see-it-to-believe-it generation tends to have a hard time exercising true faith—one that steps out, takes action, and sees mountain-moving results. Many of us would rather play it safe and stand on the sidelines, but it’s crazy faith that helps us see God move and reveals His promises.

  • You Got This: 90 Devotions to Equip and Empower Hardworking Women
    • Faith & Spirituality
    You Got This: 90 Devotions to Equip and Empower Hardworking Women

    By: Melissa Horvath, Sweet Water Decor

    It’s easy for women to get wrapped up in all that we do and then forget who God created us to be. Whether we’re hardworking inside the home or outside the home or both we all need encouragement and grace to meet the demands life puts on us. This 90-day devotional helps women de-stress by focusing on how we’re blessed.

  • Bible Promises for Moms: Inspirational Verses of Hope & Encouragement for Christian Mothers
    • Faith & Spirituality
    Bible Promises for Moms: Inspirational Verses of Hope & Encouragement for Christian Mothers

    By: Heidi St. John

    God understands the heart of a mom, as well as the daily cares and worries that can weigh you down. No matter where you are in your mothering journey, God’s mercies and promises are for you. This pocket-size book of Scriptures provides hundreds of Bible promises that are relevant to the needs of every mother, interweaving them with personal reflections from popular author Heidi St. John.

  • All Along You Were Blooming: Thoughts for Boundless Living
    • Mindfulness & Emotional Intelligence
    All Along You Were Blooming: Thoughts for Boundless Living

    By: Morgan Harper Nichols

    A celebration of hope. An encounter with grace. A restoration of the heart. A healing of wounds. An anthem of freedom. All Along You Were Blooming is the ultimate love letter from the pen of popular Instagram poet Morgan Harper Nichols to your mind, heart, soul, and body.