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 49 books
  • Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind
    • Anxiety & Depression
    Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind

    By: Judson Brewer

    Distilling more than 20 years of research and hands-on work with thousands of patients, including Olympic athletes and coaches, and leaders in government and business, Dr. Brewer has created a clear, solution-oriented program that anyone can use to feel better – no matter how anxious they feel.

  • 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.

  • Prayer Journal for Women: 52 Week Scripture, Devotional & Guided Prayer Journal
    • Faith & Spirituality
    Prayer Journal for Women: 52 Week Scripture, Devotional & Guided Prayer Journal

    By: Shannon Roberts, Paige Tate & Co

    Prayer Journal for Women: 52 Weeks Scripture, Devotional, & Guided Prayer Journal includes Scripture verses, reflections on the Word, and journaling prompts to guide your walk with God and strengthen your faith.

  • Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity
    • Faith & Spirituality
    Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity

    By: Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith

    How can you keep your energy, happiness, creativity, and relationships fresh and thriving in the midst of never-ending family demands, career pressures, and the stress of everyday life? In Sacred Rest, Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith, a board-certified internal medicine doctor, reveals why rest can no longer remain optional.

  • No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model
    • Healing & Trauma
    No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model

    By: Richard Schwartz Ph.D., Alanis Morissette

    Is there just one “you”? We’ve been taught to believe we have a single identity, and to feel fear or shame when we can’t control the inner voices that don’t match the ideal of who we think we should be. Yet Dr. Richard Schwartz’s research now challenges this “mono-mind” theory. “All of us are born with many sub-minds―or parts,” says Dr. Schwartz. “These parts are not imaginary or symbolic. They are individuals who exist as an internal family within us―and the key to health and happiness is to honor, understand, and love every part.”

  • Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help YouFind - and Keep - Love
    • Anxiety & Depression
    Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help YouFind – and Keep – Love

    By: Amir Levine, Rachel Heller

    We already rely on science to tell us what to eat, when to exercise, and how long to sleep. Why not use science to help us improve our relationships? In this revolutionary book, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr. Amir Levine and Rachel Heller scientifically explain why why some people seem to navigate relationships effortlessly, while others struggle.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Calm Your Thoughts: Stop Overthinking, Stop Stressing, Stop Spiraling, and Start Living
    • Anxiety & Depression
    Calm Your Thoughts: Stop Overthinking, Stop Stressing, Stop Spiraling, and Start Living (The Path to Calm)

    By: Nick Trenton

    Calm Your Thoughts 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.

  • 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.

  • Help Me, I'm Stuck: Six Proven Methods to Shift Your Mindset From Self-Sabotage to Self-Improvement
    • Anxiety & Depression
    Help Me, I’m Stuck: Six Proven Methods to Shift Your Mindset From Self-Sabotage to Self-Improvement

    By: Vaughn Carter

    Are you dispirited and unfocused? Do you catch yourself being too harsh of a critic on your own actions? Do you want to change how you think about yourself but feel lost? If you found the above questions relatable, then there’s a good chance you’re stuck in a self-sabotaging mindset – one that revolves around negative thoughts that limit you from growing.

  • 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.

  • Emotional Self-Care for Black Women: Discover How to Raise Your Self-Esteem, Eliminate Negative Thinking and Heal from Past Traumas Even if Your Life is Chaotic Right Now
    • Healing & Trauma
    Emotional Self-Care for Black Women: Discover How to Raise Your Self-Esteem, Eliminate Negative Thinking and Heal from Past Traumas Even if Your Life is Chaotic Right Now

    By: Alicia Magoro

    Have you been feeling like you can never get a break? Are your days full of conflict and challenges that you constantly have to fight and overcome? Are you tired of riding the rollercoaster of anger, fear, frustration, and overwhelm and wish you could just take a step back from your problems? Being a black woman today comes with unique struggles that others don’t even know about. You face the discrimination that both women and people of color encounter. Your needs are often belittled or dismissed. You have to battle against a lot of unhelpful labels and limitations imposed on you by society.

  • The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
    • Healing & Trauma
    The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

    By: Bessel van der Kolk M.D.

    Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Decolonizing the Body: Healing, Body-Centered Practices for Women of Color to Reclaim Confidence, Dignity, and Self-Worth
    • Healing & Trauma
    Decolonizing the Body: Healing, Body-Centered Practices for Women of Color to Reclaim Confidence, Dignity, and Self-Worth

    By: Kelsey Blackwell

    As a woman of color, you are more likely to experience oppression, discrimination, and physical or sexual violence in your lifetime. In addition, your family may have experienced generational trauma and systemic racism going back for centuries. This old and new trauma can manifest in both the mind and body. However, there are ways you can free yourself from this trauma, build confidence in yourself and your abilities, and restore your powerful sense of self.

  • 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.