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 35 books
  • Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again
    • Boundaries
    Forgiving What You Can’t Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again

    By: Lysa TerKeurst

    Have you ever felt stuck in a cycle of unresolved pain, playing offenses over and over in your mind? You know you can’t go on like this, but you don’t know what to do next. Lysa TerKeurst has wrestled through this journey. But in surprising ways, she’s discovered how to let go of bound-up resentment and overcome the resistance to forgiving people who aren’t willing to make things right.

  • The Sugar Jar: Create Boundaries, Embrace Self-Healing, and Enjoy the Sweet Things in Life
    • Boundaries
    The Sugar Jar: Create Boundaries, Embrace Self-Healing, and Enjoy the Sweet Things in Life

    By: Yasmine Cheyenne

    Imagine a glass jar filled with sugar on a kitchen counter. You are the jar, and the sugar is your energy. If the jar has no lid, people can come in and take as much sugar as they want. Sometimes, they spill that sugar all over. You may try to refill your jar—replenish your energy—through self-care, but because there is no a lid—no protective boundary—you cannot control how much of your vital life force is being drained.

  • The Racial Healing Handbook: Practical Activities to Help You Challenge Privilege, Confront Systemic Racism, and Engage in Collective Healing
    • Healing & Trauma
    The Racial Healing Handbook: Practical Activities to Help You Challenge Privilege, Confront Systemic Racism, and Engage in Collective Healing

    By: Anneliese A. Singh PhD LPC

    The Racial Healing Handbook offers practical tools to help you navigate daily and past experiences of racism, challenge internalized negative messages and privileges, and handle feelings of stress and shame. You’ll also learn to develop a profound racial consciousness and conscientiousness, and heal from grief and trauma. Most importantly, you’ll discover the building blocks to creating a community of healing in a world still filled with racial microaggressions and discrimination.

  • No-Drama Discipline: The Whole-Brain Way to Calm the Chaos and Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind
    • Parenting & Family
    No-Drama Discipline: The Whole-Brain Way to Calm the Chaos and Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind

    By: Daniel J. Siegel, Tina Payne Bryson

    Highlighting the fascinating link between a child’s neurological development and the way a parent reacts to misbehavior, No-Drama Discipline provides an effective, compassionate road map for dealing with tantrums, tensions, and tears—without causing a scene.

  • 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.

  • 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 Forgiveness Workbook: Cultivate Compassion, Release Resentment, and Find Peace
    • Boundaries
    The Forgiveness Workbook: Cultivate Compassion, Release Resentment, and Find Peace

    By: Ilene S. Cohen PhD

    Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting what happened or returning to the way things were before: it means choosing to release resentment and live a freer, happier life. For anyone seeking a starting point on the path to forgiving themselves or someone else, The Forgiveness Workbook can light the way.

  • Raising Good Humans: A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting and Raising Kind, Confident Kids
    • Parenting & Family
    Raising Good Humans: A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting and Raising Kind, Confident Kids

    By: Hunter Clarke-Fields MSAE, Carla Naumburg PhD

    With this book, you’ll find powerful mindfulness skills for calming your own stress response when difficult emotions arise. You’ll also discover strategies for cultivating respectful communication, effective conflict resolution, and reflective listening. In the process, you’ll learn to examine your own unhelpful patterns and ingrained reactions that reflect the generational habits shaped by your parents, so you can break the cycle and respond to your children in more skillful ways.

  • Good Boundaries and Goodbyes: Loving Others Without Losing the Best of Who You Are
    • Boundaries
    Good Boundaries and Goodbyes: Loving Others Without Losing the Best of Who You Are

    By: Lysa TerKeurst

    Is it unloving or selfish to set a boundary with family members or friends? Are Christians ever called to walk away from a relationship that’s no longer safe or sustainable? #1 New York Times bestselling author Lysa TerKeurst deeply understands these hard questions in the midst of relational struggles. After thousands of hours of counseling intensives and extensive theological research that transformed the way she defined healthy relationships, Lysa is now more committed than ever to loving people well without losing the best of who she is.

  • The Set Boundaries Workbook: Practical Exercises for Understanding Your Needs and Setting Healthy Limits
    • Boundaries
    The Set Boundaries Workbook: Practical Exercises for Understanding Your Needs and Setting Healthy Limits

    By: Nedra Glover Tawwab

    We all want to have healthy boundaries. But what does that really mean – and what steps are needed to implement them in our daily lives? Sought-after therapist and relationship expert Nedra Glover Tawwab presents clear explanations and interactive exercises to help you gain insight and then put it into action.

    • Boundaries
    Boundaries Workbook: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life

    By: Henry Cloud, John Townsend

    This companion guide to Boundaries by Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend provides practical readings and prompts that will encourage you and teach you how to set healthy, necessary boundaries with your parents, spouse, children, friends, bosses, coworkers, social media, and more in order to help you become the best version of yourself.

  • 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.”

  • 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.

  • 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 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.

  • The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom
    • Boundaries
    The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom

    By: Don Miguel Ruiz

    In The Four Agreements, bestselling author don Miguel Ruiz reveals the source of self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering. Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, The Four Agreements offer a powerful code of conduct that can rapidly transform our lives to a new experience of freedom, true happiness, and love.

  • Drama Free: A Guide to Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships
    • Boundaries
    Drama Free: A Guide to Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships

    By: Nedra Glover Tawwab

    Every family has a story. For some of us, our family of origin is a solid foundation that feeds our confidence and helps us navigate life’s challenges. For others, it’s a source of pain, hurt, and conflict that can feel like a lifelong burden. In this empowering guide, licensed therapist and bestselling relationship expert Nedra Glover Tawwab offers clear advice for identifying dysfunctional family patterns and choosing the best path to breaking the cycle and moving forward.