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 44 books
  • 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.

  • Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto
    • Mindfulness & Emotional Intelligence
    Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto

    By: Tricia Hersey

    In Rest Is Resistance, Tricia Hersey, aka the Nap Bishop, casts an illuminating light on our troubled relationship with rest and how to imagine and dream our way to a future where rest is exalted. Our worth does not reside in how much we produce, especially not for a system that exploits and dehumanizes us. Rest, in its simplest form, becomes an act of resistance and a reclaiming of power because it asserts our most basic humanity. We are enough. The systems cannot have us.

  • 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.”

  • 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.

  • 100 Days of Believing Bigger: Devotional Journal
    • Faith & Spirituality
    100 Days of Believing Bigger: Devotional Journal

    By: Marshawn Evans Daniels

    Join reinvention strategist and life coach, Marshawn Evans Daniels on a 100 day devotional, journaling, prayer adventure and discover your true identity.

  • How to Listen with Intention: The Foundation of True Connection, Communication, and Relationships
    • Mindfulness & Emotional Intelligence
    How to Listen with Intention: The Foundation of True Connection, Communication, and Relationships (How to be More Likable and Charismatic)

    By: Patrick King

    How to Listen with Intention is ultimately a book about relationships. A relationship must be give-and-take – are you taking more than you are giving? Are you making people feel comfortable opening up to you? Are you listening well, or unwittingly being a conversational/relationship narcissist?It’s time to ask these difficult questions and learn the skills to not only help people in times of need, but create new friendships with just about anyone — after all, who doesn’t like to be heard?

  • 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 Conscious Parent: Transforming Ourselves, Empowering Our Children
    • Parenting & Family
    The Conscious Parent: Transforming Ourselves, Empowering Our Children

    By: Dr. Shefali Tsabary

    Instead of being merely the receiver of the parents’ psychological and spiritual legacy, children function as ushers of the parents’ development. Parents unwittingly pass on an inheritance of psychological pain and emotional shallowness. To handle the behavior that results, traditional books on parenting abound with clever techniques for control and quick fixes for dysfunction. In Dr. Shefali Tsabary’s conscious approach to parenting, however, children serve as mirrors of their parents’ forgotten self. Those willing to look in the mirror have an opportunity to establish a relationship with their own inner state of wholeness.

  • Woman Evolve: Break Up with Your Fears and Revolutionize Your Life
    • Faith & Spirituality
    Woman Evolve: Break Up with Your Fears and Revolutionize Your Life

    By: Sarah Jakes Roberts

    Everyone faces trials, and everyone will mess up. But failure should not be the focus. Your focus should not be on who you were but rather the pursuit of who you can become. In Woman Evolve, Sarah helps you understand that your purpose in life does not change; it evolves.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself
    • Healing & Trauma
    Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

    By: Melody Beattie

    Melody Beattie’s compassionate and insightful look into codependency—the concept of losing oneself in the name of helping another— has helped millions of readers understand that they are powerless to change anyone but themselves and that caring for the self is where healing begins.