Imagine we had coffee on my porch, and you asked to borrow my favorite books on healing: this is that list. This collection of books, stories and poems has offered a great deal of comfort, learning and inspiration over the years. Yes, there are so many wonderful others. This list is not exhaustive, exclusive, or clinical. It is simply the armful I collected with you in mind.

No. 1

Title: The Wisdom of Your Body

Author: Hillary McBride

Favorite line: “Being a body, seeing the self as inextricable from our physicality and our physicality as the expression of our personhood, invites us into wholeness. But when the self has been shattered and fragmented – as it has been for many of us – collecting the fragments, believing they belong to us, and naming them as good is a politically rebellious, spiritually powerful, and bio-medically healing practice.”  

No. 2

Title: The Book of Longings

Author: Sue Monk Kidd

Favorite line: “But we all have some largeness in us, don’t we? What most sets you apart is the spirit in you that rebels and persists. It isn’t the largeness in you that matters most, it’s your passion to bring it forth.”

No. 3

Title: Bittersweet

Author: Susan Cain

Favorite line: “Longing itself is divine… Longing for worldly things makes you inert. Longing for Infinity fills you with life. The skill is to bear the pain of longing and move on. True longing brings up spurts of bliss.”

No. 4

Title: Miracles and Other Reasonable Things 

Author: Sarah Bessey

Favorite line: “The end of the story isn’t our bruising, it is our healing. The bruised reed is strengthened and becomes a mighty cedar; the smoldering wick becomes a roaring bonfire. The offering isn’t the end, the tenderness has a purpose, the healing and wholeness means that even broken flowers become the wildflower in the desert, the faltering flame lights the world.” 

No. 5

Title: The Sun and Her Flowers

Author: Rupi Kaur

Favorite poem:

i woke up thinking the work was done

i would not have to practice today 

how naive to think healing was that easy 

when there is no end point

no finish line to cross

healing is everyday work

No. 6

Title: Mothers, Daughters & Body Image

Author: Hillary McBride

Favorite line: “One of the best ways we can love ourselves is to give ourselves what we didn’t have. And one of the best ways we can love our children, and those close to us, is to give ourselves, and each other, what we didn’t have. We don’t need to be perfect to do any of this. We can do it all, as we are.”

No. 7

Title: Neon Soul

Author: Alex Elle

Favorite poem:

there will be moments when 

you will bloom fully and then 

wilt, only to bloom again. 

if we can learn anything from 

flowers it is that resilience is born 

even when we feel like we are 

dying. 

I would love to know, what are some of your favorites?

Happy reading, love.

Bethany