“A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors.”

– Charles Baudelaire

Shame Resilience, Self Esteem & Identity & Authenticity

• The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are – by  Brené Brown

-Brene’s foundational book that introduces shame resilience theory and her ten guideposts to Wholehearted Living.

Marriage & Intimate Relationships

• The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country’s Foremost Relationship Expert by John Gottman & Nan Silver

-This book is based off of the author’s study of couples over a period of years that allowed him to observe the habits that can make and break  a marriage. These principles teach partners new approaches for resolving conflicts, creating new common ground, and achieving greater levels of intimacy. Gottman offers strategies and resources to help couples collaborate more effectively to resolve any problem including issues of sex, money, work and  family.

• The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts by Gary Chapman

-Dr. Gary Chapman’s proven approach to showing and receiving love will help you experience deeper and richer levels of intimacy with your partner.  Includes the Couple’s Personal Profile assessment so you can discover your love language and that of your loved one.

Parenting

• How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish

-This bestselling classic includes  innovative ways to solve a multitude of parenting challenges including how to cope with your child’s negative feelings, express your strong feelings without being hurtful, engage your child’s willing cooperation and set firm limits and maintain goodwill, use alternatives to punishment that promote self-discipline.

• Parenting From The Inside Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive  by Daniel J. Siegel

-The authors explore the extent to which our childhood experiences shape the way we parent by drawing on neurobiology and attachment research, they explain how interpersonal relationships directly impact the brain, and offer parents a step-by-step approach to forming a deeper understanding of their own life stories, to help them raise compassionate and resilient children.

• The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind  by Daniel J. Siegel & Tina Payne Bryson

-Authors share their approach to child rearing with twelve key strategies that foster healthy brain development, leading to calmer, happier children. The authors explain—and make accessible—the new science of how a child’s brain is wired and how it matures.  Complete with age-appropriate strategies for dealing with day-to-day struggles and illustrations that will help you explain these concepts to your child, this book shows you how to cultivate healthy emotional and intellectual development so that your children can lead balanced, meaningful, and connected lives.

• The Whole-Brain Child Workbook: Practical Exercises, Worksheets and Activitis to Nurture Developing Minds (Practical Excercises, Worksheets and Activities to Nurture) 

-This workbook has an interactive approach to allows readers to think more deeply about how the ideas fit their own parenting approach and to develop specific and practical ways to implement the concepts,

• Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting by Dr. Laura Markham

-I love this author’s message: Fostering emotional connection with your child creates real and lasting change. When you have that vital connection, you don’t need to threaten, nag, plead, bribe—or even punish.  This book will help parents better understand their own emotions, and get them in check, so they can parent with healthy limits, empathy, and clear communication to raise a self-disciplined child. Step-by-step examples included.

Trauma

• The Body Keeps The Score by Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D.

-Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In his book 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 Body Keeps the Score exposes the tremendous power of our relationships both to hurt and to heal, and offers new hope for reclaiming lives.

“I guess there are never enough books.”

– John Steinbeck