A few months ago I began requesting signed copies of my podcast guests books (offering to pay for the book and shipping, obviously). Many of my guests have gifted their word works of art to me and I consider this collection a treasure. Thinking about this stack of books I have embarked on reading, I am in awe of the amount of hope flowing through the words printed upon their pages. Books on triumph over trauma, some with flare and adventure, others with baby steps and quiet fortitude; books filled with guidance; books that may trigger yet offer strategies; books from a helper’s perspective and others from a survivor’s. Books overflowing with hope, healing, help, and happy endings.
I want to thank these beautiful souls for sharing their brilliant insights with the world. I wish them continued success in reaching those who most need their messages of hope. I wish us all a life filled with tranquility and joy as we travel our individual healing journeys, finding these hands to hold along the way, through books or podcasts or coaching or therapy sessions or a friend’s hug.
Following are 21 of my podcast guests’ books for your review (in order of podcast appearance):
Teri Barila: Community Resilience Initiative Interview
From the Community Resilience Initiative Website: Our Super Heroes book introduces ten very special children, facing challenging life experiences such as homelessness and bullying. Beautiful child-friendly graphics show why it is important to understand how our brains respond to stress, and how we can learn to manage our responses by building a toolkit of strategies. This is an interactive book, encouraging use of the 42 resilience strategies from the child-focused deck of cards, from a child’s perspective. Coming soon in Spanish!
Stephanie McPhail: Being Loved Shouldn’t Hurt Interview
Amazon excerpt: Stephanie McPhail, M.S. wrote “Being Loved Shouldn’t Hurt” to help inspire others to live their best lives now. She begins with a very revealing personal recollection of her own toxic relationships and describes how they affected her on a deep level. In the wake of her last toxic relationship, she experienced depression, legal issues, and a major health scare. Feeling hopeless and alone, she finally made a conscious decision to begin changing and truly create her best life possible. Stephanie shares her struggles and triumphs with readers. The book also includes three other personal stories of triumph after a very difficult past. Part 2 focuses on defining codependency, understanding why people stay in unhealthy relationships, what are red flags and deal breakers, and how to begin the healing process. Stephanie also reflects on the many lessons that she learned from her life experience. Take advantage of the helpful guides at the end of the book to keep you focused on your healing journey!
Bob Lancer: Seven Mindsets Interview
Amazon excerpt: Putting off happiness is all that keeps you feeling unhappy, unsuccessful, depressed, discouraged, angry, deprived or insecure. This book shows you how to accept happiness now, and how happiness empowers you to create the conditions in life that you have been unhappily counting on to bring you happiness.
Belinda Farrell: Huna Healing Interview
Amazon excerpt:
“Belinda Farrell is a courageous woman sharing personal woes so that others may find strength in their own journey. She lights the path of hope, brightens the realm of despair and embraces the act of survival. Cal-Berkeley graduate, Mom,”Snow White,” almost CIA agent, stunt car driver, actor, writer, hot coal walker, Huna teacher, wild dolphin swim guide, she’s a New Millennia Renaissance woman offering good health and holistic healing. Her new book Find Your Friggin’Joy is not for the faint of heart, but a manual for those brave enough to confront their demons, face their feelings, and exalt their potential.”
-Broderick Perkins, Executive Editor at DeadlineNews.com
This book takes you on a journey using Ancient Hawaiian Teachings that invite the reader to take personal responsibility to unplug from the old non-productive stories and step into the frequencies of your Higher Self. Connecting with these frequencies can heal your physical body, bring you back into balance, lighten your load, and fulfill your soul’s purpose. It’s all up to YOU!
When Belinda was forty eight she collapsed with herniated discs and spinal nerve damage. Threatened with paralysis by her medical doctors if she didn’t have surgery, Belinda instead chose to apply the ancient Hawaiian healing practices she had been learning for the past three years which are covered in this book. Her back completely healed including childhood scoliosis.
Belinda retired from stunt car driving and, for fifteen years has been sharing these healing practices with others. She offers Reconnective Healing and Huna in Santa Cruz, Ca. and takes clients to Hawaii to teach Huna and swim with wild spinner dolphins. The dolphins help us to dissolve fear with an open heart expanding our reality through their vibrational tones so that we experience our deepest joy.
Lucia Giovannini: A Whole New Life Interview
Amazon excerpt: An encouraging and transformational guide for living your best, ideal life.
If you wish to follow your heart but don’t know where to start, this book will provide you with the tools needed to finally choose the life you’ve always wanted. If you feel that change is too hard, complicated, or altogether impossible, this book will help you overcome obstacles in a step-by-step, easy-to-understand guide. A Whole New Life teaches you how to turn dreams into achievable goals and how to develop flexibility without losing your sense of direction. In this book, you’ll learn how to identify and eliminate mechanisms that bring you to a standstill, recognizing challenges that evoke fear and anxiety or hinder your full self-realization. This book is first a promise, then an idea, a series of steps and, in the end, an uplifting reality.
“Wow! This is the most insightful and profound book on life and change in many, many years. Clear observations, wise insights and unjudging tone, sprinkled with amazing quotes and relatable anecdotes. Very powerful. Highly recommended.”
—Derek Sivers, Author, Ted speaker, founder and former president of CD Baby
“A Whole New Life is the guide you have been looking for. It inspires you to say yes to your life and your dreams.”
—Patricia J. Crane, Ph.D., Author, Master Trainer – Heal Your Life® Training in Louise Hay’s philosophy, San Diego, CA, USA
“Lucia’s voice, her incredible passion for shining the light over others is contagious. A Whole New Lifegives life and a second chance to those wanting to live beyond themselves.”
—Ajit Nawalkha, Co-founder of Mindvalley & Evercoach, Bestselling Author of LIVE BIG
Dr. Greg Williams: Shattered by the Darkness Interview
Amazon excerpt: Brutal Sexual Abuse. Fear. Betrayal. Shame.
After enduring daily sexual abuse for over twelve years, can there be any hope?
In Shattered by the Darkness: Putting the Pieces Back Together after Child Abuse, author Dr. Gregory Williams shares his dark and horrific childhood of sexual abuse and fifty-year journey of trying to put the pieces of his life back together.
The vital lessons learned in the process of finally stepping out of the emotional darkness and into the light will give you strength to ultimately open the deepest parts of your heart and find the courage to face your own personal darkness. Today is the day to take your life back!
Discover that no matter what abuse, hurt, pain, or betrayal you have experienced, you no longer have to live your life Shattered by the Darkness. This empowering book transforms the silence of shame into a rallying cry for hope and healing.
Dean Walker: Living Resilience Interview
Amazon excerpt: The Impossible Conversation is that we carry those data and projections into our hearts and discover how to keep our hearts open even when we consider the most challenging aspects of our present and near future. In The Impossible Conversation we are invited to intimately reconnect: with our own inner wisdom, with the miracle that is every other human and with our magnificent, magnanimous Earth. I urge you to take this book into your heart and allow it to become part of your blood and bones.
Carolyn Baker. PhD., author of Collapsing Consciously: Transformative Truths for Turbulent Times and Dark Gold: The Human Shadow and the Global Crisis.
Craig K. Comstock, Huffington Post. In Walker’s book, what a relief to see the situation defined not as a “problem” that can be “solved,” but as a “predicament” that we must live with. The kinds of “reconnection” described by Walker (reconnection with: deeper self, others and Earth) would be attractive even if the situation were normal. Given our situation, they are necessary. Some of the climate scientists quoted by Walker suggest it’s too late to prevent disaster. From now on, we can only grieve what we have inadvertently done: grieve, and live intensely; behave well as we witness the gathering storm. Very few people want to accept this, and prefer to persist as if our way of life could continue. Besides, as someone always says just before the attempted conversation dribbles away, “what can one person do?” Walker has some answers, which go less to preventing disaster, than to living with the knowledge of what’s happening. Walker praises reconnection with the deeper self, with other people, and with nature. The (workshop and coaching) project announced by Walker and Carolyn Baker (in The Impossible Conversation) is based on the practice of psychotherapy, a knowledge of history, and experience in organizational consulting. For readers, their books offer some of the very best ideas for the enlargement of a community that can make the “conversation” more possible.
In The Impossible Conversation, Dean Walker recounts his transformational journey from his first contact with the shocking data and projections of Abrupt Climate Change – to the mind blowing awareness of the full scope of the global problems and predicaments we all must face. As we engage in The Impossible Conversation we begin to grapple with questions that really matter: “How did we get ourselves and our planet-home into these predicaments?” and “What are the inner skills and capacities that are called for as we confront our global problems and predicaments?” and “How does my life change as I witness the collapse of our environmental and human systems?” and “How can we come together to regain our long lost sense of agency in life?” and “What are the qualities of presence and relationship I can bring to my family, community, workplace, local environment, as I stand with new purpose in the face of our predicaments.?”
The Impossible Conversation is not another feel-good guide to our quick return to a thriving economy and business as usual. It is a sober look at how our business as usual paradigm is, in fact, what has driven us to the brink. The Impossible Conversation is deeply committed to keeping it real as we explore together, how to contact the immense power of human beings who are willing to intentionally break open their hearts and profoundly reconnect with their deeper selves, the people around them, and the miraculous web of life on this glorious planet-home, Earth.
Joyelle Brandt: Parenting with PTSD Interview
Amazon excerpt: Parenting with PTSD is an anthology and workbook for parents who are survivors of childhood abuse. Editors Joyelle Brandt and Dawn Daum are survivors of childhood abuse working to break the cycle for their own families. Raising children as an abuse survivor is often a lonely and isolating experience, as the triggers and flashbacks of abuse can be hard for non-survivors to understand. When they were looking for stories of how other survivors coped, and couldn’t find any, they decided that something needed to change. So together they started an online community specifically for parent survivors, and started collecting essays to create Parenting with PTSD. Breaking the silence allows for an honest conversation about the lifetime journey of healing from childhood trauma. This is a combination of essays, journal questions, and recommended resources. It is intended to be a starting point to more conversations about how we can heal both individually and within our families, communities, and institutions. Our Mission: 1. To build a supportive community for parenting survivors, normalize the PTSD responses they may be having, and share resources for healing from adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) or other traumatic events. 2. To educate professionals working in the fields of physical, mental, and social health about common triggers that arise for parents with PTSD, and the challenges they experience while working to break cycles of generational dysfunction and abuse. 3. To help partners and families better understand the experience of parenting for abuse survivors.
Dr. Leslie Cole: Quit Pain Pills Without the Withdrawal Interview
Website excerpt: What if I told you that today you could buy this eBook for $25, and by utilizing the educational information and guidance in the book for your own self-improvement, it’s possible for you to finally stop the cycle of fending off withdrawal?
What if I told you that by buying this eBook, and taking steps to implement the information and guidance provided in the book for your own self-improvement, you could save yourself anywhere from $100 to over $1000 per day by stopping your purchase of street opiates?
Too many people wait five years, ten years, twenty years to face their addiction.
You could decide right now to take control of your future.
Jason Lee: Living with the Dragon Interview
Amazon excerpt: In Living with the Dragon, Jason Lee gives an honest and brave account of his life. As a Canadian-born Chinese man in his forties, Lee was raised in a household rife with physical and emotional abuse. He recounts stories of torment, angry outbursts, and beatings in his home that made him feel humiliated and unloved from a young age. Bullying at school and a complicated relationship with his brother who has schizophrenia added to Lee’s feelings of worthlessness and shame.
With stunning vulnerability, Lee confesses to his own emotionally abusive behaviour as an adult. He also shares about his personal struggles with depression and anxiety that he only came to realize in recent years. Through the hard work of counselling, group therapy, meditation, and practices of self-compassion, Lee has turned his life around in remarkable ways.
In Living with the Dragon, he shares lessons and tools for breaking the chain of abuse from one generation to the next. As Lee writes, “There is no greater feeling than liberation and being able to live your most honest self.” This powerful memoir will embolden you to find freedom and healing by facing the truth of your own inner life.
Karen Zilberstein: Parents Under Pressure Interview
Amazon excerpt: One in six American children live in poverty. One in six struggle with a developmental disability. An estimated 70 percent of American adults have experienced a traumatic event. Despite the overwhelming prevalence of these circumstances, societal expectations and the country’s fragmented, under-resourced service systems make it nearly impossible for families experiencing hardship to keep up. In many cases, the system makes their situation worse. In her book, Zilberstein, Clinical Director of the Northampton, Massachusetts chapter of A Home Within, provides a candid look at how parents contending with poverty, illness, disability, or other constraints are expected to do so much with so little-and the price they and society pay. Through the unforgettable portraits of six overburdened families, Parents Under Pressure shows how health crises can quickly devolve into the loss of jobs and homes, how public perceptions of poor people hamper the chances for a better life, and the ways in which race and income affect access to assistance. Judged by family, friends and professionals who question their abilities and choices, parents feel inadequate and drained, rather than supported.
Jim Sporleder: Trauma-Informed Consulting and Paper Tigers Interview
Amazon excerpt: The Trauma-Informed School is an all-inclusive guide designed to give school administrators of any school (elementary, middle or high school), step-by-step instructions of how to turn a school of any size into a trauma-informed school. With over 250 pages of content, this guide gives you the protocols you need along with a link to download all the documents needed for a successful implementation.
This well written and well-organized guide was developed from the vast experience of a nationally recognized retired school principal and school consultant (Jim Sporleder) and a nationally recognized trauma expert (Heather T. Forbes, LCSW). The combined work of these two authors is a winning combination that will equip and empower you to become a trailblazer in the area of trauma-informed education.
Jaz Ampaw-Farr: Everyday Hero Interview
Amazon exerpt: Pinpoints and celebrates the vital role that educators have in instilling ambitious resilience both in their learners and themselves.
Growing up in poverty, and neglected and abused by her own parents, Jaz Ampaw-Farr was destined to become a statistic. Her story was changed, however, by a handful of teachers who made the point of putting human connection first despite the challenges of the education system.
Because of these people, Jaz went on to become a teacher, writer and international speaker who, through celebration and provocation, engages and galvanises educators into embracing the difference that they can make when they put being a human first too. In ‘Because Of You, This’ is Me Jaz shares her story often harrowing but always uplifting to show the ways in which the everyday heroes in our schools can empower those children who need their help the most.
Suitable for all educators.
Amit Janco: (Un)Bound Together Interview
Amazon excerpt: Four years after falling from a bridge in Cambodia, Amit Janco set off, like thousands before her, on a journey of physical healing along the legendary Camino de Santiago. What was slated to be little more than a restorative hike across the undulating terrain of northern Spain, would become an unexpectedly gratifying, comical, and, at times, emotionally tumultuous odyssey through physical and emotional recovery, into the very heart and soul of her existence.If you loved WILD by Cheryl Strayed, TRACKS by Robyn Davidson, EAT PRAY LOVE by Elizabeth Gilbert, or I’LL PUSH YOU by Justin Skeesuck and Patrick Gray, you will also love Amit Janco’s (Un)Bound, Together: A Journey to the End of the Earth (and Beyond).
Donna Jenson: Healing My Life-From Incest to Joy Interview
Amazon excerpt: In chronicling the physical and spiritual steps she took to reclaim her life and peel away the layers of damage done by incest, Jenson has written a powerful narrative of one person’s healing journey. And though the subject matter is deeply serious, Jenson writes with her sense of humor firmly intact, reminding us that joy is possible in the face of great pain. Poignant, brave, and helpful, Healing My Life offers a much-needed testimony for anyone affected by or concerned about childhood sexual abuse. “Healing My Life is a story that is unique and personal in its detail, yet also universal and human in its impact. If we could raise even one generation without violence or shaming, we have no idea what might be possible.” -Gloria Steinem
David J. Kenney: Kid Epics Interview
Amazon excerpt: Based on a true story, Some Way Home is a tale of love and redemption. It depicts the healing of an abused and neglected boy named Dylan. It is a story depicting a dark night’s journey into bright day. Many adults, who try to help along his way, do more harm than good. Until a gullible couple adopt him at five years old. These ‘Forever Parents’ rise to the challenge of parenting a boy in danger of being lost forever. This novel takes a hard look at the inner workings of both the family and the foster care system meant to protect children. It delineates the price society pays when that system does not achieve the results it should. Some Way Home is a passionate portrayal of adoptive parents struggling to heal a child devastated by trauma. It takes its readers through the highs of victory and the inevitable emotional lows of relapse and failure. In the end, the reader is left with an unfathomable victory obtained through enduring compassion.
Amazon excerpt: Crossing In-finity will help parents,teachers, and all students of human behavior understand the effects ofemotional injuries on the developing personality. It will illustrate the thinking and learning of the developing child and lay a clear path to recovery from rage and shame to trust and forgiveness. Crossing In-finity is based on the experience of David J. Kenney, a foster dad, adoptive parent and child psychologist. It is dedicated to healthy emotional development. At certain developmental times, the traumas of early childhood have specific sets of possible effects onthe emergent ego. These effects have impact on the personality in definite ways, which lead to predictable behavior patterns. These are knowable.Therefore, we can act in a strategic way to redirect growth towards well being.In this manner, we can immunize the abused or abandoned child against significant mental disorders as adults. Much has been written concerning mental illness. Book after book, edition after edition of working manuals are dedicated to describing what sickness is in profound minutia. As a society,we’ve spent an uncounted fortune in time and money on investigating what we don’t want but have given little or no thought to what we do. Crossing Infinity attempts to improve this imbalance.
Janyne McConnaughey: Brave Interview
Amazon excerpt: ‘The story of a successful journey from broken and dissociative to integrated and fully aware.’ This personal memoir describes a woman’s journey through pyschotherapy. In middle age, Janyne began to sense that her wonderful, successful life was a cover for deep inner pain she called ‘the dark cloud.’ During her first EMDR therapy session, three fractured adult parts made a perfect three-point landing in her conscious awareness. Thus began three years of intensive therapy, as she fought to heal from sexual abuse that began in a home daycare at the age of three. With a sometimes conflicted faith in God, and with the support of both her therapist and her husband, Janyne fought to heal and integrate.
This is Janyne’s story but also a tribute to how a therapist and client worked together as a team to heal attachment wounds and increasingly tragic memories. Insights into the early wiring of unmet attachment needs, as well as dissociative coping mechanisms, are included throughout. Both pain and hope for healing are present on every page. Janyne is both vulnerable and triumphant in her writing and will help her readers believe healing from childhood trauma is possible.
Amazon excerpt: The author interweaves her own dissociative-personality story and her expertise in child development with beloved literary characters to demonstrate how she worked to re-frame the unhealthy messages she internalized as a child. This healing process cleared a path to behavioral change, forgiveness, growing faith, and the rediscovery of simple joys. The unfolding relationship between the author and her child self, Jeannie, illustrates the dedication, trials, and triumphs inherent in developing an attachment relationship that is necessary for full healing.
Kathleen Hanagan: Loveseed Interview
Amazon excerpt: The Most Powerful Thing You Can Do is Be Fully Yourself. Indigenous societies believe that we each possess original medicine, a kind of personal power, that is ours and ours alone. The greatest challenge of our lives is to find the seed of that power and let it bloom. Combining dramatic real- life experiences with mythic tales, Kathleen Hanagan draws on her 30 years as a psychotherapist, modern mystic, and spiritual adventurer to weave the threads of ancient wisdom with today’s intelligence. As you read, you will learn how to discover and grow your Loveseed, and then, shine its brilliant light by living with loving kindness, generosity, and truth.
Rachel Grant: Beyond Surviving Interview
Amazon excerpt: For survivors of childhood sexual abuse who are sick and tired of feeling broken, unfixable, and burdened by the past. Learn to let go of the pain of sexual abuse and finally feel normal.
Author Rachel Grant brings to the table a passionate belief that you do not have to remain trapped or confronted daily by the thoughts or behaviors that result from abuse. Through her own journey of recovery from sexual abuse, she has gained insight and understanding about what it takes to overcome abuse. This makes it possible for her to relate to and appreciate your struggles intimately.
The Beyond Surviving guidebook is specifically designed to change the way we think about and heal from abuse. Based on her educational training, study of neuroscience, and lessons learned from her own journey, readers have successfully used the guidebook to break free from the past and move on with their lives.
Through completing the guidebook, you will:
* Train in techniques for identifying the lies that abuse taught you about yourself
* Learn strategies for breaking free of patterns of thought or behavior
* Let go of shame, guilt, and any belief that the abuse was your fault
* Release your anger, loneliness, and fear of abandonment
* Develop strong communication skills and self-confidence
* Learn how to trust again, set boundaries, and enjoy intimate relationships
* Reconnect with your genuine self and feel normal
Beyond Surviving enables survivors of sexual abuse to take back their rights and realize their own ability to make powerful choices about who they are and how they live. This guidebook offers an opportunity to reach the final stage of recovery and begin living authentically and free from the burdens of past experiences.
Thank you for sharing these inspirational books and podcast interviews! I would love to have you join me on a Hope for Healing Journey at www.teriwellbrock.com.
