Top Reads for Navigating Your Self-Healing Journey

Starting along a journey of self-healing involves finding your way on your personal exploration of self-discovery. It will mean opening yourself up to change and growth — and a path that at first seems uncertain. As you turn your focus inward and work to shed the beliefs and habits that have pushed you off course, these compassionate authors will help guide you. They range from experts in anger management and sports medicine, to a metaphysicist, a poet, and more. Tap into their wisdom, embrace the process, and you set your intentions for purposeful growth.  

1.I’m Not Fucking Angry! Adjust the Flames to Get What You Want and Need by Dr. Mitch Abrams, an anger management expert, dispels the myth that anger is always a problem and that angry people are typically scary, bad, or dangerous. In fact, he argues, anger can have its benefits if identified and channeled properly. Abrams has spent 25 years working extensively with people in various walks of life, from inmates to CEOs, and attorneys to athletes. He explains how anger itself isn’t the problem — it’s the amount, the volume, and the intensity of the anger, along with where, when, how, and onto whom it’s expressed. He offers tools to use in helping harness anger so that it works for, not against you. 

2. Healing from the Inside: Living Fully as You Age by Dr. Susanne Eden draws from her own journey of healing to lead readers through a profound process of transformation to repair the inner self and heighten our joy in life. She makes use of the best tools science-based medicine has to offer while engaging holistic practices to root out deeply buried trauma and find the best self within. Eden views the healing journey as both simple and profound — it’s simple because we’re born to be whole, but also profound because it takes us to the heart of who we’re meant to be. Although Eden describes the journey from the perspective of an older woman, it’s applicable to anyone of any age. 

3. Only One Body by Dr. Matt Fontaine demystifies intricate medical insights and imparts valuable advice to take charge of your body with an approach that gets lasting results. Applying more than two decades of experience in sports medicine, human anatomy, and real-life case studies, Fontaine shares how to take charge of your body by making better health and lifestyle decisions. From how biological differences can impact training to the five main dietary causes of inflammation, he unveils a health and performance lifestyle strategy to take you where you want to go. 

4. Dieting Sucks for Women Over 40: The Ultimate Weight Loss and Hormone Balancing Solution by Debbie Harris offers women navigating perimenopause an antidote to obsessing over the scale. Harris, a wellness coach and certified hypnotist, combines science-based insights with real-life strategies to rebuild your relationship with food and break free from diet culture and food guilt. Her 30-day roadmap guides readers in doable ways to reset hormones, drop weight naturally, and reclaim their energy.

5. Cherish or Perish: Strengthen Your Intellect; Save the World by Prabha Karan presents practical yet essential advice for shaping a greater destiny through developing the intellect. Karan, a distinguished meta-physicist, engineer, and entrepreneur dedicated to bridging the gap between science and metaphysics, describes how most of us travel through our lives oblivious, never recognizing that we’re slowly undermining the very power that can liberate and elevate us. A dulled intellect renders us vulnerable and malleable. We become easily controlled, effortlessly manipulated, and ruthlessly exploited. By engaging our intellect — the central control system and inner compass steering our existence — we can steer our lives toward purpose, success, and fulfilment.

6. Happy Soul. Hungry Mind. A Modern-Day Parable about Spirituality by Ravi Gopaldas Kathuria takes the reader on an exploration of spirituality by way of a conversation between a man grieving the death of his young son and his former boss. Their heartrending discussion about how to find peace and spirituality becomes an accessible device for illustrating how to reconcile the swirling pressures of the modern world with the peace and happiness available within us. Through his fictional conversation between friends, Kathuria, a recognized business thought leader, makes accessing our spiritual capability stunningly simple and accessible. He asserts that spirituality is the universe’s ultimate gift!

7. Four Walks in Central Park: A Poetic Guide to the Park by Aaron Poochigian celebrates Manhattan’s remarkable urban treasure in this ode to Central Park — all in verse — complete with insider stories, hidden gems, and reasons to abandon the surrounding urban cacophony and wander. Poochigian, a poet, classics scholar, and former cocaine addict who found solace and healing within Central Park, has crafted four walks with accompanying maps, each filled with lore, wonder, and surprises. This book is an invitation for visitors to open their minds and senses to the park’s abundant wildlife, iconic monuments, and scenic and secret places. Poochigian provides readers craving an escape a place to become centered while changing the way we see the world. 

Instead of a straight road with clear signs, expect your self-healing journey to be an unpredictable and winding road with no final destination — only the rewards of taking a more meaningful look at who you are and how you desire to be in the world. Along the way this unending process will reward you with newfound hope and appreciation for the life you’ve been given.