Self Study

The best news on the planet is that your mother doesn't have to change in order for you to be happy. In fact, author Karen C.L. Anderson will take it a step further and say your mother doesn't have to change in order for you to be free, peaceful, contented, and joyful. You can emotionally separate without guilt: Inspired by her own journey, Anderson's Difficult Mothers, Adult Daughters shows women how to emotionally separate from their mothers without guilt and anxiety so they can finally create a life based on their own values, desires, needs, and preferences.

With A Woman's Worth, Marianne Williamson turns her charismatic voice to exploring the crucial role of women in the world today. Drawing deeply and candidly on her own experiences, the author illuminates her thought-provoking positions on such issues as beauty and age, relationships and sex, children and careers, and the reassurance and reassertion of the feminine in a patriarchal society.

Based on the best-selling book of the same name, this audiobook shows you how to practice the principles of self-worth and self-esteem taught by Louise L. Hay. Listen as Louise teaches you how to transform negative beliefs and thoughts into positive, loving ones.

From science fiction to fantasy, to crime and thrillers, Short Stories in French for Intermediate Learners uses listening as the perfect tool to not only delight in learning French, but to accelerate your journey towards fluency.

Taking everything they know from more than a decade of working with the queer and trans community, their personal journey of gender exploration, and clinical best practices, licensed therapist, coach, and speaker Rae McDaniel created the Gender Freedom Model. A uniquely supportive narrative for gender exploration and transition grounded in queer joy, their nine-pillar model has helped thousands of transgender and nonbinary individuals explore gender through play, pleasure, and freedom. And now, it can help you too.

Book summary of The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown.

Offering straightforward and highly effective techniques to those seeking personal healing, this manual provides ways in which the power of people's voices can improve and enhance their lives. Identifying sound as the center of creation and an individual’s unique signature note - the song of the soul - that unifies the mind, body, and spirit, this important tome urges listeners to rediscover this inner sound and move onto the path of healing and the hope of creative fulfillment.

Learn to navigate the harshness of life with soft power. In her debut book, Lotte Jeffs, weaves powerful life experience with practical advice and a psychological deep-dive into what truly constitutes an emotionally rich and meaningful existence. She speaks to everyone, from agony aunts and archaeologists to pop stars and novelists, to explore a diverse picture of what it is to truly live life well.

After years of standard education, you may think that you could acquire or hone skills the way you did there. Unfortunately, you may be mistaken. That’s because standard education taught you how to pass tests. But it didn’t teach you how to think. It didn’t teach you the tips and tricks to actually retain what you’ve read or written in all those years.

The United States is obsessed with virginity from the media to schools to government agencies. In The Purity Myth Jessica Valenti argues that the country’s intense focus on chastity is damaging to young women. Through in-depth cultural and social analysis, Valenti reveals that powerful messaging on both extremes ranging from abstinence curriculum to Girls Gone Wild infomercials place a young woman’s worth entirely on her sexuality. Morals are therefore linked purely to sexual behavior, rather than values like honesty, kindness, and altruism.

Harrison Mooney was born to a West African mother and adopted as an infant by a white evangelical family. Growing up as a Black child, Harry’s racial identity is mocked and derided, while at the same time he is made to participate in the fervour of his family’s revivalist church. Confused and crushed by fundamentalist dogma and consistently abused for his colour, Harry must transition from child to young adult while navigating and surviving zealotry, paranoia and prejudice.

With reference to the ideas of a Yale professor who first identified the theory and to the writings of George Orwell from whose ‘newspeak’ the word was adapted, Booker sheds new light on the remarkable – and worrying – effects of ‘groupthink’ and its influence on our society. Booker defines the three rules of groupthink: the adoption of a common view or belief not based on objective reality; the establishment of a consensus of right-minded people, an ‘in group’; and the need to treat the views of anyone who questions the belief as wholly unacceptable.

Thanks to her blog, Adventures from the Bedrooms of African Women, Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah has spent decades talking openly and intimately to African women around the world about sex. For this book, she spoke to more than 30 African women across the globe while chronicling her own journey toward sexual freedom.

Why do so many Black Americans—whether privileged or poor, urban or suburban, young or old—live in a state of chronic anxiety, fear, and shame? Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-Esteem breaks through collective denial and dares to imagine a more liberatory framework for understanding “self and identity in a world where loss is commonplace.” With visionary insight, hooks exposes the underlying reality that it has been difficult—if not impossible—for our nation to create a culture that promotes and sustains healthy self-esteem.

From simple practices such as walking, working, and getting lost to deep meditations on topics like prayer and pronouncing blessings, Taylor reveals concrete ways to discover the sacred in the small things we do and see. Something as ordinary as hanging clothes on a clothesline becomes an act of devotion if we pay attention to what we are doing and take time to attend to the sights, smells, and sounds around us. Making eye contact with the cashier at the grocery store becomes a moment of true human connection.

Black men desperately need care and restoration. But what does that restoration look like when you’re a Black man in today’s world? How do you take care of your mental health when men who look like you die at the hands of police? How do you find peace and refuge when you’re not sure how to keep up with your partner? Or navigate a challenging workplace? While scrolling through social media feeds, you may feel like you don’t have access to wellness like women do. But Black men need a space for self-care too. In Self-Care for Black Men, you will find practical answers to your questions.

From the New York Times best-selling author of An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor’s Learning to Walk in the Dark provides a way to find spirituality in those times when we don’t have all the answers. Taylor has become increasingly uncomfortable with our tendency to associate all that is good with lightness and all that is evil and dangerous with darkness. Taylor asks us to put aside our fears and anxieties and to explore all that God has to teach us “in the dark.”

Learning to Pray explains what prayer is, what to expect from praying, how to do it, and how it can transform us when we make it a regular practice in our lives. A trusted guide walking beside us as we navigate our unique spiritual paths, Martin lays out the different styles and traditions of prayer throughout Christian history and invites us to experiment and discover which works best to feed our soul and build intimacy with our creator.

Alo Johnston has been where you are. From watching every transition story on YouTube and navigating online message boards for answers to finally starting testosterone and transitioning himself, he now walks alongside you every step of the way to guide you towards acceptance of who you truly are. Born out of thousands of hours of research and conversations with hundreds of trans people, Am I Trans Enough? digs deep into internalized transphobia and the historical narratives that fuel it. It unveils what happens after you come out, or begin questioning living as a trans person.

A sacred feminine initiation of self-love and soul care rituals, tools, and exercises. Spiritual teacher, intuitive coach, and award-winning author Abiola Abrams invites you to activate African goddess magic to transmute your fears and limiting beliefs so that you can create more happiness, abundance, and self-acceptance.