THINGS I RETURN TO

Books, tools, and resources I've used, recommended, returned to, or kept close over the years.

Disclosure:

This isn't a sponsored list. It's a collection of books, tools, and resources I genuinely use, recommend, or return to. Some links are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you purchase through them, at no additional cost to you.

Connection & Relationship Games

I love card games. Bring them to the family table to create more presence and connection. Pull out a few on a date night and suddenly you're having a conversation you might not have had otherwise.

All relationships fall into habits, and sometimes those habits don't do much for the health of the relationship. These cards are one of my favorite little tricks for interrupting the usual conversation and creating deeper connection.

ARCHETYPES

When stories were passed down, we were steeped in representations of what it means to be human: initiation, identity, different stages of life, different ways of being, and the experiences we move through again and again.

These books awaken some of that language in us. And I think, in their own way, they awaken something ancient in us too.

Include:

  • Women Who Run With the Wolves — Clarissa Pinkola Estés

  • Iron John — Robert Bly

  • The Hero with a Thousand Faces — Joseph Campbell

  • The Heroine’s Journey — Maureen Murdock

THE INNER WORLD

Some of the most important relationships we have are the ones happening within us. These books explore the inner world, the beliefs, adaptations, younger parts, emotional patterns, and ways of seeing ourselves that quietly shape how we experience our lives. They offer different paths toward understanding what lives beneath the surface, meeting ourselves with greater compassion, and creating a more conscious relationship with who we are becoming.

Include:

  • Healing the Child Within — Charles Whitfield

  • Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents — Lindsay C. Gibson

  • You Can Heal Your Life — Louise Hay

  • Self-Compassion — Kristin Neff

  • The Self-Love Experiment — Shannon Kaiser

  • Daring Greatly — Brené Brown

THE MOTHER RELATIONSHIP

Examining your relationship with your mother, especially when that relationship has felt difficult, unhealthy, or tenuous, can be incredibly eye-opening.

It creates space to begin seeing the separation between you and your mother: what belongs to her, what belongs to you, what you learned inside that relationship, and what you've continued to carry.

And as that separation begins to take hold, there's room to heal, shift, redirect, and change what has been impacting you.

Include:

  • Mother Hunger — Kelly McDaniel

  • Understanding the Borderline Mother — Christine Ann Lawson

  • My Mother/My Self — Nancy Friday

  • Adult Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers — Stephanie M. Kriesberg

EXPLORE THE BOOKS

THE FATHER RELATIONSHIP

Understanding the impact of our relationship with our father, and what is sometimes called the father wound, can deepen self-reflection in profound ways.

If that relationship has been challenging, absent, painful, or complicated, creating space to understand its impact can help you see what you've carried forward, heal what needs healing, move what needs moving, and begin changing your relationship with both your father and yourself.

Include:

  • The Absent Father Effect on Daughters: Father Desire, Father Wounds — Susan E. Schwartz, PhD

  • The Wounded Woman: Healing the Father-Daughter Relationship — Linda Schierse Leonard, PhD

  • Absent Fathers, Lost Sons: The Search for Masculine Identity — Guy Corneau

ATTACHMENT + INTIMACY

There are so many incredible books in this space, and I'll probably keep adding to this shelf.

Understanding the nuances of healthy attachment, the ways we protect ourselves from connection, and what intimacy actually looks and feels like can be life-giving — both for the relationship you have with yourself and the relationships you have with other people.

Include:

  • Come As You Are — Emily Nagoski

  • Attached — Amir Levine & Rachel Heller

  • Hold Me Tight — Sue Johnson

  • Getting the Love You Want — Harville Hendrix & Helen LaKelly Hunt

  • Receiving Love — Harville Hendrix & Helen LaKelly Hunt

  • Facing Codependence — Pia Mellody

RELATIONAL SKILLS

I love this category because I think relational skill is wildly under-talked about.

We all need help learning how to communicate, connect, navigate difficult conversations, tolerate confrontation, repair, listen, and stay in relationship when things aren't easy.

These are books I return to for exactly that.

Include:

  • Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life — Marshall B. Rosenberg

  • The Dance of Anger — Harriet Lerner

  • Us: Getting Past You & Me to Build a More Loving Relationship — Terrence Real

  • Fight Right: How Successful Couples Turn Conflict Into Connection — Julie Schwartz Gottman & John Gottman

BOOKS I LOVE

These books have impacted me over the last twenty years.

You know how you can read a really good book, love it while you're reading it and then somehow it doesn't stay with you?

These stayed.

I think about them. I reference them. Pieces of them have followed me through different seasons of my life. They don't all belong to the same category or worldview. They're simply books I love and have never really left behind.

Include:

  • The Alchemist — Paulo Coelho

  • Siddhartha — Hermann Hesse

  • The Untethered Soul — Michael A. Singer

  • Ishmael — Daniel Quinn

  • Way of the Peaceful Warrior — Dan Millman

  • Everything Is Here to Help You — Matt Kahn

  • The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck — Mark Manson

  • Big Magic — Elizabeth Gilbert

  • Signs — Laura Lynne Jackson

  • Atomic Habits — James Clear

  • The Four Agreements — Don Miguel Ruiz

  • The Obstacle Is the Way — Ryan Holiday.

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