I utter a loaded chuckle whenever someone asks me this, "What is the best book on healing?"
I get the urge to simply offer you my amazon password (which may or may not be inspired by healing) so you may take a scroll stroll down my audiobook collection on Audible. The kind you do when you were born before the 2000's and an app wants to know your date of birth) and if you were born later, what are you doing here? Should I be inspired and proud or mildly concerned that you are reading this?
Or I can take it up a notch and invite you to my house where you will be greeted by a bookshelf spanning a wall, color coded by my stepdaughter ( in an effort to make it less intimidating?) That will prove to you that the concept of "reading for fun" is not a luxury we enjoy around here. Me, followed by my husband who is either a victim or a beneficiary of my obsession with healing, have accumulated a small library isle of Self-Help paraphenellia. You will see, as far as your eyes can roll in every direction, books on trauma and healing, Spirituality and God, Codependancy and anxious attachment, relationship wisdom, Change and Personal Development, Childhood development and Parenting, Bibles and guides on Chakras, gut health and mental health, writing and creative expression and anything else that has to do with matters of the mind, body and spirit. It's a "you name it, we own it in print" wall. It's a glorious wall that is guaranteed to either inspire or confuse you. Maybe both.
You would still not have the clearest possible picture of my obsession with healing until you walk through all corners of the house following the smell of books. You'll find my Sourdough Bible on the kitchen counter next to my juicing recipes guide. If you go upstrairs to the master bedroom, you will have approached the dominion where you will uncover what the pressing matter of healing could be in that season of my life. A teenager issue? Toddler meltdowns poking my mother-wound? There's a three-books-stack for that on my nightstand.
When I take a break from seekng healing wisdom from between pages, the algorithm responsible for the anatomy of my instagram feed recognizes that a healing addict has entered that chat. I then continue to consume and regurgitate healing content, applauding how much I know, yet wondering if it's too much and an intervention is long overdue.
I know I am not alone. To be honest, I would not have it any other way.
Hi, I am Tiemert and I am a healing-holic.
Listen, read rather, I love that healing and personal development are trendy topics and familiar terms now. Even more so than they were when my journey of awareness and curiosity started back in my mid twenties. I love it for us that more and more of us are awakening to the fact that 'our bodies have been keeping the score' on traumas big and small and engaged in persuits involving the heart and the mind. As paradox would have it, I also loathe and eyeroll the fact that healing is being seen as another buzz bandwagon to jump on. Maybe due to my desire to also appeal to the cynics, those who dismiss or even revert to mockery matters of emotional regulation and healing work. They may do so out of cultural stigma, defensiveness as a trauma response (ironically) or just discomfort. Still I sense my need for their thumbs-up sometimes. 'Everyone must champion my cause' is one stubborn root to isolate and pull out from a recovering people pleaser's root system. A root system of trauma responses.
I get it, especially the misunderstanding part. Our brains often make the mistake of assuming trauma only arises from major, life-threatening events because we tend to associate trauma with obvious crises like natural disasters, assaults, or accidents. This misconception overlooks “small t” trauma—chronic, smaller stressors or distressing experiences that can also be traumatic, such as repeated rejection, emotional neglect, or prolonged financial instability.
These subtler forms of trauma can impact mental health just as significantly over time, yet they’re often dismissed as “less valid” since they don’t fit the stereotype of a catastrophic event. The reality is that trauma is highly individual; it’s the emotional impact of an experience, not the event itself, that defines trauma. What’s traumatic for one person might not be for another, depending on their resources, resilience, and context. Recognizing this helps us appreciate a broader, more inclusive understanding of trauma, validating the varied experiences that can affect mental health.
And then there's the cultural stigma of "comparative suffering" or "trauma comparison." What could have been a superpower of perspective seeking but has gone cancerous causing emotional dis-ease in some. This is when someone minimizes their pain or struggles because others “had it worse” or went through something similar.
This mindset is what keeps folks from validating their own experiences and seeking support. Comparative suffering can undermine healing, as it implies that only the “worst” experiences deserve attention. In reality, trauma is personal, and each individual’s experience is valid and worthy of care, regardless of how it measures up to others.
Wherever you may be on that journey, even inhabiting denialville or cynicshire, truth is that you are still within the known cycles of change. Yes, even denial and defensiveness have their purpose in allowing you to pace your own unique ways as you, however reluctantly, peek inside yourself. If you have read this far, I believe you are further along on that journey. Either way, you are about to read wisdom from a healing obsessed curious soul who's been trekking that wilderness for what feels like all my adult life.
You guessed it. There's no one book!
Or three, or 10.
Healing is too vast and too messy with implications far reaching into all aspects of our existence to be condensed into a publication or two. A better serving question could be "What can serve me best right now?"
How is your trauma manifesting in your life in this very moment? What are you ready to face? Are you notting a pattern in how you deal with conflict with others? Signs that against your sharpest instincts to not repeat your mother's abusive ways, you just can't help but realize you are sounding like her when your toddler pushes your buttons? Maybe you are raising an eyebrow on that never-before-noticeable way you autopilot your way to the fridge (or food delivery app) right after a disappointment? Maybe you just really want to find out why, from a family of a dozen kids, you seem to be the only one asking the hard questions about your childhood and it's effects on your adult life.
What are you seeking to understand, explore, begin to uncover and work on? Be intentional and specific in your search for supportive materials.
If it promises a quick turn around, run the other way
Any quote, book, video, masterclass or newest life coach on the block selling relief or success after x amount of (insert units of time), you ought to be allergic to. Healing is a process, not a target of arrival. It's a commitment to a gentle yet fierce persuit to uncovering the truth about yourself ( and others really) so you may live with more intentional vitality and less reactionary fear or unconscious pattern repetition. It's also not linear, rather windy with peaks on which you will stand truimphant, and valleys where you either realize you may have unlocked a new, harder level in the game and this is still going to suck or maybe you are at the level where valleys are just ok and as a result of you accepting their appearance, they naturally suck less than they used to. Which is really a triumph in it's own right, to chill in a valley that once used to chill your bones.
You catch my drift?
Keep an eye on your consumption to action ratio
If you have ever done the mind-body excercise where someone descriptively narrates a story of a lemon being sliced and you start salivating, you understand how trick-able our brains are. Little to no distinction between thought and reality means that by simply consuming healing content, you might subscribe to the illusion that healing is actually taking place. While it will still do you great justice to empower yourself with knowledge and inspiration, actual change happens through repetitive practice of skills that lead to your desired way of being. That meditation / visual imaging work/ positive affirmations to reprogram your subconscious mind, will need to be your frequent companions. Connecting with others is the emotional battelefield you will need to risk showing up in the middle of. Healing is an act, made up of smaller acts and even smaller wins over discomfort, not simply a concept.
There is a lot of thought watching going on
I am sorry. I know most of us would rather watch paint dry than watch our thoughts. The rality is, that is where everything happens. Beliefs that could be chocking the life out of us, triggers that rob us of the ability to respond, assumptions we make about others that poison our relationships, judgements that make the world seem like an unfriendly place. They all germinate as thoughts, mostly in thoughts we are not even aware of engaging with. Learning to befriend our thoughts is for healing what learning to walk is for a toddler. If done without judgement, hopefully with support and maybe even with some cheering, it should not be a daunting experience. We will then feel the freedom to be playful with this all important skill, keep inching towards mastering it, which will one day become second nature to us. Then we can do anything we want with it, even sit and watch paint dry, all the while being aware of the soundtrack of thoughts that always accompanies us. Minding our inside.
Side-effect alert, you may risk falling in love with your past
Ths one is all about acceptance over erasure of ALL our experiences. I go a step above that and see healing as treasure hunting. You are the hunter/ huntress and the forest is your past. The game (animal) you are seeking (sorry Vegans for the hunting metaphor) is the delight known as wisdom. It's not sold in stores, you can't earn it alongside your double masters, even that lover or spouse you are in an emotional entanglement with can't give you a kilo of that precious, organic, nutritious delicacy. You ought to hunt for it in your own backyard, the stories of how you got here, the 'mistakes' you have made, the people you have chosen to encounter life with and even the ones you didn't get to choose. It's all in there. The scary forest known as your past that you keep going past, believing it's all gone and has no value, or maybe it's too painful to step into. Now with the promise of scoring a treasure, the kill of your life, would't you pick up your bow and arrows and venture inside?
Get a hunting buddy, better yet, a seasoned hunting instructor to go with you
No brainer right? Absolutely!
I beg to challenge, it's healing that loves company, not misery.
Vulnerability is an arrow you can't afford to not keep in your quiver and utilize often on your healing journey. As it almost always results in a deeper connection and invaluable support. Healing often requires us to be deeply vulnerable—with ourselves and sometimes with others. This vulnerability opens doors to empathy, courage, and understanding. Paradoxically, it’s in acknowledging our most fragile places that we often find the strength we didn’t know was there. That is how growth happens.
Depending on your needs to feel seen and validated, treat a mental health symptom that is getting in the way, work with a committed partner in achieving certain goals, go ahead and confide in a trusted friend that will be a compassionate presence as you vent, find a therapist that will help you explore what getting relief from your symptoms may look like for you, hire a coach (me?) to guide, empower and champion you and hold you accountable as you make your desired changes.
Healing, at its core, is an act of self-reclamation. It’s a journey of bringing together all the parts of ourselves—both the ones we celebrate and the ones we’ve hidden or neglected. We get to unlearn our survival stiffness and reclaim our softness to all the contours of the human experience. We learn to forgive, trust joy and rediscover our meaning of what it means to be alive.
Can you think of a more rewarding persuit?
Neither can I!
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