I thought it would be fun to share with you guys what books I have on deck to read throughout the summer! I’ve started a few of these – yes I’m notorious for reading several books at once. I kind of jump from book to book depending on what I “need” that day/week/etc. The majority of these are personal, self help, growth, type books. I do read mindless/junky novels at the pool or beach sometimes too!
I’m also a huge journaler – so a lot of these I mark up, underline, and write in as I’m going through and will end up rereading portions or things later on.
A little back story on this reading list…
I’ve been focusing a ton on personal growth the last few months – mainly in the areas of self care, my emotions + emotional healing, and my personal spiritual walk. You’ll find that a lot of these are about all of those. I’m realizing more and more how every life instance and thing we go through really affects us – in ways we don’t even realize – thanks to my own personal digging and the close people to me. The last year has been such a journey for me of emotions, healing, rediscovering joy, spiritual highs and lows, and kind of everything in between. There’s really no ‘ultimate perfection’ when it comes to these things, but rather an ever evolving, on going process that we must maintain to work through and walk through what life brings us. This is a hard concept for me to swallow (being an enneagram 1 that’s known for being the perfectionist) but I’m learning the more that I accept this reality and be okay with the PROCESS instead of a perfect end result is where true satisfaction and peace lie. Accepting the process + growth that the Lord has me in is giving me a lot of freedom in my thoughts, emotions, and beyond. And learning to rest in His grace rather than the constant rat race of trying to go/be/do/achieve/perfect.
SO – that’s why you’re going to find these books to be a lot of self help + growth type books. I hope you’ll grab one or two and read them with me this summer!
- Own Your Everyday by Jordan Lee Dooley // If you follow me on insta, then you know I love Jordan. This girl just launched a book and I couldn’t be more excited to dive into this this summer! I’m sure I’ll finish it in like, a day.
- Grace, Not Perfection by Emily Ley // I haven’t started this yet, but I grabbed it while at Target the other day mainly because perfectionism is a huge strength/weakness of mine that I’m learning to work with + also learning to release. It can be crippling if you allow it to rule your life, but learning to walk in freedom while still maintaining a healthy level of excellence is what I want!
- The Path Between Us by Suzanne Stabile // For all you enneagram fans. This book is phenomenal! I haven’t read the whole thing yet, but every chapter is dedicated to 1 number on the enneagram + focuses primarily on how we are relationally. Very eye opening + a must read. If you don’t know your enneagram, I highly suggest taking the test to find out. You’ll learn so much about yourself and why you are the way you are, along with understanding more about your relationships with others!
- The Emotion Code by Dr. Bradley Nelson // I started reading this last week and oh.my.gosh – you guys. This book is rocking my world and completely changing the way I look at self/personal care! In a nutshell, we all have emotions + sometimes they get ‘stuck’ in our body (quite literally). This book helps us to identify them + literally clear them out of our bodies, which is extremely powerful because uncleared emotions have the power to manifest physically, ruin our emotional processing in general, or mentally cripple us.
- A Love Letter Life by Jeremy + Audrey Roloff // I talked about this one a few weeks back on instagram stories.. Audrey is a sweet friend of mine + her and Jeremy’s story is one that is truly special. They wrote this book detailing every part of their love story and I have loved reading/learning the intimates parts of who they are as a couple!
- The Clarity Cleanse by Gwyneth Paltrow + Habib Sadeghi // This book has admittedly been sitting on my shelf for about 7 months. I bought it towards the end of last summer after my engagement ended, but never cracked it open until now. So far, so good.. the clarity cleanse is a 12-step guide to recognizing the emotional issues that hold us back, with strategies to increase our energy and help us reach our potential.
- Boundaries by Henry Cloud // This book has been on my to read list for awhile now and I started it on my flight to Charlotte last week. I’m about halfway through and wishing I had started it a wayyyy long time ago. It’s about exactly what it says : boundaries – when to say yes, how to say no to take control of your life. Let’s face it: we all have issues with creating/maintaining healthy boundaries in some capacity, whether it’s with family, friends, work, you name it. Depending on your personality, you may be better/worse at this in different areas + this book is really eye opening and constructive to learn how to better at boundaries.
- Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero // My sister Emily recommended this book to me + I am really excited to dive into it. I have a feeling this is one I’ll read more than once (like a lot of these to be honest!) It focuses on a biblical integration of emotional health and the spiritual practice of slowing down and quieting your life for to experience a firsthand relationship with Jesus. If I’m being totally honest, I think a lot of Christians don’t take care of themselves emotionally and ‘leave it to God’ without doing their own active part in the matter and you’re left with a lot of emotionally broken and “spiritually mature” people which is a recipe for disaster.
And that’s it! 8 books that I have on deck for the summer, but they’re pretty ‘involved’ if you ask me so I think that’s a good start.. ha! You may have noticed a lot of them center around emotional health + that’s something I’m really focusing on right now like I mentioned before.. My life has seen it’s fair share of ups and downs, especially over the last few years, and I’m being really intentional right now to take care of those tender part of myself, while strengthening who I am at my core to be the best woman God created me to be. This is a never ending process of course, but it has to start somewhere + sooner rather than later. I’ve seen such a difference in my mindset over the last two months already, incorporating some of the principles I’m learning from books like this, a lot of journaling, quite time with the Lord, and just quiet time in general. It is sooo important to be a healthy, well rounded person in every possible way – let’s not be too focused on our physical health that we forget the others, or spiritual growth and neglect our physical health, or emotional health and become ungrounded spiritually. They’re all intertwined and connected and must be worked on simultaneously!
So, all of that being said – I’m excited to read these the next few months + hope that you guys will join in with one or more! Let me know if you order any of them and what your thoughts are! xo
Loving these picks! I’m always on the lookout for some new reads!
xx, Merritt
The Style Scribe
Personal growth is essential. I love reading self help books too because it does help in ways that my loved ones couldn’t or being myself. These are great picks and I’ll for sure check them out.
Maureen | http://www.littlemisscasual.com