"A Better Us" Book Club is for people who want to increase their mental and emotional well-being, learn new skills to improve their relationships, and find ways to build and maintain a supportive community. Book selections are from authors who are well-respected leaders in their fields and address many aspects of the human experience including setting boundaries, self compassion, parenting, trauma, and navigating the mental load of family and home. If you feel a bit stuck or empty, wondering if there is a better way to be and live than the way you’ve always done things, this is for you.

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"A Better Us" Book Club is led by Tiffany Larson, LCSW, who is the owner of Peaceful Embodiment, a psychotherapy practice in St. George, UT. The book club is not a substitute for individual therapy but the books we read can be supportive in a therapeutic way and are recommended by many therapists. Tiffany has selected the reading list with an eye to variety and meeting various needs.

If you have any questions, you may reach her at tiffany@peacefulembodiment.co or call/text her at (435) 610-1559.

We would be most appreciative if you would order your books through us, paying in advance, either through our website or by calling our store and putting your special order in at (435) 619-8200. Audiobook versions that still support our store can be ordered HERE. At this point, we can't offer digital versions, but we'll let you know when we can.

2023 READING SCHEDULE:

JANUARY - Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself by Nedra Glover Tawwab (2021-PRH) | 304 pages | $26.00 – Healthy boundaries. We know we should have them in order to achieve work/life balance, cope with toxic people, and enjoy rewarding relationships with partners, friends, and family. But what do "healthy boundaries" really mean--and how can we successfully express our needs, say "no," and be assertive without offending others? Sought-after relationship expert Tawwab de-mystifies this topic for today's world. (Audiobook version available)

FEBRUARY – No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model by Richard Schwartz (2021-Macmillan) | 216 pages | $18.99 – The renowned creator of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy offers insights and practices to transform the way you understand your psyche. Discover how each of us is not a single entity, but a "family" of distinct inner parts--each of which may carry our psychological burdens, but which can be healed as we learn to access our wise and loving Self.

MARCH – Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson (2015-Ingram) | 216 pages | $18.95 – What happens when children are more mature than their parents? Growing up with an emotionally unavailable, immature, or selfish parent is painful, but rarely discussed. In this breakthrough book, clinical psychologist Lindsay C. Gibson exposes an often overlooked, yet extremely common syndrome that shapes the lives of so many. She also provides powerful skills to help the adult children of self-centered parents gain the insight they need to move on from feelings of loneliness and abandonment and find healthy ways to meet their own emotional needs. (Audiobook version available)

APRIL – Reclaiming Body Trust: A Path to Healing & Liberation by Hilary Kinavey and Dana Sturtevant (2022-PRH) | 320 pages | $28.00 – Have you ever felt uncomfortable or not "at home" in your body? In this book, the founders of Body Trust, licensed therapist Hilary Kinavey and registered dietician Dana Sturtevant, invite readers to break free from the status quo and reject a diet culture that has taken advantage of and profited from trauma, stigma, and disembodiment, and fully reclaim and embrace their bodies. (Audiobook version available)

MAY – How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community by Mia Birdsong (2020-Hachette) | 272 pages | $17.99 – It seems counterintuitive that living the good life—the well-paying job, the nuclear family, the upward mobility--can make us feel isolated and unhappy. But in a divided America, where only a quarter of us know our neighbors and everyone is either a winner or a loser, we've forgotten the key element that helped us make progress in the first place: community. In this provocative, groundbreaking work, Mia Birdsong shows that what separates us isn't only the ever-present injustices built around race, class, gender, values, and beliefs, but also our denial of our interdependence and need for belonging. In response to the fear and discomfort we feel, we've built walls, and instead of leaning on each other, we find ourselves leaning on concrete. (Audiobook version available)

JUNE – Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be by Becky Kennedy (2022-HC) | 336 pages | $28.99 – Parents have long been sold a model of childrearing that simply doesn't work. From reward charts to time outs, many popular parenting approaches are based on shaping behavior, not raising humans. These techniques don't build the skills kids need for life, or account for their complex emotional needs. Add to that parents' complicated relationships with their own upbringings, and it's easy to see why so many feel lost, burned out, and worried they're failing their kids. (Audiobook version available)

JULY – Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live) by Eve Rodsky (2021-PRH) | 384 pages | $18.00 – Tired, stressed, and in need of more help from your partner? Imagine running your household (and life!) in a new way. The author—tapped by Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine as the expert on this topic for a new generation of women—offers a revolutionary, real-world solution to the problem of unpaid, invisible work that women have shouldered for too long. too long. (Audiobook version available)

AUGUST – Beyond the Gender Binary by Alok Vaid-Menon (2020-PRH) | 64 pages | $8.99 – Poet, artist, and LGBTQIA+ rights advocate Alok Vaid-Menon deconstructs, demystifies, and reimagines the gender binary. (Audiobook version available)

SEPTEMBER – My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem (2017-Ingram) | 300 pages | $17.95 – Racism and trauma are addressed as the author examines white supremacy in America from the perspective of body-centered psychology. (Audiobook version available)

OCTOBER – All About Love: New Visions by Bell Hooks (2018-HC) | 272 pages | $16.99 – One of America's most revered thinkers offers radical new ways to think about love, and examines the relationship between love and sexuality, and the connections between the public and the private. Razing the cultural paradigm that the ideal love is infused with sex and desire, she provides a new path to love that is sacred, redemptive, and healing for individuals and for a nation. 

NOVEMBER – Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (2015-Ingram) | 408 pages | $20.00 – As both a biologist and a member of the Potawatomi nation, Robin Wall Kimmerer intertwines two modes of awareness--the analytic and the emotional, the scientific and the cultural--to ultimately reveal a path toward healing the rift that grows between people and nature. The woven essays that construct this book bring people back into conversation with all that is green and growing; a universe that never stopped speaking to us, even when we forgot how to listen. (Audiobook version available)

DECEMBER – Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff (2015-HC) | 320 pages | $16.99 – More and more, psychologists are turning away from an emphasis on self-esteem and moving toward self-compassion in the treatment of their patients and Dr. Neff’s extraordinary book offers exercises and action plans for dealing with every emotionally debilitating struggle, be it parenting, weight loss, or any of the numerous trials of everyday living. (Audiobook version available)

Scroll down to find a PDF version of this list that you can download.