The Healing Otherness Handbook

Rewrite your story—and this time, you make the rules. Were you the victim of childhood bullying based on your identity? Do you carry those scars into adulthood in the form of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), dysfunctional relationships, substance abuse, or suicidal thoughts? If so, you’re not alone. Our cultural and political climate has reopened old wounds for many people who have felt “othered” at different points in their life, starting with childhood bullying. This breakthrough book will guide you as you learn to identify your deeply rooted fears, and help you heal the invisible wounds of identity-based childhood rejection, bullying, and belittling. In The Healing Otherness Handbook, Stacee Reicherzer—a nationally known transgender psychotherapist and expert on trauma, otherness, and self-sabotage—shares her own personal story of childhood bullying, and how it inspired her to help others heal from the same wounds. Drawing from mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), Reicherzer will help you gain a better understanding of how past trauma has limited your life, and show you the keys to freeing yourself from self-defeating, destructive beliefs. If you’re ready to heal from the past, find power in your difference, and live an authentic life full of confidence—this handbook will help guide you, step by step.

A powerful and practical guide to help you navigate racism, challenge privilege, manage stress and trauma, and begin to heal. Healing from racism is a journey that often involves reliving trauma and experiencing feelings of shame, guilt, and anxiety. This journey can be a bumpy ride, and before we begin healing, we need to gain an understanding of the role history plays in racial/ethnic myths and stereotypes. In so many ways, to heal from racism, you must re-educate yourself and unlearn the processes of racism. This book can help guide you. The Racial Healing Handbook offers practical tools to help you navigate daily and past experiences of racism, challenge internalized negative messages and privileges, and handle feelings of stress and shame. You’ll also learn to develop a profound racial consciousness and conscientiousness, and heal from grief and trauma. Most importantly, you’ll discover the building blocks to creating a community of healing in a world still filled with racial microaggressions and discrimination. This book is not just about ending racial harm—it is about racial liberation. This journey is one that we must take together. It promises the possibility of moving through this pain and grief to experience the hope, resilience, and freedom that helps you not only self-actualize, but also makes the world a better place.

An amazing, proven, 10-point plan that explains noninvasive, life-altering practices to help you permanently heal your mind, body, and spirit. Millions of people suffer from some form of chronic pain (whether it be physical, emotional, or existential), and this discomfort silently drains too many of us of our highest potential and our power. Living in a state of unending pain pushes people to the margins of their own lives and robs them of direct access to their most authentic, essential, worthy selves. Pain, ironically, renders too many beautiful voices mute; it cripples the body, leaving too many dancing souls lost. And nobody knows this better than Peter Bedard. One night, seventeen-year-old dancer, Peter Bedard, died in a traffic accident. The white-bearded messenger waiting at the gate of heaven sent him back to Earth with a task to help others heal. After a decade of debilitating physical and emotional suffering, Peter uncovered an empowered, new way of healing chronic pain without medicine—convergence healing. In his groundbreaking approach, Bedard invites us to look at our pain as the greatest source of wisdom we will ever have. Instead of medicating it, trying to break with it, or somehow outwit it, he invites us to surrender to our pain so that we may finally integrate our losses, our transitions, our heartaches, and our mortality and make peace with the everlasting truth of who, uniquely, we truly are. Through the author’s own near-death experience and other compelling stories and case studies, Convergence Healing offers a whole new body-mind paradigm for those interested in living a balanced, well-integrated life.

A Guardian “Best Book of 2021” Selection A powerful look at the impacts of anti-Black racism and a practical guide for overcoming racial trauma through radical self-care as a form of resistance Over the past 15 years, radical psychologist Guilaine Kinouani has focused her research, writing, and workshops on how racism affects both physical and mental health. Living While Black gives voice to the diverse, global experiences of Black people, using personal stories, powerful case studies, and eye-opening research to offer expert guidance on how to set boundaries and process micro-aggressions; protect children from racism; handle difficult race-based conversations; navigate the complexities of Black love; and identify and celebrate the wins. Based on her findings, Kinouani has devised tried-and-tested strategies to help protect Black people from the harmful effects of verbal, physical, and structural racism. She empowers Black readers to adopt self-care mechanisms to improve their day-to-day wellness to help them thrive, not just survive, and to find hope and beauty—or even joy—in the face of racial adversity. She also provides a vital resource for allies seeking to better understand the impacts of racism and how they can help. With the rise of far-right ideologies and the increase of racist hate crimes, Living While Black is both timely and instrumental in moving conversations from defining racism for non-Black majorities to focusing on healing and nurturing the mental health of those facing prejudice, discrimination, and the lasting effects of the violence of white supremacy.

An invaluable guide to becoming a competent and compassionate physician. Medical students and physicians-in-training embark on a long journey that, although steeped in scientific learning and technical skill building, includes little guidance on the emotional and interpersonal dimensions of becoming a healer. Written for anyone in the health care community who hopes to grow emotionally and cognitively in the way they interact with patients, On Becoming a Healer explains how to foster doctor-patient relationships that are mutually nourishing. Dr. Saul J. Weiner, a physician-educator, argues that joy in medicine requires more than idealistic aspirations—it demands a capacity to see past the "otherness" that separates the well from the sick, the professional in a white coat from the disheveled patient in a hospital gown. Weiner scrutinizes the medical school indoctrination process and explains how it molds the physician's mindset into that of a task completer rather than a thoughtful professional. Taking a personal approach, Weiner describes his own journey to becoming an internist and pediatrician while offering concrete advice on how to take stock of your current development as a physician, how to openly and fully engage with patients, and how to establish clear boundaries that help defuse emotionally charged situations. Readers will learn how to counter judgmentalism, how to make medical decisions that take into account the whole patient, and how to incorporate the organizing principle of healing into their practice. Each chapter ends with questions for reflection and discussion to help personalize the lessons for individual learners.

Bullying at school left scars on me. In time, I learned to face the childhood trauma, and so can you. The free fall that began when you were tormented by bullies can end. The memories of bullies at school are no longer yours to handle alone. In "Getting Past Childhood Bullying: How Adults Can Recover From Bullying That Began at School," you will find a four-part program for healing and recovery. Using these strategies, you may be able to make peace with your past and move on. That's what this book is about. Please follow the advice of your licensed mental health professional and members of your support network before embarking on this journey.

Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening is a complete guidebook for all who wish to know the practice of Centering Prayer.

The multi-disciplinary artist and author of Like a Bird and How to Cure a Ghost explores the commodification and appropriation of wellness through the lens of social justice, providing resources to help anyone participate in self-care, regardless of race, identity, socioeconomic status or able-bodiedness. Growing up in Australia, Fariha Róisín, a Bangladeshi Muslim, struggled to fit in. In attempts to assimilate, she distanced herself from her South Asian heritage and identity. Years later, living in the United States, she realized that the customs, practices, and even food of her native culture that had once made her different—everything from ashwagandha to prayer—were now being homogenized and marketed for good health, often at a premium by white people to white people. In this thought-provoking book, part memoir, part journalistic investigation, the acclaimed writer and poet explores the way in which the progressive health industry has appropriated and commodified global healing traditions. She reveals how wellness culture has become a luxury good built on the wisdom of Black, brown, and Indigenous people—while ignoring and excluding them. Who Is Wellness For? is divided into four sections, beginning with The Mind, in which Fariha examines the art of meditation and the importance of intuition. In part two, The Body, she investigates the physiology of trauma, detailing her own journey with fatphobia and gender dysmorphia, as well as her own chronic illness. In part three, Self-Care, she argues against the self-care industrial complex but cautious us against abandoning care completely and offers practical advice. She ends with Justice, arguing that if we truly want to be well, we must be invested in everyone’s well being and shift toward nurturance culture. Deeply intimate and revelatory, Who Is Wellness For? forces us to confront the imbalance in health and healing and carves a path towards self-care that is inclusionary for all.

It’s time to fight back! With this intersectional handbook, you’ll discover practical, everyday tips and tools to help you resist sexism, smash the patriarchy, and create a better world for yourself and future generations. From reproductive rights and the wage gap to #MeToo and #TimesUp—gender inequality permeates nearly every aspect of our culture. From birth and on through adulthood, the message that our sexist society sends to women and girls is clear: you’re not enough. You’re not valued enough to get paid the same salary as a man with the same job title. You’re not worthy enough or perfect enough to be taken seriously or respected. You’re not responsible enough to make decisions about your body or reproductive rights. These negative messages are internalized on a deep psychological level. In fact, the effects of sexism are directly represented in the high rates of anxiety, depression, sleep problems, and eating disorders among women and girls—and these effects are even more severe for queer women, disabled women, and women of color. Isn’t it time you said ENOUGH? This revolutionary feminist self-help guide offers real tools you can use to: Combat the effects of discrimination and gender/race inequality Improve your self-confidence, gain self-esteem, and build resilience Actively resist internalized negative messages you’ve received while living in an openly sexist, patriarchal culture Most self-help books teach you how to transform your life from the inside out. But what can you do when your distress is caused by sexist institutionalized power structures, attitudes, and events that are outside of your control? This book will help you untangle the role that sexism and discrimination plays in your life, your mental health, and your overall sense of well-being. Most importantly, you’ll learn to reject negative messages and work toward creating lasting change through activism and community. There’s a lot of work to do. This book will help you get started now.

An antiracist society starts with you. Gain the psychological skills you need to adopt an antiracist mindset and make meaningful and equitable changes in your community—and in the world. Racism has reached epidemic levels in our country, and every single day we see acts of racial injustice. From police brutality and the prison industrial complex, to crumbling infrastructure and toxic drinking water in predominantly Black neighborhoods—many people have finally opened their eyes to the harsh realities of inequality and systemic racism in America. But awareness isn’t enough. We need to take action to create real change. Written by two psychologists and experts in race, identity, equity, and inclusion, The Antiracism Handbook will empower you to make your own personal contribution to creating an antiracist society. You’ll find practical, evidence-based tools grounded in psychology to help you recognize and resist racial stereotypes in day-to-day interactions; and strategies to help you communicate with family, loved ones, and children about race and racism. You’ll also learn skills to help you navigate race in professional workspaces, and advocate for antiracist politics, policies, and practices in your community, civic, and spiritual life. By shifting your thought patterns and behaviors to cultivate an antiracist mindset, you can actively change your community—and the world—beginning with yourself. This handbook will help you get started now.