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Recovery ADDICTION-FREE NATURALLY Free Yourself from Opioids, Pharmaceuticals, Alcohol, Tobacco, Caffeine, Sugar, and More by Brigitte Mars
$21.50, paper. Inner Traditions. 288 pages, b/w illustrations
Addiction affects more people than any other disease. Breaking a habit can be daunting—it’s hard to know where to begin beyond quitting cold turkey. But just as habits can be acquired, they can be broken. Others have done it, and so can you! In this holistic guide to beating addiction, Brigitte Mars details how to replace negative habits and behaviors with positive healthy ones and safely support your body, mind, and spirit for a successful recovery. The author shares specific herbs, supplements, homeopathic remedies, flower essences, behavioral therapy, and alternative practices, such as meditation and yoga, that can help liberate you from habitual substance use and ease the withdrawal period as well as methods for cleansing the body of toxins and healthy ways to combat depression, anxiety, fatigue, and stress. She looks in depth at individual addictive substances and behaviors, including sugar, caffeine, alcohol, opioids, tobacco, and tranquilizers, offering specific advice and remedies for each. She shows how each technique can be used in conjunction with conventional therapies, such as psychotherapy, methadone, or Alcoholics Anonymous. Drawing on recent research, she also explores the enormous potential of psychedelic therapy for overcoming addiction and, with the spreading legalization of cannabis, she addresses how this plant can be of benefit for recovery, without being misused. Offering advice on designing a personal program to break your addictions, the author also shows how to use natural remedies to maintain your new energy and vitality as you walk the road to recovery. A founding member of the American Herbalists Guild, Mars is author of many books, among them The Natural First Aid Handbook and The Sexual Herbal. TRAUMA AND THE 12 STEPS, REVISED & EXPANDED EDITION An Inclusive Guide to Enhancing Recovery by Jamie Marich
$23.95, paper. North Atlantic. 268 pages
An inclusive, research-based guide to working the 12 steps: a trauma-informed approach for clinicians, sponsors, and those in recovery. Step 1: You admit that you’re powerless over your addiction. Now what? 12-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA) have helped countless people on the path to recovery. But many still feel that 12-step programs aren’t for them: that the spiritual emphasis is too narrow, the modality too old-school, the setting too triggering, or the space too exclusive. Some struggle with an addict label that can eclipse the histories, traumas, and experiences that feed into addiction, or dismisses the effects of adverse experiences like trauma in the first place. Advances in addiction medicine, trauma, neuropsychiatry, social theory, and overall strides in inclusivity need to be integrated into modern-day 12-step programs to reflect the latest research and what it means to live with an addiction today. Dr. Jamie Marich, an addiction and trauma clinician in recovery herself, builds necessary bridges between the 12-step’s core foundations and up-to-date developments in trauma-informed care. Foregrounding the intersections
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of addiction, trauma, identity, and systems of oppression, Marich’s approach treats the whole person—not just the addiction—to foster healing, transformation, and growth. Written for clinicians, therapists, sponsors, and those in recovery, Marich provides an extensive toolkit of trauma-informed skills that: ♦ Explains how trauma impacts addiction, recovery, and relapse ♦ Celebrates communities who may feel excluded from the program, like atheists, agnostics, and LGBTQ+ folks ♦ Welcomes outside help from the fields of trauma, dissociation, mindfulness, and addiction research ♦ Explains the differences between being trauma-informed and trauma-sensitive; and ♦ Discusses spiritual abuse as a legitimate form of trauma that can profoundly impede spirituality-based approaches to healing.
Inspiration & Self-Help SPARK CHANGE 108 Provocative Questions for Spiritual Evolution by Jennie Lee
$29.99, cloth. Sounds True. 184 pages
It’s been said that finding the right question is as important as finding its answer. In Spark Change, Jennie Lee shows you how to identify your most important personal questions and explore how they might redefine the trajectory of your life. Quality questions lead to quality answers. Questions promote deeper thought, connection, authenticity, and humility. Here, Lee guides you through 108 inspiring prompts designed to deepen your awareness of your innermost needs and initiate powerful shifts throughout your life. Whether it’s examining the attitudes that hold you back or investigating where you truly want to go in life, these guided inquiries are meant to cultivate gratitude for your gifts, peace with the present moment, and resilience in the face of life’s challenges. For the last two decades, Lee has used conscious inquiry practices to encourage self-reflection in her yoga therapy practice. Inspired by the source teachings of classical yoga as well as Lees own inner journey, these prompts delve into some of the most enduring questions of psychology, self-improvement, and the spiritual path. With Lee’s piercing insight and constant guidance, Spark Change provides 108 prime opportunities to stop, ponder, and listen to the call of your most essential self. “We must stop to ask ourselves the very questions that Jennie Lee offers in this powerful guide to help us along our journey. The questions are insightful, evocative, and carry a depth of raw introspection beyond any standard list of questioning. They also do not leave you hanging. She offers the open hand and loving heart to support you as you take your dive inside. Jennie Lee is one of the most supportive, loving, and knowledgeable guides available to us. This book is a true treasure.” —Emily Francis, author of The Body Heals Itself
BRANCHES OF LIGHT
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SPIRITUALLY SASSY 8 Radical Steps to Activate Your Innate Superpowers
by Sah D’Simone
$32.50, cloth. Sounds True. 232 pages $32.50, 7 CDs. 6 hours, 38 minutes
Transform your mind, open your heart, and help the world by uncovering and celebrating the authentic you! Wild dance parties, vegan cake, and meaningful spirituality. Stop trying to put yourself into a box of what spirituality should look like—because, honey, being yourself is spiritual. Thus sez Sah D’Simone in Spiritually Sassy, a guide for a generation that celebrates diversity, authenticity, and freedom both in life and on the spiritual path. A queer, brown, flamboyant, immigrant spiritual seeker, Sah is a voice for anyone who wants to grow in creative ways. To be of service and make an impact on the world. To embrace their fierce, funny, and fabulous selves—even the parts they might feel ashamed of or figure just arent spiritual enough. With Spiritually Sassy, Sah distills the art of living well in our modern world into eight radical yet totally attainable steps. By incorporating scientifically backed principles of modern psychology with time-tested Buddhist techniques—and a heavy dose of sassy sauce—Sah will help you unblock your heart, befriend your mind, and live your truth out loud. In other words, he’ll help you find your sass. Highlights include: ♦ Clear out old ways of thinking to make room for a new story that reflects your fabulous heart and quiets your inner critic ♦ Overcome imposter syndrome and know you are worthy of love, abundance, and joy ♦ Get out of your own way in a big way Uncover your true self to become spiritual—and sassyAF ♦ Get real about your dreams and goals, and learn powerful manifestation practices to help make them happen ♦ Embrace your superpowers—the gifts and talents that help you live your purpose ♦ The importance of looking beyond yourself to your community, your tribe, and how you give back ♦ Plus tons of practices for meditation, breath work, mantra, movement, journaling, working with your mind, and more. It is my mission in life to help you find your sass, whatever that means for you, so it can radiate out and touch everything you do. To lean into life requires a quiet courage that lets us find our aliveness. And the reward for leaning into life is that everything hidden becomes sweet and colorful. Or more, we’re finally present enough to receive the sweetness and color that is always there. Consider how a flower opens. It doesn’t prepare for a particular moment but stays true to a life of opening and leaning toward the light. When a flower blossoms, it turns inside out and wears its beauty in the world. In just this way, a soul opens over a lifetime of leaning into life. Despite the hardships we encounter, and in spite of our pain, the heart keeps opening after closing, the way day follows night—until meeting life is our daily experiment in truth. No matter the obstacles, we’re asked to welcome all the teachers we encounter along the way, each shouting and whispering that the secret kingdom is everywhere. As we keep searching, these efforts never go away: the work of presence, the listening for teachers, and the vow to stay close to the fire of our aliveness. I confess, when I began, I wanted to light so many things. Now I’m the one being lighted and there’s nowhere to go. I can see that as being becomes a nest, there’s no reason to fly. —Mark Nepo, from The Book of Soul
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