Resources

This page is a list of resources that I have compiled through my own years of healing and study.
It is not meant as advice or therapy in any way.

What is resourcing for me, may not be resourcing for you.
Take what is supportive. Leave the rest.

    • Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl

    • Care Work, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

    • In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, Gabor Maté

    • When Things Fall Apart, The Places That Scare You, and Comfortable with Uncertainty, Pema Chödrön

    • No Bad Parts, Dick Schwartz

    • The Mastery of Love & The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz

    • Coyote Healing & Coyote Wisdom, Mehl-Madrona

    • The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Francis Weller

    • Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens

    • Outshining Trauma, de la Rosa

    • Buddha’s Brain, Hanson

    • My Grandmother’s Hands, Resmaa Menakem

    • Come as You Are, Emily Nagoski

    • The Art of Loving, Erich Fromm

    • All books by Matt Haig

    • The Body is Not an Apology, Sonya Renee Taylor

    • Anchored, Deb Dana

    • Touching Spirit Bear, Mikaelson

    • Somatic Reality, Living Your Dying, & Your Body Speaks Its Mind, Stanley Keleman

    • On Personal Power, Carl Rogers

    • I am Not Your Negro & Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin

    • In Love With the World, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

    • Nonviolent Communication, Rosenberg

    • Women Who Run With the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes

    • Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma, Peter Levine

    • A Healing Space, Matt Licata

    • Falling in Love With Where You Are, Jeff Foster

    • Home Body, book of poetry by Rupi Kaur

    • Anger & You Are Here, Thich Nhat Hanh

    • Eastern Body, Western Mind, Anodea Judith

    • Polysecure, Jessica Fern

    • Focusing, Eugene Gendlin

    • The Wisdom of Insecurity, Alan Watts

    • Addiction to Perfection & Coming Home to Myself, Marion Woodman

    • No Pressure, No Diamonds, Teri Dillion

    • Unmasking Autism, Devon Price

    • When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi

    • Communion, bell hooks

    • When Women Were Dragons,Kelly Barnhill

    • The Radical Acceptance of Everything: Living a Focusing Life & Focusing in Clinical Practice, Ann Weiser Cornell

    • The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability: for all of us who live with disabilities, chronic pain & illness, Miriam Kaufman

    • Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life, Hayes

    • And So I Roar & The Girl With the Louding Voice, Abi Daré

  • CPTSD Explained - This content creator has a degree in psychology and first-hand experience living with C-PTSD. She provides content that helps those of us living with C-PTSD to better understand how we are wired and, in my experience, this helps us to have a great deal more compassion for ourselves. I can’t recommend their content enough.

    https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61574141662051

    instagram.com/c_ptsdexplained

    —————————————————

    TraumaGeek - Provides neuroscience education for parents and helping professionals. They offer courses on the nervous system as well as the intersectionality of neurodivergence, trauma, and chronic illness. I have learned more from them about neurodivergence and decolonization of the mental health system than from any other resource.

    https://www.traumageek.com/

    https://www.facebook.com/TraumaGeek/

    —————————————————

    Dr. Tori Olds - A psychologist who provides psychoeducation in human language and with a great deal of warmth and humor. She offers multiple series on YouTube, wherein she discusses modalities such as IFS Parts Work and AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy).

    https://www.toriolds.com/

    https://www.youtube.com/c/DrToriOlds

    —————————————————

    Bendy Bunny- A content creator who lives with chronic illness, specifically EDS (Ehler’s Danlos Syndrome), and shares about her lived experience as a neurodivergent zebra (zebra = someone living with diagnosis that is difficult to diagnose, such as EDS).

    https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088213548539

    https://www.instagram.com/bendybunny81/

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    Luis Mojica - A somatic educator, musician, trauma therapist, and nutritionist who offers content and courses that support individuals in better understanding how to find safety in their bodies, with a special emphasis on neurodivergence (ADHD mostly), sexuality, and addiction. His mini-course on Sexual Fawning has been especially eye-opening for me as a person and practitioner!

    https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/

    https://www.instagram.com/holistic.life.navigation/

    https://www.facebook.com/holisticlifenavigation

    —————————————————

    Rachel Rae Halder - A sex-positive content creator that focuses on somatic and energetic trauma integration, as well as embodying self-trust and safety.

    https://www.facebook.com/raehalder

    ———————————————————

    Whitney Dafoe - A content creator who lives with ME/CFS (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). He is a fierce advocate and a stunning example of resilience within the chronically ill community.

    https://www.facebook.com/whitneydafoe

    ME/CFS Resources: https://www.whitneydafoe.com/mecfs/resources/

    —————————————————

    The Fibro Guy - Content creators (Adam and Johnny) who discuss challenges of living in hypermobile bodies and ways that we can move through life with a little more ease. Their humor is especially lovely to me.

    https://www.facebook.com/thefibroguy

    https://www.thefibroguy.com/

    —————————————————

    Rich and Rox Pink (ADHD Love) - Husband (who has autism) and wife (who has ADHD) content creators who share insights into the struggles and beauties of living with neurodivergence, particularly as they relate to being in relationships. Rox is also a really gifted musician who has turned parts of her own trauma history into truly powerful lyrics. They just came out with a new book - The Cherry Tree Theory - I haven’t read it, but I’ve heard very good things.

    Rich - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61550246971313

    Rox/ADHD Love - https://www.facebook.com/ADHDlovevids

    —————————————————

    Nkem Ndefo - A somatic educator who focuses on the importance of understanding the intersectionalities of race and chronic illness.

    https://www.facebook.com/nkem.ndefo

    https://lumostransforms.com/
    —————————————————

    • Florence + the Machine

      • Everybody Scream album

        • Sympathy Magic

        • And Love

        • Drink Deep

      • Free

      • Dog Days Are Over

    • Mon Rovîa

      • Bloodline album

        • Little by Little

        • Field Song

        • Running Boy

        • Whose face am I

        • Heavy Foot

        • Oh Wide World

        • Black Cauldron

      • crooked the road.

    • Aurora

      • A Different Kind of Human (Part II) album

        • The River

        • The Seed

        • A Different Kind of Human

        • Mothership

      • Some Type of Skin

      • Runaway

    • Sia

      • This is Acting album

        • Alive

        • Bird Set Free

        • Unstoppable

      • 1000 Forms of Fear album

        • Chandelier

        • Elastic Heart

        • Big Girls Cry

    • The Secret Sisters

      • Tomorrow Will be Kinder

      • Carry Me

    • Yaima

      • Pellucidity album

        • Gajumaru

    • Billie Eillish

      • Happier Than Ever album

        • my future

        • Your Power

        • Male Fantasy

        • Not My Responsibility

        • Getting Older

    • Taylor Swift

      • Midnights album

        • Anti-Hero

        • Labyrinth

        • Mastermind

    • José González

      • Stay Alive

    • Joy Oladokun

      • too high

    • Sleeping At Last

      • Atlas: Touch

    • The Civil Wars

      • Poison & Wine

    • Brandi Carlile

      • Every Time I Hear That Song

      • Hold Out Your Hand

      • The Story

    • FINNEAS

      • I Lost a Friend

    • Trevor Hall

      • You Can’t Rush Your Healing

  • "In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

    And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.”

    ―Albert Camus

    “Sometimes our light goes out, but is blown again into instant flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light".

    ―Albert Schweitzer

    “I have a kind of courage you do not understand. I am far from blind, far from indifferent, but I will not indulge in impotent, passive despair. I will not add to the despair of the world.”

    —Anaïs Nin

    “What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

    —Jane Goodall

    “Optimism is the faith that leds to achievement.”

    —Helen Keller

    “When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.”

    -Malala Yousafzai

    “Sometimes what you’re looking for is already there.”

    —Aretha Franklin

    “There is ecstasy in paying attention.”

    — Anne Lamott

    “I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.”

    — Louisa May Alcott

    “Figure out what you need to do to be the heroine in your own story.”

    — Ava Duvernay

    “The woman who does not require validation from anyone is the most feared individual on the planet.”

    —Mohadesa Najumi

    “Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge.”

    —Audre Lorde

    “Flowers grow out of dark moments.”

    —Corita Kent

    “Forever is composed of Nows.”

    —Emily Dickinson

    “We must have the audacity to turn up the frequency of our truths.”

    —Janet Mock

    “The desire to reach the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach the heart is wise.”

    —Maya Angelou

    “Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time.”

    —Ruth Bader Ginsburg

    “True love is radical because it requires us to see ourselves in all people. Otherwise, it isn’t love.”

    —Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

    “I don’t study to know more, but to ignore less.”

    —Juana Inés de la Cruz

    “It is never too late to be what you might have been.”

    —George Eliot

    “How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.”

    —Florence Nightingale

    “The only way to get what you really want is to let go of what you don’t want.”

    —Iyanla Vanzant

  • Still I Rise

    by Maya Angelou

    “You may write me down in history

    With your bitter, twisted lies,

    You may trod me in the very dirt

    But still, like dust, I'll rise.

    Does my sassiness upset you?

    Why are you beset with gloom?

    ’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

    Pumping in my living room.

    Just like moons and like suns,

    With the certainty of tides,

    Just like hopes springing high,

    Still I'll rise.

    Did you want to see me broken?

    Bowed head and lowered eyes?

    Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

    Weakened by my soulful cries?

    Does my haughtiness offend you?

    Don't you take it awful hard

    ’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

    Diggin’ in my own backyard.

    You may shoot me with your words,

    You may cut me with your eyes,

    You may kill me with your hatefulness,

    But still, like air, I’ll rise.

    Does my sexiness upset you?

    Does it come as a surprise

    That I dance like I've got diamonds

    At the meeting of my thighs?

    Out of the huts of history’s shame

    I rise

    Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

    I rise

    I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

    Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

    Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

    I rise

    Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

    I rise

    Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

    I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

    I rise

    I rise

    I rise.”

    I highly recommend listening to the below recording of Maya Angelou reciting this herself. It’s absolutely delightful!

    https://youtu.be/fz-53G8O-VU?si=e5_remcVWivKjtEY

    —————————————————

    Bluebird

    by Charles Bukowski

    “there’s a bluebird in my heart that
    wants to get out
    but I'm too tough for him,
    I say, stay in there, I'm not going
    to let anybody see
    you.
    there's a bluebird in my heart that
    wants to get out
    but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
    cigarette smoke
    and the whores and the bartenders
    and the grocery clerks
    never know that
    he's
    in there.

    there's a bluebird in my heart that
    wants to get out
    but I'm too tough for him,
    I say,
    stay down, do you want to mess
    me up?
    you want to screw up the
    works?
    you want to blow my book sales in
    Europe?
    there's a bluebird in my heart that
    wants to get out
    but I'm too clever, I only let him out
    at night sometimes
    when everybody's asleep.
    I say, I know that you're there,
    so don't be
    sad.
    then I put him back,
    but he's singing a little
    in there, I haven't quite let him
    die
    and we sleep together like
    that
    with our
    secret pact
    and it's nice enough to
    make a man
    weep, but I don't
    weep, do
    you?”

    This recitation by Bukowski, himself, is incredibly moving. Especially when paired with the music!

    https://youtu.be/lyMS4qJ8NXU?si=sucXS6qXKSV1XiQR

    —————————————————

    Excerpt from Love Letter From the Afterlife
    by Andrea Gibson

    “My love, I was so wrong. Dying is the opposite of leaving. When I left my body, I did not go away. That portal of light was not a portal to elsewhere, but a portal to here. I am more here than I ever was before.”

    I cannot recommend this poet enough. For anyone going through times of grief and loss, their words can help you feel so seen.

    https://andreagibson.substack.com?utm_source=navbar&utm_medium=web
    —————————————————

    The Panther

    by Rainer Maria Rilke

    “His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
    has grown so weary that it cannot hold
    anything else. It seems to him there are
    a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.

    As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,
    the movement of his powerful soft strides
    is like a ritual dance around a center
    in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.

    Only at times, the curtain of the pupils
    lifts, quietly—. An image enters in,
    rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles,
    plunges into the heart and is gone.”

    This poem reminds me of how it can feel to be housebound or even bed-bound due to chronic illness and disability. I came across this poem in the movie Awakenings, with Robin Williams and Robert De Niro.

    —————————————————
    Wild geese

    by Mary Oliver

    “You do not have to be good.
    You do not have to walk on your knees
    For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
    You only have to let the soft animal of your body
    love what it loves.
    Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
    Meanwhile the world goes on.
    Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
    are moving across the landscapes,
    over the prairies and the deep trees,
    the mountains and the rivers.
    Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
    are heading home again.
    Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
    the world offers itself to your imagination,
    calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
    over and over announcing your place
    in the family of things.”

    —————————————————
    The Journey

    by Mary Oliver

    One day you finally knew
    what you had to do, and began,
    though the voices around you
    kept shouting
    their bad advice --
    though the whole house
    began to tremble
    and you felt the old tug
    at your ankles.
    "Mend my life!"
    each voice cried.
    But you didn't stop.
    You knew what you had to do,
    though the wind pried
    with its stiff fingers
    at the very foundations,
    though their melancholy
    was terrible.
    It was already late
    enough, and a wild night,
    and the road full of fallen
    branches and stones.
    But little by little,
    as you left their voice behind,
    the stars began to burn
    through the sheets of clouds,
    and there was a new voice
    which you slowly
    recognized as your own,
    that kept you company
    as you strode deeper and deeper
    into the world,
    determined to do
    the only thing you could do --
    determined to save
    the only life that you could save.”
    —————————————————

    • Soul

    • Stranger Than Fiction

    • Arrival

    • Barfi

    • Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

    • 12 Angry Men

    • Love at First Sight

    • Where the Crawdads Sing

    • The Extraordinary Attorney Woo

    • How Do You Know

    • Bridesmaids

    • Hidden Figures

    • Whale Rider

    • Selma

    • Goodwill Hunting

    • I am Not Your Negro

    • Schindler's List

    • To Kill a Mockingbird

    • Princess Bride

    • The Artist

    • People Will Talk

    • Serendipity

    • Dead Poets Society

    • 10 Things I Hate About You

    • The Truman Show

    • Little Women, 1994

    • The First Wives Club

    • Stardust

    • Klaus

    • V for Vendetta

    • Mona Lisa Smile

    • RRR

    • Avatar

    • Shawshank Redemption

    • Jane Eyre 2006

    • Signs

    • Big hero 6

    • What If

    • Inside Out

    • Silver Linings Playbook

    • Frozen 1 & 2

    • Family Man 

    • Scrooged

    • Freaks, 1932

    • Casablanca

    • Storm in a Teacup

    • Pleasantville

    • The Talk of the Town

    • The Corn is Green

    • Now, Voyager

    • Meet John Doe

    • Erin Brokovich

    • Rogue One

    • Mr Smith Goes to Washington

    • Hobson's choice

    • The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

    • Love and Other Drugs

    • Love on the Spectrum

    • Imitation of Life (1934)

    • Lars and the Real Girl

    • Happy Accidents

    • Roald Dahl's Esio Trot

    • PK