Zero Commitment Book Club - June/July

"How To Do The Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past + Create Your Self" By: Dr. Nicola LePera

If you're at all familiar with @TheHolisticPsychologist on Instagram, you will love this book. If you're not familiar, RUN - don't walk to her IG page. Dr. LePera is an excellent and generous resource for building insight and healing online, providing meaningful (and factual!) information for FREE on IG and through her SelfHealers Circle online.
Now, to the book: We loved it. Worth It therapists found it both helpful and validating regarding the work we do with our clients everyday, as well as the work we try to do with ourselves. This book is another great primer on trauma recovery, and provides helpful practical ideas on how to apply information gleaned.

• The structure of this book is excellent! It really follows a step-wise approach wherein each chapter builds upon the knowledge of the previous chapter. In that way, it is a great guide for what Dr. LePera refers to as self-healing. It also means that chapters could be used as a stand-alone guide on each topic.
• At the end of each chapter are worksheets/activities to build insight into current patterns and develop the skills taught in that chapter. Really helpful stuff!
• This is another book which supposes that far more people have experience trauma than understood. It takes a board view as to what constitutes a "traumatic" event and gives validation to the idea that it is not the event itself that is traumatic, but an individuals response to the event.
• Interesting discussion of dissociation and parts of self occurs throughout this book. These are concepts which are often misrepresented in pop culture; we LOVE that Dr. LePera is putting truth out there.
• The Boundaries chapter!!! So good. We particularly appreciated the differentiation between physical boundaries (amount of personal space/contact you are comfortable with), resource boundaries (ability to exercise choice around where/how your time is spent), and mental/emotional boundaries (comfort level with sharing your personal thoughts, feelings, opinions, beliefs). 
• OBESSESSED with Dr. LePera's definition of self-care: "Self-care is the act of learning to identify and care for your physical and emotional wants and needs, especially those that were denied in childhood". THANK YOU! We're obviously not talking about mani-pedis here :)