On My Shelf

resources for embodiment, healing, & intimacy with Christ

Over the past few years, my own path has been a deepening focus on the intersection of somatic trauma healing and Christian spirituality — what it means to know God through the body, and to let the body be met by the good news of Jesus. These are some of the books (plus some music, too) that have stood out along the way. I’m sharing them as a gift and resource, especially for those joining the Incarnate cohort, but also for anyone walking alongside this work.

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On the Body, the Nervous System, & Inner Healing

Peter Levine — Waking the Tiger The foundational text from the founder of Somatic Experiencing on trauma as old stories stored in the body, and healing as something the body already knows how to do.

Bessel van der Kolk — The Body Keeps the Score The book that brought somatics into the mainstream. A wide-ranging account of how trauma lives in the tissues, and an overview of some approaches to healing.

Resmaa Menakem — My Grandmother’s Hands A deep, embodied reckoning with racialized trauma at the generational, cellular, collective level. Beautiful, heart-breaking, and ultimately hopeful.

Francis Weller — The Wild Edge of Sorrow A book about grief as a sacred, communal practice. Weller writes about the varied realms of grief, and ritual as a path to healing with the kind of slow attention the work itself requires.

Richard Schwartz — No Bad Parts The clearest introduction to Internal Family Systems. The premise: every part of you, even the ones you’ve rejected, has good intent, and can be re-integrated by approaching them from the love of your truest Self.

To be honest: I have not yet found a book that effectively teaches the practice of somatic healing — I find the work is too embodied, too relational, too dependent on lived experience to be transmitted in print. These are good overviews, but the deepest learning for me has been in the three-year Somatic Experiencing training. For practitioners looking to integrate somatic trauma healing into their client work, I recommend it without reservation. It’s one of those things that has to be experienced to be understood.

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On Christ & Embodiment

Curt Thompson — The Soul of Shame / Anatomy of the Soul Christian neurobiology. He weaves attachment, shame, and the gospel together with precision and tenderness.

John Michael Cusick — Sacred Attachment Attachment theory through a Christian lens. How childhood developmental experiences shape our relationship with God, and how to return to God as the secure base and template for all our relationships.

Brother Lawrence — The Practice of the Presence of God A short, ancient classic. A monk who learned to feel God in the dishwater. The whole book is an invitation to find holiness in the ordinary. And small enough to fit in your pocket!

Cynthia Bourgeault — The Meaning of Mary Magdalene / Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening Contemplative prayer as descent into the heart, not escape from it. Intimate relationship as the crucible for deepest spiritual transformation. She reclaims the mystical Christian lineage into language a modern reader can understand and use.

James Finley — The Healing Path A psychotherapist and former Trappist monk writing about his own journey, trauma and contemplation as one path. A short, profound read.

John Mark Comer — The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry / Practicing the Way A pastor’s guide to apprenticeship under Jesus in a world that won’t slow down. Practical, warm, formational.

John O’Donohue — Eternal Echoes Celtic spirituality and longing as sacred. He writes about belonging, the soul, and the inner landscape with devastating beauty and poetry.

C.S. Lewis — The Great Divorce A short, strange parable about heaven, hell, and the small choices that determine which one we walk into. Lewis's hell is not so much a place but a state — the self curled around its own grievances, mistaking its small attachments for its life — and his heaven is the willingness to let those attachments die so something larger can come.

Anonymous — The Cloud of Unknowing A 14th-century manual for contemplative prayer. The original instruction in letting the mind quiet enough to meet God in the dark.

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Scripture

Stephen Mitchell — The Gospel According to Jesus A stripped-down, Zen scholar’s reconstruction and commentary on what Jesus most likely said and did. Worth reading alongside the canonical Gospels, or as an easier entry point to the New Testament.

Elaine Pagels — The Gnostic Gospels A landmark history of the early Christian texts excluded from the canon, recovered from a jar in the Egyptian desert in 1945. The texts insist that to know oneself, deeply, is itself a way of knowing God.

Jean-Yves Le Loup (trans.) — The Gospel of Mary Magdalene A translation and commentary on the fragmentary Coptic text in which Miriam of Magdala — the first witness to the resurrection — teaches the disciples Jesus’s most intimate teachings. Short, strange, and luminous; Le Loup reads it as the soul’s journey through the body and the passions into rest.

The Bible — Eugene Peterson’s The Message A lively translation that reads like a person speaking. If you’ve grown weary or lost in more formal translations, let this one breathe life back into scripture.

"Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn't want what it doesn't have. Love doesn't strut, Doesn't have a swelled head... Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end."

-1 Corinthians 13 4:7, MSG

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Music for the Body and the Spirit

I’ve made a Spotify playlist of contemplative Christian music — songs I return to in prayer, in the car, in tears, in the kitchen, in the long quiet moments in between. Give it a listen, and please send any recommendations if there are other artists you like along the same vein!

I hope these resources can offer supportive companionship along your journey.

If you’ve been considering joining the Incarnate online course — we begin this Thursday, May 7, at 7:00 PM ET. Five weeks to practice returning to the body as a way of returning to God. Spots are available — you can find the details and register here.

Thank you for being here 🤍