Real Self Care (Crystals, Cleanses, and Bubble Baths Not Included)

by Pooja Lakshmin, MD. Penguin Life, 2023

Here is a book geared towards women navigating the complexities of modern life, one that is working to give tools to help. The book nods toward different gender identities and acknowledges the role societal expectations based on gender can play in how people move through the world. It also acknowledges how different cultural identities can impact how we do things like identify our values and express our boundaries, very useful ideas to hold in mind.

It offers readers clear and specific exercises to do to help clarify their relationships to the main concepts Lakshmin identifies as the principles of “Real Self Care”: setting boundaries, cultivating self-compassion, living your values, and owning your power (another way of thinking about this last one is cultivating agency, or the control you have over your life).

I’d give this book to a client who is eagerly looking for between session exercises, and would be excited about the insights it might help them generate as a way of guiding future sessions.

Visit Pooja Lakshmin’s site to find out more about the author and the book.