Self-Care Resource Guide

Below are a set of resources to support your self-care journey. It includes books to help you frame a theology of self-care and to address specific elements of your self-care plan: bodily wellness, mindfulness, self-compassion, self-awareness, emotional intelligence, boundaries, and rest. There are also resources for specific populations, including Black women, LGTBQIA persons, clergy, disabled persons, and activists.

Books by Dr. Chanequa

Sacred Self-Care: Daily Practices for Nurturing Our Whole Selves 

Self-Care Rule of Life

You can find detailed resources for developing your personal Self-Care Rule of Life in Dr. Chanequa’s book, Sacred Self-Care, including the Sacred Self-Care Inventory and the Self-Care Rule of Life Planning Guide. You can use this template to create a poster of your Rule of Life (requires setting up a Canva account). 

Guided Meditations by Dr. Chanequa

Access Dr. Chanequa’s guided meditation recordings (including those referenced in Sacred Self-Care) at Meditating with Dr. Chanequa.

Other Books

  • Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation

  • Sabbath as Resistance: Saying NO to the Culture of NOW

  • Anticancer Living: Transform Your Life and Health with the Mix of Six

  • Living Resistance: An Indigenous Vision for Seeking Wholeness Every Day

  • Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto

  • Rest in the Storm: Self-Care Strategies for Clergy and Other Caregivers

  • Decolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body Liberation

  • Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself

  • Right Here, Right Now: The Practice of Christian Mindfulness

  • Sustaining Spirit: Self-Care for Social Justice

  • Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger

  • Honoring the Body: Meditations on a Christian Practice

  • Faithful and Fractured: Responding to the Clergy Health Crisis

  • Pause, Rest, Be: Stillness Practices for Courage in Times of Change

  • Emotionally Healthy Spirituality: It’s Impossible to Be Spiritually Mature While Remaining Emotionally Immature

  • Wrestling with Rest: Inviting Youth to Discover the Gift of Sabbath

  • Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives

  • Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself

  • An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith

  • The Body Is Not An Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love

  • The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

  • Too Heavy a Yoke: Black Women and the Burden of Strength

  • Mudhouse Sabbath

Mindfulness Meditation Classes & Apps

Brown Mindfulness and Health Institute 

  • Offers online and in-person classes, including weekly meditations, MBSR, and MBSR teacher training. Programs are evidence-based, nonsectarian, and appropriate for all religious/spiritual backgrounds.

Insight Meditation Society

  • Retreat center founded by Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, and Jack Kornfield. Offers online and in-person classes and retreats grounded in the Buddhist Vipassana (insight) tradition. Classes are open to all religious/spiritual backgrounds.

Insight Timer Meditation App

  • Free meditation app that includes more than 130,000 guided meditations from a wide variety of traditions, including Christian mindfulness, MBSR practices, and more.

UMASS Center for Mindfulnes

  • Home of the original Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Offers online and in-person classes. Programs are evidence-based, nonsectarian, and appropriate for all religious/spiritual backgrounds.