Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

By Emily and Amelia Nagoski

This book was published in 2019, but as stories of burnout dominate think pieces, group chats, and new stories, it’s a perfect time to revisit it. It includes lots of tangible strategies and tools that you can use, and has handy summaries of each chapter, making it easier to come back to when you need a refresher. The book is also a good reminder to challenge the capitalist patriarchy that glorifies working extra hours, “powering through” pain, and pretending like everything is fine when it’s seriously not. Order it online here.

A favorite quote:

‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’ You’ve been hearing this for years, in one form or another, but let’s be specific. Like, if you’re hit by a car and don’t die, does the car make you stronger? No. Does injury or disease make you stronger? No. Does suffering alone build character? No. These things leave you more vulnerable to further injury. What makes you stronger is whatever happens to you after you survive the thing that didn’t kill you. What makes you stronger is rest.”

Rising Strong: The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution.

By Brené Brown

I’ve read a bunch of Brené Brown’s work, but this is the one I consistently recommend to other people. This landed in my lap at just the right moment and made me feel really seen during a really difficult time in my life. I was so over the glorification of “fail fast” and the message that experiencing loss should make you grateful that you had something to lose. Loss and failure freaking hurt. A lot. Brown not only recognized that, but it felt like she climbed right up on my couch with a box of tissues and helped me figure out what I was feeling and how to move forward. Her no bullshit tone and vulnerability in sharing some of her own experiences also made me feel less alone. Order it online here.

A favorite quote:

“People who wade into discomfort and vulnerability and tell the truth about their stories are the real badasses.”

Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy

By Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant

When Sheryl Sandberg’s husband died suddenly, her whole world was (understandably) turned upside down. Option B is her story of figuring out how to navigate immense pain, change, and loss with her children, but she also looks at her experience in context. She looks at the experiences of other people who have come through some of the worst things that can happen, most of whom didn’t have the kind of privilege that she does. Sandberg is much more vulnerable in the book than in Lean In, even pointing out the mistakes that she made in writing that book. Option B isn’t as action oriented as Burnout, but it does include a good blend of research and storytelling. Order it online here.

A favorite quote:

“I couldn’t understand when friends didn’t ask me how I was. I felt invisible, as if I were standing in front of them but they couldn’t see me. When someone shows up with a cast, we immediately inquire, “What happened?” If your ankle gets shattered, people ask to hear the story. If your life gets shattered, they don’t.”

Care Work: Dreaming
Disability Justice

By Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

This might seem tangential to the theme, but Piepzna-Samarasinha’s book is a real look at an alternative framework to self care; it’s all about community care, mutual aid, and collective access. While self care is often framed as something individual, something that you do on your own and for yourself, Piepzna-Samarasinha highlights the ways that disabled communities take care of each other, and the radical way that caring for each other can be a way for us to care for ourselves. This book is highly practical, compiling what Piepzna-Samarasinha and her friends have learned through their experiences and providing a blueprint for more accessible, equitable, and just communities. Order it online here.

A favorite Quote:

“It’s not about self-care—it’s about collective care. Collective care means shifting our organizations to be ones where people feel fine if they get sick, cry, have needs, start late because the bus broke down, move slower, ones where there’s food at meetings, people work from home—and these aren’t things we apologize for. It is the way we do the work, which centers disabled-femme-of-color ways of being in the world, where many of us have often worked from our sickbeds, our kid beds, or our too-crazy-to-go-out-today beds. Where we actually care for each other and don’t leave each other behind. Which is what we started with, right?”