"Joyous Resilience is the book our hearts have been waiting for."
Zahabiyah Yamasaki, M.ED., RYT
**Indie Book Awards Finalist**
**Bronze Medal, Living Now Awards**
Signed Copies available at My Local independent bookstores
** EastWind Books, Pegasus Books**
or consider purchasing at your favorite local bookstore, Bookshop.org
or one of these black-owned bookstores
Also Available at all major booksellers.
A big Thank you to those of you who have ordered the book and left such lovely reviews!
With so much information available on how to build resilience—from meditation, exercise, and time in nature, to the latest neuroscience-backed studies—have you ever wondered what’s holding you back? If you commit to self-care but find yourself
exhausted, unhappy, or anxious, do you wonder what’s missing?
The fact is, we are all navigating an exhausting, disconnecting, do-more-buy more culture that disproportionately harms those with marginalized identities and leads us to believe that our thriving depends solely on individual effort. Mainstream
wellness culture doesn’t account for the ways that social oppression and economic injustice intersect to make resilience difficult for many of us to access in the first place. So, where do we begin?
In this warm and accessible guide, Pakistani American therapist Anjuli Sherin provides a healing path to make thriving possible for everyone. Through compelling client stories and reflective exercises, she offers a culturally informed, body -centered model that shows us how cultivating self-nurturance, healthy boundaries,
pleasure, and a soulful connection to the natural world can give us the generative energy needed to heal individual and collective trauma and shape our world from an inner magic called joyous resilience.
THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU IF . . .
ɐ You have been feeling sad, depressed, anxious, irritable, or unhappy as you ride an emotional roller coaster that you long to get off of but don’t know how.
ɐYou sometimes wonder if your emotional distress might be related to collective trauma, oppression, and the state of our world.
ɐ You find that resentment, criticism, and self-judgment poison your days.
ɐ You’ve been drowning in the day-to-day routine of your life; you’ve lost track of what matters to you and wonder if this is all there is.
ɐ You want to cultivate a loving inner voice as a necessary flotation device, and you also see that measures such as a living wage, universal health care, and access to childcare might be the real life-savers.
ɐ You tamp down your plans and dreams due to fear, doubt, and procrastination, or you see a legacy of dreams deferred in your family across generations due to oppression.
ɐ You feel too guilty or scared to say no because you think that’s selfish, or you belong to a gender, race, culture, religion, class, or marginalized group for whom saying no has had severe consequences.
ɐ You’ve been feeling lonely, unloved, or broken, like there’s a hole inside you that needs to be filled.
ɐ “Self-love” smacks of selfishness to you, and yet you know you desperately need it.
ɐ You want to experience deeper joy and more satisfaction in your life without guilt.
ɐ You are exhilarated by the idea of seeing diverse bodies lit up with their own aliveness.
ɐ You want to find the love of your life and are open to the possibility that you might be that one.
ɐ You are a layperson, clinician, healer, advocate, teacher, or counselor who wants a path to building joyous resilience that also provides important first steps toward collective healing and thriving.
I wrote this book for you. For me. For all of us.
exhausted, unhappy, or anxious, do you wonder what’s missing?
The fact is, we are all navigating an exhausting, disconnecting, do-more-buy more culture that disproportionately harms those with marginalized identities and leads us to believe that our thriving depends solely on individual effort. Mainstream
wellness culture doesn’t account for the ways that social oppression and economic injustice intersect to make resilience difficult for many of us to access in the first place. So, where do we begin?
In this warm and accessible guide, Pakistani American therapist Anjuli Sherin provides a healing path to make thriving possible for everyone. Through compelling client stories and reflective exercises, she offers a culturally informed, body -centered model that shows us how cultivating self-nurturance, healthy boundaries,
pleasure, and a soulful connection to the natural world can give us the generative energy needed to heal individual and collective trauma and shape our world from an inner magic called joyous resilience.
THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU IF . . .
ɐ You have been feeling sad, depressed, anxious, irritable, or unhappy as you ride an emotional roller coaster that you long to get off of but don’t know how.
ɐYou sometimes wonder if your emotional distress might be related to collective trauma, oppression, and the state of our world.
ɐ You find that resentment, criticism, and self-judgment poison your days.
ɐ You’ve been drowning in the day-to-day routine of your life; you’ve lost track of what matters to you and wonder if this is all there is.
ɐ You want to cultivate a loving inner voice as a necessary flotation device, and you also see that measures such as a living wage, universal health care, and access to childcare might be the real life-savers.
ɐ You tamp down your plans and dreams due to fear, doubt, and procrastination, or you see a legacy of dreams deferred in your family across generations due to oppression.
ɐ You feel too guilty or scared to say no because you think that’s selfish, or you belong to a gender, race, culture, religion, class, or marginalized group for whom saying no has had severe consequences.
ɐ You’ve been feeling lonely, unloved, or broken, like there’s a hole inside you that needs to be filled.
ɐ “Self-love” smacks of selfishness to you, and yet you know you desperately need it.
ɐ You want to experience deeper joy and more satisfaction in your life without guilt.
ɐ You are exhilarated by the idea of seeing diverse bodies lit up with their own aliveness.
ɐ You want to find the love of your life and are open to the possibility that you might be that one.
ɐ You are a layperson, clinician, healer, advocate, teacher, or counselor who wants a path to building joyous resilience that also provides important first steps toward collective healing and thriving.
I wrote this book for you. For me. For all of us.
Praise for Book
“In the midst of these unprecedented times, I know we are all searching for joy, hope, inspiration, and ways to nurture ourselves amidst our activism. Sherin’s lens is culturally affirming, profound, inspiring, and engages us all in what it means to be alive and thrive and find strength in our vulnerability. The tools she provides are groundbreaking, heart-centered, nuanced, and grounded in anti-oppression frameworks. As a woman of color and trauma educator, I have been searching for a comprehensive resource of this nature that honors the lived experience of so many communities who are often left out of the conversation. This book is filling a much-needed gap in service delivery and will change the way mental health professionals approach their work, as well as how clients approach their healing. I am in complete awe of this work of art.”
—ZAHABIYAH YAMASAKI, M.ED., RYT
Program Director, Trauma-Informed Programs, UCLA
Founder, Transcending Sexual Trauma through Yoga
Author, Trauma-Informed Yoga for Survivors of Sexual Assault (forthcoming)
“Joyous Resilience is perfectly right-sized for this historical moment. In a rigorous yet heartfelt voice, Sherin identifies the wounds we carry, how they can be healed, and the doorways they are for living a life of joy and affirmation. This is not an academic overture, but a book written with the deep experience and wisdom of a somatic healer across an inclusive intersectionality.”
—RICHARD STROZZI-HECKLER, PhD, author of The Leadership Dojo
“Joyous Resilience is a poignant and profound anthem to survivors—a reminder that we all carry the light of resilience inside of our bodies and hearts. Through an intersectional lens that considers the impact of race, power, and privilege on the color and texture of our wounds, the practices offered . . . serve as a map, guiding us to access our innate power to heal, so that we can reclaim the joy that is our birthright.”
—AMY PAULSON, global trauma healing advocate and founder and CEO of Gratitude Alliance
“This book is a healing journey—for the reader and even for the author who speaks, listens, and learns along with us. The practices introduced can help mitigate the roots and residue of historic and ongoing trauma, especially trauma that results from inter-generational, cumulative, and collective traumas. Healing from trauma need not be a solitary journey. In fact, we heal best and deeper when we are in connection, when we are in relationship, and when we are in community. If we open our hearts and our minds, together, we can cultivate and create a joyously resilient world.”
—LAKIBA PITTMAN, Senior adjunct professor, Menlo College, and senior instructor of compassion cultivation training at The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, Stanford University
“This book offers a powerful vision for individual and collective healing rooted in resilience. Through helpful practices and illuminating case studies, Anjuli Sherin combines insights from her years of clinical experience and theoretical study to help each of us joyfully thrive. It’s a powerful offering for the world at this time. “
—DAVID TRELEAVEN, PhD, author of Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness
DEDICATION
This book is inspired by and written for the incredible, courageous, brilliant and loving humans who have graced my practice these past many years. Thank you for being who you are and for becoming the light of love in our world.
*This theory draws on the work of renowned clinicians Eric Berne, M.D, father of Transactional Analysis (TA) and his student, Stan Karpman M.D, who first coined the Drama Triangle and it’s roles of Victim, Persecutor and Rescuer, and integrates their approach with Gestalt, Internal Family Systems, and Attachment Therapy models.