A look at self-care as a spiritual need and strategies for incorporating self-care into your everyday life without feeling overwhelmed.

This book was not what I expected. It is not a light devotional. It is deep and intense. Dr. Walker-Barnes is a wealth of information. I would recommend this for someone ready to dive deep into this topic and put that knowledge to practice.

Self-care is something that many of us know that we "should" be doing, but cannot find the time to implement. This book by Dr. Walker-Barnes breaks down a self-care routine into 7 weeks of manageable bite sized action steps. Each week includes a devotional and a theme. Some of the themes include: gratitude, compassion, setting boundaries, and more. Each day you are provided with a short reading on the self-care skill, an activity to utilize to practice the self-care skill, and a short devotional. This book was easy to read and implement. It should be noted that it geared toward one that is seeking a self-care routine that is also devotional in nature. I would have preferred a longer, year long book, but this is a great start. I am looking forward to other self-help books by this author. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advance review copy in exchange for my honest review.

This is a 49 day devotional with a strong connection to Lent, but the theme is self care and Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes is a needed voice in Christianity. She makes the connection between self care and being able to be an effective Christian using the Bible, her own loved experience, and modern advances in psychology to make her points. I love when she talks about when Jesus says “love God and love others as yourself” because when we love ourselves well, we can then love others well too and she talks about how she was able to better love others as she began caring for herself. This books is packed with so much wisdom.

It’s divided into forty nine day devotionals and every seventh day is a weekly wrap up. The weeks are themed: understanding self care from a biblical lease, caring for yourself physically, emotionally, caring for yourself using self compassion, caring for yourself with boundaries, caring for yourself mentally, and caring for yourself as a life practice. The seven day wrap ups were one of my favorites because she includes a prayer and a hymn from the African Heritage Hymnal that relates to the topic. I love music and found myself wanting to go to YouTube to hear the songs as they were sung.

If I had one critique, there were a couple places on a very few days where it felt like it was getting political. I strongly feel like the whole wide world of Christianity needs Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes perspectives shared in this book, and just knowing the political landscape in this country, there will be some who may toss the baby out with the proverbial bath water when seeing those sentences— and those outside United States of America will not totally “get it”. And truly, both sides of the political spectrum can and will absolutely benefit from the message Dr. Chanequa has shared here. If Christians on both sides cared for themselves as directed here, we might find our country begins to heal as Christians find margin to see all humans as people made in the image of God— but as the author states in the beginning, that starts with us treating our SELF as a whole person made in the Image of God.

I’d like to thank Harper One and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this advanced copy in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

"Sacred Self-Care: Daily Practices for Nurturing Our Whole Selves" isn't the type of book that I like to read all at one time. It's the kind of book that's intended to be experienced, really, rather than simply read and it's the kind of book that requires integration to be fully experienced.

Sitting down and simply reading "Sacred Self-Care," especially for the purpose of review, somehow feels less satisfying.

This was my initial feeling as I finished the closing pages of this latest book by Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes, a clinical psychologist, author, and theologian whose work in the area of African-American health disparities is particularly noteworthy and whose necessary voice is challenging, provocative, enlightening, and refreshingly relentless in its honesty.

"Sacred Self-Care" is a 49-day interactive devotional that digs deeper than many of the self-care guides and devotionals that emphasize physical, emotional, and mental well-being but overlook soul wellness.

Going day by day, Dr. Walker-Barnes weaves together immersive and meaningful and accessible prompts, practices, scripture passages, hymns, and prayers to help nurture one's spirit and to lead one toward a improved practices of:

Practicing self-compassion
Setting boundaries
Accessing pleasure and joy
Identifying priorities and establishing routines reflecting one's values
and many more.

As someone who has been engaged with social justice for many years in the area of violence prevention/intervention and disability rights, I found myself deeply appreciative of the practical and accessible nature of Dr. Walker-Barnes's exploration of self-care as subversive and reparative in social justice. I found these guides toward daily practice to be surprisingly, well, normal in nature - both very actionable and yet also aspirational. Dr. Walker-Barnes seems to start from this place of recognizing each of us as beautiful and wonderful creations of God and then wraps these practices around building a life that affirms that in our daily lives.

While there is a strong theological foundation to "Sacred Self-Care," it's more relatable than preachy and more a human experience devotional than one that teaches "give it to God and everything will be alright."

Sometimes, everything's not alright.

As I wound down my time with "Sacred Self-Care," I wasn't, to be honest, completely sure how I felt about it. I suppose I've reached this point where devotionals exist with such heightened and histrionic prayers and salutations that I was rather jarred by this gentle, nurturing, transparent, and tender devotional that met me where I was at and affirmed I was worthy of my entire self being nurtured.

After resting with "Sacred Self-Care" for about 48 hours, I realized it was exactly the devotional I needed it to be.