Do you ever contemplate the role your emotions have in your life? Have you ever tried to suppress your emotions because they're messy or unruly (or whatever adjective you choose to describe them)?

The Garden Within by Dr. Anita Phillips is a powerful resource that shows us the crucial role our emotions play on our physical, emotional, and spiritual health.

She compares the body to a garden using scientific and biblical sources and walks us through ways to tend for the garden within.

This book has confirmed things I've suspected about the role of my emotions on my physical and mental health for years. It has also given me resources to live my best life by allowing myself to experience my emotions in healthy, life-giving ways.

I received an advanced reader's copy from the publisher through NetGalley; a positive review was not required.

The Book My Heart Has Waited For...

Since first encountering a message/lecture/sermon by Dr. Anita on YT, I've eagerly anticipated her first book. It's now here and everything I'd hoped for: Bible study + mental health counseling + neurobiology lesson + love story, seamlessly woven with personal anecdotes from the exceptionally brilliant and relatable sister-friend you've always wanted. It's actually more than I'd hoped. This blessing of a book is also wrapped in theologically sound permission to release any stigma about admitting that saved folks can and do experience a broad range of emotions, including anxiety. God fearfully and wonderfully made us capable of experiencing emotionally complex lives and continues to love and care for us when we experience that complexity.

The Garden Within has helped me see myself as an emotional being in the pages of my Bible and also express myself as an emotionally healing daughter of God in my therapy sessions. I look forward to reading and sharing The Garden Within again and again!

The Garden Within invites the reader to consider the ways Jesus exhibited emotions and gives practical strategies to help cultivate emotional well being. The many scripture references provided were very helpful in telling the story of what it takes to have a flourishing garden within. It’s a resource I wish I had when dealing with past trauma.