The Wisdom of Your Body: Finding Healing, Wholeness, and Connection Through Embodied Living - Paperback

by Hillary L. Phd McBride (Author)

2022 Word Guild Award, Culture and Life Stories categories
Globe and Mail Bestseller List, November 2021 (Self-Improvement)

Many of us have a complicated relationship with our body.

Maybe you've been made to feel ashamed of your body or like it isn't good enough. Maybe your body is riddled with stress, pain, or the effects of trauma. Maybe you think of your body as an accessory to what you believe you really are--your mind. Maybe your experiences with racism, sexism, ableism, heterosexism, ageism, or sizeism have made you believe your body isn't the right kind of body. Whatever the reason, many of us don't feel at home in our bodies. But being disconnected from ourselves as bodies means being disconnected from truly living and from the interconnection that weaves us all together.

Psychologist and award-winning researcher Hillary McBride explores the broken and unhealthy ideas we have inherited about our body. Embodiment is the way we are in the world, and our embodiment is heavily influenced by who we have been allowed to be. McBride shows that many of us feel disembodied due to colonization, racism, sexism, and patriarchy--destructive systems that rank certain bodies as less valuable, beautiful, or human than others. Embracing our embodiment can liberate us from these systems. As we come to understand the world around us and the stories we've been told, we see that our perspective of reality often limits how we see and experience ourselves, each other, and what we believe is Sacred. Instead of the body being a problem to overcome, our bodies can be the very place where we feel most alive, the seat of our spirituality and our wisdom.

The Wisdom of Your Body offers a compassionate, healthy, and holistic perspective on embodied living. Weaving together illuminating research, stories from her work as a therapist, and deeply personal narratives of healing from a life-threatening eating disorder, a near-fatal car accident, and chronic pain, McBride invites us to reclaim the wisdom of the body and to experience the wholeness that has been there all along. End-of-chapter questions and practices are included.

Back Jacket

Coming Home to Your Body

Clinical psychologist and award-winning researcher Hillary L. McBride explores the ways many of us inherit a broken and unhealthy understanding of the body and offers a more compassionate, healthy, and holistic perspective on embodied life.

"The Wisdom of Your Body is the exact message I wish someone had given me thirty years ago. This book will help set people free."
--Jen Hatmaker, New York Times bestselling author of Fierce, Free, and Full of Fire and Of Mess and Moxie; host of the For the Love podcast

"A book offering profound healing and insight--the rare tome that can change not only individual lives but also our world."
--Mike McHargue, host of The Cozy Robot Show; author of You're a Miracle (and a Pain in the Ass)

"This book is an invitation to look deeper and to live a fully connected and embodied life."
--Morgan Harper Nichols, author of All Along You Were Blooming

"This might be the revolution for which we've all been secretly longing. The Wisdom of Your Body is a book I will be recommending to everyone."
--Sarah Bessey, author of Jesus Feminist, editor of the New York Times bestseller A Rhythm of Prayer

"It is the most important work of my adulthood to learn that I am my body. This book is the indispensable tool I've been looking for."
--Jedidiah Jenkins, New York Times bestselling author of Like Streams to the Ocean and To Shake the Sleeping Self

"Soulful. Joyful. McBride is the gentle and powerful voice that calls us back home to ourselves."
--Kate Bowler, Duke Divinity School; author of Everything Happens for a Reason

Author Biography

Hillary L. McBride (PhD, University of British Columbia) is a registered psychologist, an award-winning researcher, and a sought-after speaker who specializes in embodiment. She formerly cohosted The Liturgists podcast (averages 4 million downloads per year), hosts the Other People's Problems podcast, and has appeared on other popular podcasts. McBride's clinical and academic work has been recognized by the American Psychological Association and the Canadian Psychological Association. She is an adjunct professor in the department of counseling psychology at the University of British Columbia and has a private counseling practice in Vancouver. McBride is the author of Mothers, Daughters, and Body Image and coeditor of Embodiment and Eating Disorders. Learn more at www.hillarylmcbride.com.