Strong like Water: Finding the Freedom, Safety, and Compassion to Move through Hard Things--and Experience True Flourishing

Loved this book! Many of the tools were tools I've learned and used with my own therapist but I really loved reading about them from Aundi's perspective. The exercises at the end of each chapter are things I would actually revisit and use. It's a great book full of strong examples but it feels like it extends beyond a one time read. It's the kind of book I will continue to pull off my shelf and reference. The tone was a highlight for me too--gentle, loving, understanding but also passionate and willing to say hard things. Beautiful work!

I was so excited to pick up Aundi Kolber's second book, Strong Like Water. In this book, she expands on themes from her first book (Try Softer) and encourages her readers to go deeper with strength to become your truest self. That self is not unaffected by past pain and trauma, but rather seeks growth and change through it.Like her first book, Strong Like Water pair solid psychological research with Christian truth and values. While I can't say that I agree with every Biblical interpretation the author makes, I feel like her point comes across well - the God who loves us wants to see us healed. He wants to heal us and help us move from "situational strength" (a strength that helps us survive stressful circumstances) to "transitional strength" where we live to our fullest potential, who we were created to be. It is in this transitional strength that we can truly love your neighbor and work for change in the world. A person living from a place of transitional strength is grounded and present and alive, even in hard situations.This book is written in a voice of love and compassion, from a person who has been there both in her own life as well as alongside others in her therapy practice as they have walked through very real challenges in life. It is well written, and easy to read, yet important to savor. The exercises and practices that are suggested at the end of each chapter seem very useful as well as stepping stones to growth.Though it may sound like it, this is not a quick fix self help book. It is also not a book that encourages picking yourself up by your bootstraps or "arriving" at some mythical end point on the road to personal change or better mental health. It is a book that recognizes growth and change is a journey, not a destination. (I don't mean to sound cheesy, alas.) I appreciated that Aundi used many personal anecdotes to illustrate the trajectory of change in her own life. Though she did include (highly edited) client stories, I felt her personal illustrations made the book very relatable and real - but I am of a similar demographic to her from what I know via social media (a white Christian woman in my late 30s living in an upper middle class setting). Though the author is not a person of color, she does include some points about ongoing racial trauma, and from following her on social media, I believe advocacy in that realm is important to her. I mention this not because it is a focal point, but because it is brought up several times throughout the book.I highly recommend this book, and am sure I will return to it again in the future.Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the eARC. All opinions are my own.

Prior to reading Aundi's book, "Try Softer", most of the resources I had been exposed to on trauma were either very clinical or dry, leaving out any type of compassionate language for the reader. To say that book was life-changing is an understatement. As a survivor of both complex family trauma in my childhood and in my marriage, "Try Softer", finally gave me language for all that I had experienced along with a huge dose of compassion. I still remember with tears the first time I read Aundi addressing us readers as "dear ones". Such incredible healing!With much anticipation I looked forward to "Strong Like Water" and was able to have early access to the audiobook. It's even better than I expected, packed full of gentle and kind language, practical tools and real-life examples. I especially appreciate how Aundi talks about healing as a journey, not a finish line to be crossed, a great encouragement to me as I find myself wading through many heartbreaking life situations. The exercises at the end of the chapters and helpful notes throughout are such a huge bonus.More than just a helpful book, "Strong Life Water" is a go-to manual on how to move through trauma with gentleness and care for our whole body and not simply push through to get to the other side. I love the honest language she uses which makes her so relatable. While the book contains clinical terminology, Aundi does an incredible job of explaining in such a way that breaks things down in understandable ways.Trauma has often caused me to hang on fiercely for dear life in hypervigilant mode. The resources and language of "Strong Like Water" are teaching me that there is another way. The way of receiving care and compassion for myself, for all the hard places. It's opening me up to take safe refuge in God in new ways. This book is beautiful and life giving. Celebrating you and your work Aundi. "Strong Like Water" is a healing masterpiece!

Listening to Aundi's new work Strong Like Water, I felt embraced with compassion and kindness.I am thankful to learn that I can have both strength and softness. I do not have to stay in the situational strength which has helped me survive in the past. I can recognize my transitional strength as I continue to try softer and learn to develop integrated strength.In Strong Like Water, Aundi presents the neuroscience to equip us with understanding, and she gives many lived experiences to help us relate as we lean into the work of our own healing.Throughout her work there are many exercises to practically apply - always with the reminder to the reader to be safe and work at the pace that is right for them.Listening to this work I have felt seen and beloved!I will be rereading at a much slower pace and will keep this excellent resource right with Try Softer as I continue my living one moment at a time.

Loved this book. So helpful.