The Smart Girl's Guide to Self-Care

A Savvy Guide to Help Young Women Flourish, Thrive and Conquer

By: Shahida Arabi

Narrated by: Julie McKay

Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's Summary

Are you in an abusive or unhappy relationship? Do you try too hard to please your friends at the expense of your own needs and wants? Are you subservient to others and do you find yourself unable to become independent? Do you suffer from negative self-talk? These are all signs that your self-care regimen is deficient in some way. The Smart Girl's Guide to Self-Care tackles the common problems of effective self-care with practical suggestions for practices that will create a sustainable, lifelong self-care routine. For those who are beginners to concepts like mindfulness, meditation, opposite action, positive rebellion, positive affirmations, and radical acceptance, this book will provide a useful and comprehensive introduction. For those struggling from the trauma of emotionally abusive relationships, this book will guide you in recognizing the signs of abuse, creating a reverse discourse that challenges ruminations over the abuse, moving forward successfully after a break-up using no contact, and techniques on coping with trauma in constructive and meaningful ways. Each chapter of this book also provides a list of supplemental resources as well as a recommended reading list to guide you on this journey to greater self-love and self-care.

Although this book is intended for everyone, its target audience is young women who are socialized to believe that their needs and wants don't matter and that their relationships with others are much more important than the relationship they have with themselves. In order to have healthy, happy relationships with others, we must first cultivate healthy, happy relationships with ourselves and eradicate the toxic habits that deplete us of the self-love and self-acceptance necessary for a fulfilling life. You may be wondering: How is it possible to banish the browbeating bully inside your own head, influenced by all the bullies you've encountered in real life? How do you learn how to be more present in the moment rather than ruminating over the pitfalls of your past? How do you learn to love yourself, despite all of the experiences that tell you you aren't even worthy of your own respect and appreciation? Using a patchwork of diverse techniques and practices, The Smart Girl's Guide to Self-Care answers these questions through a holistic program of tending to the mind, body, and spirit in healthier and more productive ways, serving as the portal to immense healing and enabling you to stage your own recovery and victory in ways you never thought possible.

Cover image copyright NinaMalyna / Shutterstock

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2016 Shahida Arabi (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

Very helpful

I’ve been working through the painful process of dissolving my 24 year marriage to a toxic person with narcissistic tendencies. Self-care was a foreign concept to me, but it is essential for healing. I found this book fill of helpful suggestions to treat myself with the love I deserve..

pretty obvious, nothing insightful

I found myself annoyed throughout this book because the material was pretty trite & redundant. It did not guide you in making instrumental changes towards better self care. Frankly, a couple moments sounded like it was based on the glossary of an undergrad Intro to Psych textbook :-(

Very Good Guide

I enjoyed listening to this and there are 5 quotes that stays with me. It gives good advice on being assertive, getting toxic people out of your life, pursuing success, and getting over breakups.

Wish I had read this twenty years ago!

Great book!! I want to buy several to pass out to every young lady I know. I covers all aspects of womanhood. I play it over and over and I’m still learning from this amazing book

Must read!

After reading Shahida’s other books to gain the strength and knowledge of self love and finally disposing of toxic relationships across the board, this book is just the icing on the cake.

Love,
Mia a narcissist abuse SURVIVOR 💕

A MUST FOR HEALING

Where do I begin? This book was absolutely life-changing, phenomenal, and an absolute must read if you are on a healing journey especially for those of you. In the trenches doing the work. that being said, I still believe it’s a must read for any young woman I wish I had this book 10 or 15 years ago however, I believe I found it and read it at the right time. Please do yourself your mind, body soul and spirit a favor and read this book.

This will be my go-to book!

This is a brilliant resource, with clear and helpful information, accompanied by practical tool kit.

A great Self Care guide.

I liked that this book also gave little exercises and encouragements focussing both on talents and flaws. I love that it got me out of another big mental black hole. I had stopped doing a lot of things that I was interested in. While reading this I planned to start the things suggested that I once enjoyed. I also found the recommendations for other self help book very useful. Thank you.

formulaic rather than insightful and practical

I was disappointed there wasn't more real world examples of how to make changes work... ..