Loto Reads

At Loto Wellness Collective, we love to read and believe that knowledge is a powerful tool for transformation.

For those interested in digging deeper into their healing, we’ve curated a thoughtful selection of book suggestions to guide you deeper into your journey toward holistic well-being.

Dig into books that illuminate principles of nervous system regulation, explore the healing potential of somatic practices, and offer wisdom for nurturing your soul.

We also love self-care and believe that beauty heals. To help you craft a quiet time ritual, we’ve curated a selection of books from Psalmists, Artists, Poets, and Contemplatives.

Loto Reads 📚 Book Club Selections

  • MAY 2025: Hold That Thought

    "You're not good enough."

    "You need to try harder."

    "Everything's fine!"

    These are the sorts of voices that we all have in our heads, and they often push us to act in ways that are both unhelpful and unsustainable. How do we quiet these narratives? More importantly, amid the chatter, how do we hear the voice of God?

    Gem Fadling helps us identify the competing voices and shows how they hinder our personal transformation. Drawing on years of spiritual direction and leadership at Unhurried Living, she shares her wisdom of how we make sense of inner voices and settle down enough to find our true voice.

  • FEBRUARY 2025: The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry

    “Who am I becoming?” That was the question nagging pastor and author John Mark Comer. Outwardly, he appeared successful. But inwardly, things weren’t pretty. So he turned to a trusted mentor for guidance and heard these words: “Ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life. Hurry is the great enemy of the spiritual life.”

    It wasn’t the response he expected, but it was—and continues to be—the answer he needs. Too often we treat the symptoms of toxicity in our modern world instead of trying to pinpoint the cause. A growing number of voices are pointing at hurry, or busyness, as a root of much evil.
     
    Perfect for anyone looking to de-stress and connect more during this holiday season, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry is a fascinating roadmap to staying emotionally healthy and spiritually alive in the chaos of the modern world.

Knowledge is Power

  • Practice the Pause

    In Practice the Pause, spiritual director and writer Caroline Oakes offers easy-to-understand explanations of how this new brain science is confirming what every spiritual tradition has been telling us for millennia: by practicing the pause, we become more self-aware and better able to understand others. We become more "God aware."

    With a refreshing focus on the Eastern Christian understanding of Jesus as a master of wisdom, Oakes shines a spotlight on Jesus's own centering pause practice as a transformative path for personal and social change. We learn that even a seven-second pause practice can move us beyond the fight-or-flight responses of our ego in our daily lives and actually equip us to cultivate the common good in the world.

  • The Polyvagal Theory

    A collection of groundbreaking research by a leading figure in neuroscience.


    This book compiles, for the first time, Stephen W. Porges’s decades of research. A leading expert in developmental psychophysiology and developmental behavioral neuroscience, Porges is the mind behind the groundbreaking Polyvagal Theory, which has startling implications for the treatment of anxiety, depression, trauma, and autism. Adopted by clinicians around the world, the Polyvagal Theory has provided exciting new insights into the way our autonomic nervous system unconsciously mediates social engagement, trust, and intimacy.

  • The Body Keeps the Score

    Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments—from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga—that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain’s natural neuroplasticity.

    Based on Dr. van der Kolk’s own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score exposes the tremendous power of our relationships both to hurt and to heal—and offers new hope for reclaiming lives.

  • Anatomy of the Soul

    Do you want to improve your relationships and experience lasting personal change? Join Curt Thompson, M.D., on an amazing journey to discover the surprising pathways for transformation hidden inside your own mind. Integrating new findings in neuroscience and attachment with Christian spirituality, Dr. Thompson reveals how it is possible to rewire your mind, altering your brain patterns and literally making you more like the person God intended you to be. Explaining discoveries about the brain in layman’s terms, he shows how you can be mentally transformed through spiritual practices, interaction with Scripture, and connections with other people. He also provides practical exercises to help you experience healing in areas where you’ve been struggling. Insightful and challenging, Anatomy of the Soul illustrates how learning about one of God’s most miraculous creations―your brain―can enrich your life, your relationships, and your impact on the world around you.

  • Anchored

    In Anchored, expert teacher Deb Dana shares a down-to-earth presentation of Polyvagal Theory, then brings the science to life with practical, everyday ways to transform your relationship with your body. Using field-tested techniques, Dana helps you master the skills to become more aware of your nervous system moment to moment―and change the way you respond to the great and small challenges of life.

    Here, you’ll explore:
    • Polyvagal Theory―get to know the biology and function of your vagus nerve, the highway of the nervous system
    • Befriending Your Nervous System―attune to what’s going on in your body by developing your “neuroception”
    • Using Your Vagal Brake―discover key techniques to consciously regulate the intensity of your emotions
    • Connection and Protection―learn to recognize and influence your internal cues for safety and danger
    • Your Social Engagement System―find ways to create nourishing relationships with others and the world around you
    • Practices and guidance to gently shape your nervous system for greater resilience, intuition, safety, and wonder

  • Somatic Exercises for Beginners

    This book will reveal the power of somatic exercises to help regulate your nervous system and enhance your emotional resilience. You will reduce anxiety, tone your vagus nerve, and create a stronger mind-body connection in just 10 minutes a day.


    This is not just a book about exercises but a way of moving that can break your connection with ongoing stress and anxiety to reveal a life of well-being and balance. Inside, you'll find:

    -An understanding of somatic practices, showing you why they work and how to create your own practice tailored to your unique needs.

    -Mastery of the movements that can create mind-body and nervous system harmony.

    -Guidance on generating your own emotional release, awareness of your emotions, and greater emotional resilience.

    -Strategies for cultivating deep body awareness, allowing you to tune into your body's language and signals for stress and relaxation.

  • The Me I Want To Be

    Why does spiritual growth seem so difficult?

    God's vision for your life is not just that you are saved by grace, but that you also learn to live by grace, flourishing with the Spirit flowing through you. And this book will show how God's perfect vision for you starts with a powerful promise: All those who trust in God "will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit" (Jeremiah 17:7-8).

    Pastor and bestselling author John Ortberg first helps gauge your spiritual health and measure the gap between where you are now and where God intends you to be. Then he provides detailed tasks and exercises to help you live in the flow of the Spirit, circumventing real-world barriers--pain and sorrow, temptations, self-doubt, sin--to flourish even in a dark and broken world.

  • Sacred Pathways

    Sacred Pathways reveals nine distinct spiritual temperaments--and their strengths, weaknesses, and tendencies--to help you improve your spiritual life and deepen your personal walk with God.

    It's time to strip away the frustration of a one-size-fits-all spirituality and discover a path of worship that frees you to be you. Experienced spiritual directors, pastors, and church leaders recognize that all of us engage with God differently, and it's about time we do too.

  • Practicing The Way

    We are constantly being formed by the world around us. To be formed by Jesus will require us to become his apprentice. 

    To live by what the first Christian disciples called a Rule of Life—a set of practices and relational rhythms that slow us down and open up space in our daily lives for God to do what only God can do—transforms the deepest parts of us to become like him. 
     
    This introduction to spiritual formation is full of John Mark Comer’s trademark mix of theological substance and cultural insight as well as practical wisdom on developing your own Rule of Life.
     
    These ancient practices have much to offer us. By learning to rearrange our days, we can follow the Way of Jesus. We can be with him. Become like him. And do as he did.

  • The Kingdom Within: The Inner Meanings of Jesus' Sayings

    A psychoanalyst and episcopal priest presents a Jungian understanding of Christ’s teaching in this revised edition of a spiritual classic.

    By showing how Jesus’ teachings relate to our inner depths, The Kingdom Within guides us toward a more conscious and creative life. John A. Sanford explores the significance of Jesus’ teachings for our interior life—that inner reality that Jesus called “the kingdom of God.” It is Sanford’s conviction that contemporary Christianity has overlooked this inner dimension of Jesus’ teachings and so has lost touch with the human soul.

  • Atomic Habits

    Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results

    No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving--every day. James Clear, one of the world's leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results.

    If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Here, you'll get a proven system that can take you to new heights.

Beauty Heals

  • Beauty and Faith

    What is beauty?

    As we encounter and discover God, we are inevitably led to further unpack our sense of beauty and its meaning for our faith-lives. As a culture, we often describe God as true and good. We use beauty less often—and we struggle to articulate the intuitive relationship between it and the things of God: calling, spirituality, mission, and more. 

    This book is designed to bridge the gap. Through the story of Mark 14:1-11, The Story of the Woman with the Alabaster Jar, this book explores beauty and its profound implications for our lives.

  • The Artist's Way

    Since its first publication, The Artist's Way phenomena has inspired the genius of Elizabeth Gilbert and millions of readers to embark on a creative journey and find a deeper connection to process and purpose. Julia Cameron's novel approach guides readers in uncovering problems areas and pressure points that may be restricting their creative flow and offers techniques to free up any areas where they might be stuck, opening up opportunities for self-growth and self-discovery.

  • Art + Faith

    Conceived over thirty years of painting and creating in his studio, this book is Makoto Fujimura’s broad and deep exploration of creativity and the spiritual aspects of "making." What he does in the studio is theological work as much as it is aesthetic work. In between pouring precious, pulverized minerals onto handmade paper to create the prismatic, refractive surfaces of his art, he comes into the quiet space in the studio, in a discipline of awareness, waiting, prayer, and praise.

    Ranging from the Bible to T. S. Eliot, and from Mark Rothko to Japanese Kintsugi technique, he shows how unless we are making something, we cannot know the depth of God's being and God's grace permeating our lives. This poignant and beautiful book offers the perspective of, in Christian Wiman's words, "an accidental theologian," one who comes to spiritual questions always through the prism of art.

  • Beauty Secrets of The Bible

    Ginger Garrett reveals how every woman can accent her God-given beauty using the hidden treasures of the ancient Scriptures-where every scent and every act of beautification had spiritual and emotional significance.
    A woman's longing to present herself as physically beautiful is universal. Beauty is extolled throughout the Bible as complementing God's plan for women's lives. There are currently no books that examine the beauty practices of biblical women, the plants and products God created to accent their beauty, and the spiritual roots of feminine rituals.
    Beautiful women abound in the Bible: Queen Esther, the bride of Solomon, Delilah, Rachel, Sarah, and more. Their beauty was a gift from God, and God also supplied the many foods, spices, and oils that perfected each woman's appearance. In Beauty Secrets of the Bible, Ginger Garrett helps readers accent their God-given beauty using these secrets.

  • Minimalist Bible Verse Coloring Book

    • Easy & Delightful Flowers & Scripture to Color.
    • Memorize God’s Word While Coloring.
    • Minimalist Christian Coloring Book with Bible Verses and Boho Wildflowers
    • Relaxing & Inspirational Floral Designs with Scripture
    • Christian Coloring Books for Adults

    • Size: 8.5” x 11”
    • Drawn & Designed by Melissa Wingo in Sunny California

Nature Nourishes

  • Morning Altars

    “Morning altars” are colorful mandalas that combine nature, art, and meditation. Incorporating the natural world into the everyday encourages positive well- being, even with the simplest of the earth’s gifts, such as leaves, flowers, berries, feathers, and stones. These stunning pieces of art are a peaceful and creative avenue to express gratitude for nature, to practice mindfulness, and to add meaning to daily life. In this book, Day Schildkret guides readers through the creation of morning altars, a seven- step process that includes wondering and wandering, place meditation, clearing space, creating, gifting, walking away, and sharing his art with others.

    Since his first morning altar, Schildkret has built hundreds more. His work has been warmly received on social media and he teaches workshops on altar building, all with the intention of sharing the positivity and beauty they have brought to his life.

Psalmists & Poets

  • All Along You Were Blooming

    A celebration of hope. An encounter with grace. A restoration of the heart. A healing of wounds. An anthem of freedom. All Along You Were Blooming is the ultimate love letter from the pen of popular Instagram poet Morgan Harper Nichols to your mind, heart, soul, and body.

    On Instagram @morganharpernicols, Morgan has over a million followers. Fans can add Morgan's beautiful artwork and thoughts for boundless living to their library.

    All Along You Were Blooming is a striking collection of illustrated poetry and prose, inviting you to "stumble into the sunlight" and delight in the wild and boundless grace you've been given. Morgan reminds you:

    There is a purpose in every season

    No matter how you want to race through this day or run away from this place, you are invited to live fully--right here, right now

    Light will always find you, even when the sun sets and you sit awaiting the dawn

    That you are always blooming in the way you were meant to

  • The Four Quartets

    The last major verse written by Nobel laureate T. S. Eliot, considered by Eliot himself to be his finest work

    Four Quartets is a rich composition that expands the spiritual vision introduced in “The Waste Land.” Here, in four linked poems (“Burnt Norton,” “East Coker,” “The Dry Salvages,” and “Little Gidding”), spiritual, philosophical, and personal themes emerge through symbolic allusions and literary and religious references from both Eastern and Western thought. It is the culminating achievement by a man considered the greatest poet of the twentieth century and one of the seminal figures in the evolution of modernism.

  • Inward

    “i closed my eyes to look inward and found a universe waiting to be explored”

    From poet, meditator, and speaker Yung Pueblo, comes the first in series, a collection of poetry and prose that explores the movement from self-love to unconditional love, the power of letting go, and the wisdom that comes when we truly try to know ourselves. It serves as a reminder to the reader that healing, transformation, and freedom are possible.

  • Homebody

    From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of milk and honey and the sun and her flowers comes her greatly anticipated third collection of poetry.

    rupi kaur constantly embraces growth, and in home body, she walks readers through a reflective and intimate journey visiting the past, the present, and the potential of the self. home body is a collection of raw, honest conversations with oneself - reminding readers to fill up on love, acceptance, community, family, and embrace change. illustrated by the author, themes of nature and nurture, light and dark, rest here.

    i dive into the well of my body
    and end up in another world
    everything i need
    already exists in me
    there’s no need
    to look anywhere else

    - home

  • TPT Song of Songs

    The book of Song of Songs is an inspired work of art. Breathtaking and beautiful, the sweetest song of all ages unveils the Shulamite’s journey in the form of an anointed allegory. It is a melody sung from the heart of Jesus Christ for his longing bride.

    The Holy Spirit has hidden within the Song of Songs an amazing story of how Jesus makes his bride beautiful and holy by casting out her fear with perfect love. Its storyline is full of symbols and subtle art forms, which are often overlooked without interpretation.

    Love will always find a language in which to express itself. This revelation sent from heaven is waiting to be received with all its intensity and power to unlock the deepest places of our hearts.

    Every part of you is so beautiful, my darling.
    Perfect is your beauty, without flaw within.
    Song of Songs 4:7

Wisdom from Christian Mystics

  • The Practice of The Presence of God

    Brother Lawrence was a seventeenth century Christian who had a dramatic spiritual awakening at the age of eighteen. Seeing a tree in winter, his soul suddenly opened to the presence of God. Within six years he had entered a Carmelite monastery in Paris, where he worked chiefly in the kitchen, cooking and cleaning. He practiced a simple and natural method. He merely turned his attention to the Divine Presence available at all times during any activity. He reports that he was as fully present with God while washing dishes in the kitchen as he was when partaking of the sacrament in worship.

    The profound peace and joy evident in Lawrence's life attracted many visitors, who sought to learn the secret of his unique spiritual practice.

  • The Dark Night of the Soul: A Psychiatrist Explores the Connection Between Darkness and Spiritual Growth

    Gerald G. May, MD, one of the great spiritual teachers and writers of our time, argues that the dark 'shadow' side of the true spiritual life has been trivialised and neglected to our serious detriment. Superficial and naively upbeat spirituality does not heal and enrich the soul. Nor does the other tendency to relegate deep spiritual growth to only mystics and saints. Only the honest, sometimes difficult encounters with what Christian spirituality has called and described in helpful detail as 'the dark night of the soul' can lead to true spiritual wholeness.

    May emphasises that the dark night is not necessarily a time of suffering and near despair, but a time of deep transition, a search for new orientation when things are clouded and full of mystery. The dark gives depth, dimension and fullness to the spiritual life.

  • Encounters With Silence

    One of the classics of modern spirituality, Encounters with Silence is one of Karl Rahner’s most lucid and powerful books. A book of meditations about man’s relation with God, it is not a work of dry theology, but rather a book of prayerful reflections on love, knowledge, and faith, obedience, everyday routines, life with our friends and neighbors, our work and vocation, and human goodness. The immense success of this moving work is a tribute to its practicality and the ability of the great theologian to speak simply and yet profoundly to ordinary men and women seeking an inspiring guide to the inner life, one that never forsakes the world of reality. The book is cast in the form of a dialogue with God that moves from humble but concerned inquiry to joyful contemplation.

  • Meister Eckhart: Darkness & Light

    “Within each of us is a divine treasure, and if we hope to discover it, we need to go deep into the heart of who we are.” —Meister Eckhart
     
    Meister Eckhart has been a huge figure in spirituality for more than eight hundred years—spiritual leaders such as Eckhart Tolle, Richard Rohr, and Matthew Fox have all credited Eckhart as being an important influence on their thought.
     
    This book of Meister Eckhart meditations is for people seeking the “wayless way.” It is not for those looking for a simple path. These fresh, stunning renderings of Eckhart’s writings in poetic form bring life to one of the great spiritual voices of any age. They reveal what it means to love God and find meaning in darkness. Not darkness in general, but your darkness, because it is the one thing you know something about—without facing your darkness, you’ll never know what it means to desire the light. Only when you are in the darkness, Meister says, do you have even the possibility of seeing the light.

  • The Flowing Light from the Godhead

    Here is the first English translation based on the new critical edition of The Flowing Light of the Godhead, the sole mystical visionary work of Mechthild, a 13th-century (c. 1260-c. 1282/94) German Beguine. This challenging work of deep religious insight reflects Mechthild's inner life, and God's as well, employing a great variety of traditional medieval literary forms and genres in prose and verse.

Enneagram

  • The Path Between Us

    Most of us have no idea how others see or process their experiences. And that can make relationships hard, whether with intimate partners, with friends, or in our professional lives. Understanding the motivations and dynamics of these different personality types can be the key that unlocks sometimes mystifying behavior in others—and in ourselves.

    This book from Suzanne Stabile, coauthor, with Ian Morgan Cron, of The Road Back to You will:

    -Explain the nine Enneagram types and how they behave and experience relationships

    -Guide readers into deeper insights about themselves, their types, and others' personalities, and

    -Open readers up to have healthier, more life-giving relationships through the wisdom of the Enneagram.

    This book will explore questions like: Why do Sixes seem so intimidated and put off by Eights, who only wish the Sixes would stop mulling things over and take action? Why do Fives seem so unavailable, even to their closest family and friends, while Twos seem to feel everybody else’s feelings but their own and end up irritating people who don’t want their help? How in the world can Fours be so open and loving to you one day and restrained and distant other times?

    The Enneagram not only answers these questions but gives us a way out of our usual finger pointing and judging of other people—and finding them wanting, perplexing, or impossible. Suzanne's generous, sometimes humorous, and always insightful approach reveals why all the types behave as they do. This book offers help in fostering more loving, mature, and compassionate relationships with everyone in our lives.

  • The Road Back To You

    What you don't know about yourself can hurt you and your relationships―and even keep you in the shallows with God. Do you want help figuring out who you are and why you're stuck in the same ruts?

    The Enneagram is an ancient personality typing system with an uncanny accuracy in describing how human beings are wired, both positively and negatively. In The Road Back to You Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile forge a unique approach―a practical, comprehensive way of accessing Enneagram wisdom and exploring its connections with Christian spirituality for a deeper knowledge of ourselves, compassion for others, and love for God.

    Witty and filled with stories, this book allows you to peek inside each of the nine Enneagram types, keeping you turning the pages long after you have read the chapter about your own number. Not only will you learn more about yourself, but you will also start to see the world through other people's eyes, understanding how and why people think, feel, and act the way they do.

    To guide your first steps into your self-awareness journey, The Road Back to You offers:

    -Introductions to each Enneagram type

    -Questions to help you identify your number

    -Changes you can make today to pursue deeper self-awareness

    -Digestible windows into the other types, helping you see others with more compassion and empathy

    The wisdom of the Enneagram can help take you further along into who you really are―leading you into places of spiritual discovery you would never have found on your own, and paving the way to the wiser, more compassionate person you want to become.

  • The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective

    Richard Rohr and Andrea Ebert's runaway best-seller shows both the basic logic of the Enneagram and its harmony with the core truths of Christian thought from the time of the early Church forward.

    Fr. Richard Rohr is a globally recognized ecumenical teacher bearing witness to the universal awakening within Christian mysticism and the Perennial Tradition. He is a Franciscan priest of the New Mexico Province and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Fr. Richard's teaching is grounded in the Franciscan alternative orthodoxy—practices of contemplation and expressing itself in radical compassion, particularly for the socially marginalized.

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