Mental Health Toolkit
Grounding Tools & Supportive Wellness Items
As a licensed therapist, I often recommend practical tools that can complement the work we do in therapy. This curated collection includes books, journals, grounding tools, and wellness resources that may support anxiety management, emotional regulation, stress reduction, and daily self-care. These are optional supplemental resources and are not a substitute for therapy or individualized clinical care. I do not receive compensation or affiliate income from any of these items. They are shared solely for educational and supportive purposes.
Apps
Daylio is a journaling app that shows how your activities and habits directly affect your mood. Daylio resembles a bullet journal, with very little writing and colorful icons to track your mood, habits, and activities.
The best meditation app with the world’s largest FREE library of more than 260k guided meditations, 17k teachers & the world’s most loved meditation Timer.
Gottman Card Decks is a fun app that offers helpful questions, statements, and ideas for improving and connecting in your relationship.
Love Nudge is a relationship-strengthening designed to foster intentional, habit-forming actions that improve mental health by reducing relationship stress. It helps users understand their partner’s needs, set goals, and track their “love tank” to improve emotional connection.
Finch is a gamified mental wellness app designed to improve self-care thought a virtual pet companion. By completing daily tasks, journaling, and breathing exercises, users earn energy for their bird, promoting positive habit-building, increased motivation, and improved self-esteem.
Podcasts
Step into the office of iconic psychotherapist Esther Perel and listen in as real people in search of insight bare the raw, intimate, and profound details of their stories. From breakups and open relationships to workplace conflicts and fractures in the family, it’s a place to hear our own stories reflected in the lives of others. So…where should we begin?
Brené Brown’s podcasts, including Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead, are highly personal, research-driven conversations focusing on the human experience, vulnerability, courage, and leadership. They feature, authentic, unpolished, and honest dialogues with change-makers, researchers, and cultural figures aimed at helping listeners live, love, and lead with a whole heart.
The Verywell podcast addresses mental health struggles and concerns and centers around interviews with inspirational speakers who share their stories, struggles, and strategies for staying mentally strong.
The Mel Robbins Podcast is a top-rated motivational show focused on actionable, science-backed advice for personal development, habits, and mental health.
Books
This meticulously crafted workbook is tailored to the unique challenges and experiences adults face in their emotional lives including reducing symptoms of anxiety, setting goals, and resolving conflict.
“Taylor Tackles: Anxiety,” takes young Taylor on a journey of conquering self-doubt, fears, and anxiety. Taylor meets several animal friends at the park who practice different coping strategies along the way. Taylor is able to use these tools to fight through her anxieties and fully enjoy the day at the park with her mother.
Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller is a practical, research-based guide to understanding how adult attachment styles—secure, anxious, and avoidant—shape romantic relationships. It explains why some people crave intimacy while others avoid it, offering strategies to build healthier connections.
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk is a seminal, bestselling text that explains how traumatic stress physically reshapes the brain, mind, and body. It highlights that the body stores the memories and imprints of trauma, causing lasting physical and psychological issues. The book explores how to heal through body-based, rather than just talk-based, therapies.
A bestselling relationship guide that teaches couples how to effectively express and receive love through five distinct, actionable communication styles. By understanding and speaking a partner’s primary language — Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, or Physical Touch — readers can deepen intimacy and sustain long-term relationship health.
This book outlines seven transformative conversations designed to help couples break negative interaction patterns, understand underlying emotional needs, and foster deep, secure, and lasting bonds.
Running on Empty is a seminal self-help book addressing how invisible, unmet childhood emotional needs affect adults. It explores the “white space” of what didn’t happen, helping readers identify, understand, and heal from feelings of loneliness, disconnection, and being “flawed” despite a outwardly fine life.
After the Affair is a research-based guide for couples navigating infidelity. It helps both hurt and unfaithful partners process the emotional trauma, understand the “why,” and decide whether to reconcile or separate.
This relationship workbook is for couples who want to learn new skills and build a solid foundation for working through conflicts and moving forward.
The CBT Workbook for Mental Health shows you how to cultivate your sense of calm and confidence through the power of cognitive behavioral therapy. With expert advice, you’ll learn how to use CBT to bounce back from tough times―no matter how big or small.
This workbook has practical and easy-to-use therapy tools are vital to teaching children how to cope with and overcome their deepest struggles. Step-by-step, you’ll see how the best strategies from cognitive behavioral therapy are adapted for children.
