A breakup can feel like the end of the world—but what if it could also serve as the start of a better you?
LOVING ME AFTER WE
The Essential Guide to Healing, Growing, and Thriving After a Toxic Relationship
by Ginger Dean
Flatiron, July 2024
(via Writers House)
This radical question is at the heart of celebrated psychotherapist Ginger Dean’s teachings. Dean, who specializes in helping women overcome heartbreak, knows all too well that often in our search for love and acceptance, we can find ourselves repeating dysfunctional patterns with new partners. In her essential debut, LOVING ME AFTER WE, Dean argues that not only is it possible to break this cycle, but that doing so will set you on a crucial path to healing and self discovery.
Through personal anecdotes, practical guidance, and a little bit of tough love, Ginger brings her wisdom and empathy to any reader who is ready to join the revolution of women healing their hearts so they can start the best love affair they’ve ever known—with themselves. And, of course, loving ourselves first is the key to finding healthy, fulfilling, and passionate love in our future partnerships.
For anyone looking to heal their heart, rediscover themselves, and find renewed peace and passion in their life, LOVING ME AFTER WE is here to help.
Ginger Dean is a psychotherapist and founder of Loving Me After We. Her specialty is helping women overcome heartbreak, increase self-love and confidence after a toxic relationship so they can become the best version of themselves.
Jenny Lawson is full of contradictions. She’s a celebrated author but battles self-doubt, paralysis, and anxiety. She’s an award-winning humorist but struggles with treatment-resistant depression. The questions people most often ask her are, “How do you do it? How do you keep going even when it feels impossible? How do you keep creating?” This book is her answer.
In kindergarten, James Rhee received a toy red helicopter in gratitude for a simple act of kindness—the innocent generosity of sharing his lunch. Nearly four decades later, the true meaning and lesson from this memory helped him overcome indescribable hurdles as both a first time CEO and son to a dying father. Combining the radical common sense of a child with the knowledge of an experienced private equity investor and law school graduate, James led one of the most dramatic reinventions in business history. Partnering with Black women across America, James led Ashley Stewart, a twice-bankrupt retailer with no WiFi, from the jaws of liquidation to a transcendent success that inspired a world seeking a different way. And, in the process, he was able to reconcile his own complicated past and see his mom for who she truly was.
To be common is to be an everyday person. It’s to do the things that you are expected to do, whether that’s what your parents want for you, or your employer, or your spouse, et cetera. But if you want to be more than you are, more than you think you can be, then you need to recognize and learn from your mistakes to lead a life of excellence.
Women are often socialized to prioritize the needs of others, leaving little time for themselves. In this book, women are equipped with 101 practical and encouraging self-care activities—organized around the five pillars of self-care—to help them care for, replenish, and reconnect with themselves and live a more joyful life.