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What Makes You Bloom: Cultivating a Practice for Connecting with Your Divine Self
Get ready to heal from your past, get real about the present, and imagine a delicious future by rebuilding a living practice that actually works for you. So many of us are leaving conservative faith traditions behind, rightly saying goodbye to toxic theology, bigotry, and harm. But in the process, we often lose our rhythm of gathering, prayer, and worship. We may even lose our sense of connection to God. And we think it's our fault. But spiritual coach, speaker, and podcaster Kevin Miguel Garcia is here with a "We don't need saving because we were never in danger. We don't need to get found because we've never been lost. Everything we need to connect with the Divine is already inside us." What Makes You Bloom is a guide to creating your new spiritual practice after your life or faith has fallen apart. When going to church, praying, and reading your Bible just doesn't cut it or outright disturbs you, this book will show you how to cultivate new, meaningful spiritual practices--like stillness, presence, breath, and movement--that will help you overcome the pain of your past and root yourself in the present. Through stories, insights, and guided meditations, Garcia explains how the goal of every spiritual practice should be about the attainment of peace--about finding what truly makes you bloom. Along the way, you will discover that the smallest changes in your life can bring about the biggest transformations, and that a feeling of bliss is only a few breaths away.
218 pages, Hardcover
Published January 9, 2024
10 people are currently reading
174 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 6, 2024
A supportive and nurturing read. Down to earth and peppered with personal stories and perspectives that feel relatable - Kevin Garcia can share this process because they've lived it and walked through it. I would recommend this to anyone coming out of a conservative or high-demand religious environment that is recovering from the aftereffects and still seeking some sort of spiritual connection and (uncomplicated) spiritual practice.
The author leads the reader through gentle practices for coming back to self, to love, to peace, to joy and wonder. Self-compassion, radical acceptance, forgiveness, embodiment, and the inherent goodness of our bodies, our emotions, and our humanity are themes that run throughout. The practices are nurturing and simple and lay out a path to self-acceptance and connection with the sacred.
I think this would be a great companion book to Jamie Lee Finch's "You Are Your Own: A Reckoning with the Religious Trauma of Evangelical Christianity."
The author leads the reader through gentle practices for coming back to self, to love, to peace, to joy and wonder. Self-compassion, radical acceptance, forgiveness, embodiment, and the inherent goodness of our bodies, our emotions, and our humanity are themes that run throughout. The practices are nurturing and simple and lay out a path to self-acceptance and connection with the sacred.
I think this would be a great companion book to Jamie Lee Finch's "You Are Your Own: A Reckoning with the Religious Trauma of Evangelical Christianity."
January 31, 2024
Hard to rate this one… 3.5 stars? Overall I appreciate the author’s messaging and work, but I think some of the assertions they posit as universally true could vary for folks with different personalities, backgrounds, etc. Kevin mentions a few times being an 8 on the Enneagram, and I wonder how much of this book might resonate with 8s more than with other numbers.
What I struggled with: Kevin is a helpful, wise, compassionate guide, but I think their message could easily be misinterpreted as overly focusing on “do what makes you feel good” without concern for others. This is not what they’re saying if you hear them out, but “do what feels good” is definitely central to the message. I understand this to mean that we will be our best selves when we prioritize our desires and needs and live/interact from that place, but I don’t think it’s always that black and white. Their view on suffering (the stated goal is to avoid it) seems similarly oversimplified to me. I kept thinking of Richard Rohr’s idea that all transformation comes through great love and great suffering. We certainly don’t need to seek to suffer needlessly, but we also can recognize its potential to position us in a unique place for transformation. I’m not sure that Kevin would disagree, but it was hard to tell at times because of the oversimplification of the messaging.
What I liked: an invitation to notice and resist our inherited values that stem from white western capitalism; the emphasis on the importance of developing a consistent practice that helps us remember our goodness; the idea that we need to allow our emotions to move through us so that they can be released instead of repressed; the encouragement to move away from “is it true?” to “is it helpful?” (in terms of theology); the discussion on the importance of boundaries; the ties to the fruits of the Spirit and explanation of them as things we become, not things we do.
Definitely more positives than negatives overall, (and also, Kevin is just so likable!), but I’d be discerning in who I would recommend this to because of how it could be easily misinterpreted.
PS I have never read a book on spirituality that used the words “babe” and “delicious” so much but Kevin really makes it work! Ha!
Thank you to Broadleaf Books for sending me a copy to review! I was really eager to read this one.
What I struggled with: Kevin is a helpful, wise, compassionate guide, but I think their message could easily be misinterpreted as overly focusing on “do what makes you feel good” without concern for others. This is not what they’re saying if you hear them out, but “do what feels good” is definitely central to the message. I understand this to mean that we will be our best selves when we prioritize our desires and needs and live/interact from that place, but I don’t think it’s always that black and white. Their view on suffering (the stated goal is to avoid it) seems similarly oversimplified to me. I kept thinking of Richard Rohr’s idea that all transformation comes through great love and great suffering. We certainly don’t need to seek to suffer needlessly, but we also can recognize its potential to position us in a unique place for transformation. I’m not sure that Kevin would disagree, but it was hard to tell at times because of the oversimplification of the messaging.
What I liked: an invitation to notice and resist our inherited values that stem from white western capitalism; the emphasis on the importance of developing a consistent practice that helps us remember our goodness; the idea that we need to allow our emotions to move through us so that they can be released instead of repressed; the encouragement to move away from “is it true?” to “is it helpful?” (in terms of theology); the discussion on the importance of boundaries; the ties to the fruits of the Spirit and explanation of them as things we become, not things we do.
Definitely more positives than negatives overall, (and also, Kevin is just so likable!), but I’d be discerning in who I would recommend this to because of how it could be easily misinterpreted.
PS I have never read a book on spirituality that used the words “babe” and “delicious” so much but Kevin really makes it work! Ha!
Thank you to Broadleaf Books for sending me a copy to review! I was really eager to read this one.
April 27, 2024
Queer theologian and spiritual teacher Kevin Garcia invites readers to reevaluate deeply held beliefs about connectedness, belonging, and love in the refreshing and affirming "What Makes You Bloom." Garcia shares personal anecdotes of growing up gay in a conservative, Southern evangelical Christian church. The process of deconstructing their faith did not come easy, and Garcia leaned upon wisdom in other traditions to overcome the fear and trepidation of being isolated and losing all they cherished. Garcia models their path in identifying a solid and virtuous sense of purpose.
I engaged with the book from my vantage point as a cisgender woman of color who became disillusioned by the exclusionary tenets of a Christian missionary institution. As a social justice educator and community organizer, I appreciated how Garcia used their platform and privilege to call out the toxic threads of homophobia, racism, and capitalism intricately woven into the white American church.
Moved by Garcia’s message of connection and alignment, I was inspired to learn more about their ministry. They are embraced widely by LGBTQIA+ folks and allies who may have had mentally traumatic experiences as part of a congregation and are looking for ways to connect with God and divinity. Readers would appreciate the down-to-earth, accessible, and practical guidance toward somatic and spiritual practices.
I engaged with the book from my vantage point as a cisgender woman of color who became disillusioned by the exclusionary tenets of a Christian missionary institution. As a social justice educator and community organizer, I appreciated how Garcia used their platform and privilege to call out the toxic threads of homophobia, racism, and capitalism intricately woven into the white American church.
Moved by Garcia’s message of connection and alignment, I was inspired to learn more about their ministry. They are embraced widely by LGBTQIA+ folks and allies who may have had mentally traumatic experiences as part of a congregation and are looking for ways to connect with God and divinity. Readers would appreciate the down-to-earth, accessible, and practical guidance toward somatic and spiritual practices.
December 31, 2024
Do not read this book. It is nothing more than an angry bitter man spewing vitriol and hate under the pretense of creating your own spiritual path. He has no healing of his own and his suggestions are undergirded by his own anger and bitterness as evidenced by his need to gratuitously infuse expletives into every thought or idea he expounds upon. While I deeply saddened by the harm and discrimination he has faced at The hands of organized religion, I detest the way in which he has conflated Christ and a corrupt worldly church. Sadly, he is seeking—and erroneously proposing others seek—healing in inimical and specious practices rooted in becoming one’s own God. He is clearly trying to become the source of his own healing and is trying to fill a need only the true person of Jesus Christ can. I hope and pray this man will find the healing only Jesus can provide and renounce the lies his bitterness has promulgated.
May 3, 2024
This book is a beautiful invitation to challenge what we think living spiritually has to look like. Throughout the book, Gracia asks their reader "do you want to be well? Do you want to experience Love?" and offers several ways to do just that. Their experience coming out of toxic evangelicalism allows them to light the way for other people with similar experiences. Because they're aware of the pain many exvangelicals carry, Garcia is able to write in a way that's both compassionate and pragmatic (basically saying, if you want to feel better, you're doing to have to do the work). I'll be sitting with this read for a long time.
June 19, 2024
I absolutely loved this book! It was a great mix of theology and practice and blended them both so well. I also appreciated how it took themes and concepts that I have grown up and gave them a little twist into something much more life giving, peaceful and loving. Plus it’s practical and has actual suggestions for developing a practice of my own.
March 30, 2024
4,5 because there were some mistakes in the editing. But I love the ideas presented in this book and the accompanying meditations were great. Thabk you Kevin!
April 13, 2024
Kevin is definitely passionate, shares some super vulnerable parts of their life, and gives some great ideas on how to cultivate a spiritual practice in this book.
July 13, 2024
Lots of good stuff in here. I didn’t agree with everything but there was a lot of stuff I needed to hear that the author spoke on.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews