What It Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World

by Prentis Hemphill

From one of the most prominent voices in the trauma conversation comes a groundbreaking new way to heal on a personal and a collective level.

As we emerge from the past few years of collective upheaval, are we ready to face the complexities of our time with joy, authenticity, and connection? Now more than ever, we must learn to heal ourselves, connect, and embody our values. In this revolutionary book, Prentis Hemphill shows us how.

What It Takes to Heal asserts that the principles of embodiment—the recognition of our body’s sensations and habits, and the beliefs that inform them—are critical to lasting healing and change. Hemphill, an expert embodiment practitioner, therapist, and activist who has partnered with Brené Brown, Tarana Burke, and Esther Perel, among others, shows us that we don't have to carry our emotional burdens alone. Hemphill demonstrates a future in which healing is done in community, weaving together stories from their own experience as a trauma survivor with clinical accounts and lessons learned from their time as a social movement architect. They ask, “What would it do to movements, to our society and culture, to have the principles of healing at the very center? And what does it do to have healing at the center of every structure and everything we create?”

In this life-affirming framework for the way forward, Hemphill shows us how to heal our bodies, minds, and souls—to develop the interpersonal skills necessary to break down the doors of disconnection and take the necessary risks to reshape our world toward justice.
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Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help, Psychology, Mental Health, Social Justice, Audiobook, Health

336 pages, Paperback

Published June 4, 2024

Reviews

[T.J. Jourian]

What an incredible gift to the world this book is. I feel broken open after reading it, especially after chapter 9 on courage. I have so much swirling in my head and in my heart that I can't seem to put it all together into coherent thoughts, and yet.

[Claire]

What It Takes To Heal by Prentis Hemphill

I’ve been following somatics practitioner and political organizer Prentis Hemphill for a few years, and have found so much of their work inspiring. Their quote “boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously” has been on a post it note stuck to my computer monitor for a long time, as a way to remind me that boundaries are necessary and important for me to stay well.

I’ve been eagerly awaiting their book, and then once I got the ARC I found that I was not yet mentally and emotionally prepared to dive in. I’m glad I waiting to read it for when I was ready, because this moment in time really feels like the time to read this book.

Hemphill is a somatics practionner with a long history of involvement in social justice movements. Their work is really situated within intense and challenging movement spaces, while being focused on healing and embodiment.

It was really helpful and validating to read their words in this moment of immense political turmoil, and to be reminded that in order to do this type of work, it is absolutely essential to make time and space to emotionally ground yourself. Numbing your emotions, shutting them down, hiding them in a neat little box in the back of your mind is actually destructive. Feeling these emotions can be scary, but it is necessary.

This book is recommended reading for anyone who cares about social justice (and hopefully is already engaged in movement work), and who would like to read about the importance of emotions and healing, particularly in our current political landscape.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC

[zara]

this book makes the most compelling case i've read yet about the power of healing, or tending to our own wounds and patterns, as a process that supports relationships, collectives, and movements. prentis hemphill breaks down embodiment in accessible language and critiques "somatics" as originating among white/western practitioners to address a problem caused by white/western ways of thinking (specifically citing Scientific Revolution era ideas of the mind and body as distinct entities). i especially appreciated the chapter on remapping relationships!

[Liz Schasel]

“To initiate change, we can only begin where we are and as whoever we are right now.”

Absolutely in love with this book. Another I refused to read without a pen in hand bc there was way too much wisdom to highlight and scribble hearts next to.

Hemphill starts by acknowledging the limits of therapy in a traumatic world: it’s hard for people to heal if they’re still being hurt. The rest of the book is built upon the premise that we cannot prioritize between intimate individual cellular change/healing and societal institutional change: you NEED to do both, or you run all-too-common risk of subconsciously replicating harmful patterns of behavior, beliefs, and belonging that you inherited from the world around you.

Most importantly, this book advocates that all healing takes place IN RELATIONSHIP. We don’t need to go off and do expensive wellness retreats that disconnect us from the world, though those things can be helpful catalysts. We have to develop relationships with ourselves, relearn how to trust our bodies and the information our feelings are trying to give us about the world; we have to choose authenticity with others, not as a personality trait but as a way of being. “Healing happens in moments as simple and profound as this, when we are able to tolerate, feel, and express something in our relationships that before was out of reach.”

Moreover, Hemphill advocates for actually getting out into the world and try to make it better ALONGSIDE OTHER PEOPLE. We must practice being the persons we want to become, and this happens best in community. She writes beautifully about rituals associated with church and social movements like protests and marches, illustrating the collective feeling and healing that can arise in these spaces.

Overall, just so so good. Really enjoyed book clubbing this with some close friends and an old professor. Am actively trying to prevent myself from typing 1000 more quotes that I loved. Instead, just do yourself a favor and READ THIS (slowly, meaningfully. It is meant to be digested not merely consumed.)

[Lu]

This book offers a beautiful, brimming hope for the future. There IS a way forward, Prentis offers, and that path is all love and courage. A beautiful, heart-repairing book. Cried when it was over. SOMEONE gets it, I yelled to no one. Someone GETS it! I know that this will be a touchpoint in my relationship to my body, my politics, my relationships.

[Marci]

Only a beautiful and generous soul could write such a moving, thoughtful, and wise book. Prentiss blends the individual healing work and social justice work in helpful and accessible ways with prose that went right to my heart. Lots of underlining - a book to come back to. I especially loved the chapter on courage.

[Cleo]

I have no idea how to review this beautiful and powerful book that I've been reading / savoring / avoiding for almost 2 months.

Part call to action, part memoir, part how to guide, it’s an invitation to heal personal trauma and work for social change. It’s an invitation that I want to accept and am sure I can’t possibly live up to. But reading this makes me want to keep trying, gives me tools to keep showing up.

#transrightsreadathon #TRR2

[Jo Troxell]

this book took me a month to read because i wanted to take it in slowly and i still feel like i haven’t fully grasped it for all of its wisdom. i have a feeling i will always be coming back to it. this is my bible!

[Haley Gilford]

Giving this book 3.9 stars. Overall lovely contemporary message to advocate for healing yourself in pursuit of justice and love. I listened to the audiobook on Spotify and it was read by the author. I enjoyed their storytelling and examples. Didn’t reach 5 stars for me because this felt repetitive since I am in the mental health/social justice world. None of this felt revelatory but I thought the execution was excellent

[Kelly Pramberger]

So many people I know need to read this book. I think the point I took away from the story was to heal yourself and in return you will help heal the world. I’m all for that! Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. I feel hopeful after reading it.

[Baanu]

This has been the right book at the right time for me 💜

"As we look at the world around us, it is clear that we need a large-scale change. But it will not happen without risking something of ourselves, perhaps by seeing ourselves honestly, stepping up to lead, by speaking out, by feeling discomfort as we move outside our usual patterns. We shape change in such moments and transform ourselves in the process.
Courage changes things and courage changes us."

[Anne Elise]

Absolutely stunning I feel the impact of this book in my heart after finishing. Prentis presents Hope and joy and change and growth and progress and healing and direction and love in such a revolutionary way and I already can’t wait to read again

[Erin Tedtman]

I think every time I start to feel like the work I do doesn’t matter and isn’t impacting anything, I’ll have to read this book. How impactful it is to learn about the intersection of individual healing and societal change and how the two must go hand in hand. Prentis is such a gift.

[Hannah]

Beautiful. Would “buy this book, read it again, and annotate the text” level-of-good. So many wonderful reminders of healing its importance, vulnerability, and what it could mean for me, for society. The courage chapter spoke to me and is one I’ll keep thinking on.

[Renee Tate]

A book to take your time with, definitely taking my time with the second read through 👏🏽

[Lindsay]

Really unsurprisingly lovely, somatic-centered approach to facing our current hellscape. I highly recommend this one.

[Laurie MM]

As soon as I finished this, I immediately started it again. I've never done that with a book before.

[Kasia]

Amazing -- I think this will be a book I return to over time. I also really enjoyed listening to the book, the author Prentis Hemphill has an amazing reading voice.

[Anne B.]

Very very good. 4.5 stars. I'll probably read it again (or listen to the audiobook) there so much to take in.

[Corinne]

Five stars! I love when I find a book at just the right time. So many of the ideas in this book are meeting me exactly where I am and where I am trying to grow. Eager to re-read with my eyes, a highlighter and some sticky notes.

>>>>>>

Book 6 of my 2026 Trans Rights Readathon. I will be donating to LGBT YouthLine, which offers free peer support to 2SLGBTQ youth in my home province.

The Trans Rights Readathon is an annual call to action to readers and book lovers in support of Trans Day of Visibility (TDOV) on March 31st. It runs from March 17-31 but I like to start early on March 1!

We are calling on the reader community to read and uplift books written by and/or featuring trans, nonbinary, 2Spirit, and gender-nonconforming authors and characters.

[Dana Mitra]

I heard the authors speak on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast and was really inspired by how she was talking about pulling trauma out of the body. I was hoping this would be more of an analytical book but a lot of ways it reads more like a memoir. I'm going to get an audiobook and try it that way.

[Jo]

I enjoyed this book a lot. Particularly the last chapter which probably bumps it up to 4 1/2 stars because the last chapter was the one that most felt like it was stretching my mind/heart. Largely an acknowledgment that working on ourselves allows us to do our work in community more skillfully. And that healing is done best in community.

[Jerrid Kruse]

It’s good, but it not quite as complete as the summary suggests.

[Emily Feldman]

maybe I would give a higher rating if I reread it at a different time. it was a lot more memoir than I was expecting

[Swolf]

i loved this book! as someone who has been in the healing world for a long time, this book affirmed how easy it is in our western capitalistic society to get lost in healing by focusing on the wrong things. Our individualistic society encourages healing as a solo act, following therapy protocols designed to keep you dis-embodied, taking supplements to "fix" things, and getting back to the status quo. Instead, each of the chapters in "what it takes to heal" focuses on a category of healing that is collective and transformative, and describes how the healing power of therapy most often resides in the quality of the love and presence of the attuned therapist, rather than the structured "evidence based" modality. I greatly appreciated the frameworks and love within these pages to affirm what I have found to be true in my own life. An example of how this book already was transformative for me- the "courage" chapter made me realize how often I stay small and avoid opportunities to use my voice: so, here is my second book review on this site that I have used for 13 years.

[Niketa Brar]

Such a powerful exploration of the barriers that block our healing, individually, in family systems, and in activist work. I especially loved the powerful vignettes within wider discussions that could otherwise feel too theoretical. Because of this literary choice, the lessons are grounded, heart-stirring, and inspiring. Among the best books I've ever read.

[Erin Kowal]

This author pulls together and holds things you think you know about: race, trauma, embodiment, communication. The scope encompasses wide history and the exact present. Reading, I sometimes felt the writing (or myself) was just out of reach — but when I went back to rejoin connecting ideas, I was reminded again and again of different wisdom. Will reference over time.

[Vanessa]

My heart is heavy and full after finishing this book. It took me a while to get through because I had to pause and really take in what Prentis was saying. In a time that feels so hopeless, this book sent a beam of hope straight into my whole being.

[Osha Brown-Bear]

already looking forward to reading it again with a highlighter in my hand ✍🏽

[onefeistypisces]

I’ve read many books and this is my first time leaving a review. This book provided practical methods for healing through embodiment and somatics, while touching my soul on a deep, spiritual level. Prentis and their work are a true gift. Endless gratitude.