Emotional Hoarding: Letting Go of the Stuff That Keeps You Stuck

by Laurie Davies

We could live free, but cleaning house is hard.Emotional baggage is trendy. We might even joke about it. Yet, one of the early English definitions of luggage is anything of more weight than value. Let that sink in. When we collect, stack, and stockpile burdens, we add weight but not value to our lives.What is clogging your heart? Worry, panic, or regret? False guilt, anger, or pride? Maybe deep places you don’t talk about are buried under bitterness, worthlessness, or loneliness. You long for relief. This stuff has kept you stuck for too long. It’s time to unburden your heart and clear out the emotional burdens hindering you from living free in Christ.With humor, relatability, and biblical wisdom, Emotional Hoarding helps readers to stop holding on to grudges, anger, regrets, and unhealed wounds and instead find wholeness and healing in Christ. Join Laurie Davies as she reveals a path away from shame, heaviness, and isolation into wide open places where you can live unburdened and free.Emotional hoarding not only affects you, but it touches all your relationships. With input from mental health professionals, this book is also a great resource for Christian counselors, life coaches, and ministry leaders.

208 pages, Paperback

Published March 3, 2026

Reviews

[Emilee Breanne Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an excellent book. It encouraged me so much and opened my eyes to a lot of areas in my life I've been hoarding emotions. I highly recommend this quick, encouraging read!

[Shiny · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a hug in a book. If there is one book, I would recommend to my girl friends without second thoughts has to this. Written in an honest, heart to heart conversational style with a good dose of humour, it talks about emotional hoarding- unnecessary emotions women in every season carry be it single, married, mothers, young or greying. Laurie talks about the built up emotions- guilt, anger, fear, regrets, worry, bitterness, pride, dread, shame, worthlessness. She not only talks directly but offers a simple, gospel centred solution to them all- that is Christ and God’s Word as evidence and that’s all we need. She peals away the usual unwanted emotions one chapter at a time and offers words of encouragement strongly rooted in the Bible and practical pearls of wisdom with examples from daily life. One of my best reads this year. Thank you Moody Publishers for the review copy.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

(I received a complimentary copy of this title from the publisher. All opinions expressed are my own.)

I picked up this book simply because of the title and the subject matter. I’d never heard of the author, the only thing I know about the woman who wrote the forward is that I’ve seen her featured by Focus on the Family, and I didn’t recognize anyone who endorsed this book.

Overall, I’m grateful that I took a chance and picked up this book!

The author covers the following topics:

-Worry
-Fear
-Regret
-Guilt
-Pride
-Bitterness
-Secrets
-Worth
-Shame

I found the titles on fear, pride, bitterness, and worth to be particularly beneficial for me. There are definitely things from these chapters that will stay with me and be helpful even in the future.

I found the storytelling and writing style of this book to be engaging, and I appreciated the author’s sense of humor!

I do have some mixed feelings about the book. There were areas where I felt that the theology could have been a little deeper or was a little bit ambiguous. Additionally, some of the people quoted are people whom I know I have large theological differences with. For example, Brené Brown is quoted at least once. To be fair, the author also quotes a lot of people whom I do agree with! Nancy Demoss Wolgemuth, for example.

Overall, I think this book was helpful and is a good book to read with discernment. With books like this, sometimes there’s some leave and take. There’s lots of good here to take, even if there were a couple things I would leave.

Note: One thing that I think isn’t clear upon looking at the cover or reading the book’s blurb, in my opinion at least, is that this book is written for women specifically. This might be important to know! :)

I would definitely recommend this title to certain people!

As always, if anyone has any further questions about this title, please feel free to send me a DM over on IG (@emilylovesreading_). Happy to help or clarify anything.

[April · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a brilliant way to visualize the concept of hoarding emotions like in a hoarder’s home rather than dealing with them and letting them go as you go.

It’s almost like my strong emotions represent my battle wounds from life and I need them like trophies for what I have been through. It doesn’t take much for me to feel “flooded” by all the strong emotions I have stored in my heart…I can’t even tell what all I’ve got in there!

She talks about how fear entered our story after Adam and Eve ate the fruit and felt fear God - their intimate safe close relationship with Him was over as it had been 💔

We fear because we don’t want to hurt. “ If we’re looking to fear to protect us, it’s doing a bad job. God’s love protects us. We can give in to it. His love is the only thing tender enough to seep down into the places that hurt and strong enough to drive out our fear. Much as a hoarder feels distressed when faced with organizing their belongings, this may feel unnerving at first.”

The beginning, worry and fear chapters were so good for me…honestly I was loving the book until the chapter on guilt where she told a vomit story and after that I felt kind of queasy as I continued to read. But then I came back to it the next day, and wow I am so glad I did bc the chapter on bitterness was really powerful and convicting for me. I don’t think of myself as having any enemies or bitterness…but I think it’s bc I bury that real deep at the bottom of all my piles. Then the chapters on worth, Shame and the last chapter on living free were 🏆

[Misty · Rating 5 out of 5]

We have had the pleasure of Laurie Davies speaking at our Women’s Bible study and introducing us to this book. There are so many treasures in this book that I know I will revisit for the rest of my life. I love how she ties our emotions to scripture and how every single human alive can relate to this book, but especially women. She walks us through a helpful and enlightening practice to do when worry overcomes us, how to figure out if we are actually feeling false guilt, and so much more relatable content. This is a great book to read on your own or to use as an outline for your next Bible Study group. Highly recommend!

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a needed book for every believer's heart! I would consider myself an emotional hoarder some days (particularly the emotion of shame), but Laurie's book has helped me step into a deeper level of freedom God knew my soul needed. Each chapter is full of wisdom, laughter and biblical truths that help you walk in the ways of grace over shame and love over fear. I truly believe every woman, wife, mama, and human needs this book! It's pure gold!

[Miranda Summerset · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5 STARS! Lord knows I needed this! This book is about hoarding/holding on to emotions that can take you away from God. Emotions like shame & pride & even holding on to grudges. The author is totally relatable and I loved how she writes with direct Bible to real world translations. It’s just a very helpful book that literally takes a weight off of your heart & definitely helpful!

[Ruth Potinu · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a good one. I especially appreciated the chapter on regret and the insights on dealing with anger. It's so easy to hoard the emotional baggage we carry in life, so I really appreciated this read.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible

This book is incredible and amazing. It is full of so many thoughtful insights that are well articulated. I am grateful for these teachings.

[Meagan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is like having a conversation with a dear and trusted friend. A friend who will tell you the truth but in the most kind and gentle way because she’s walked the hard road herself. It’s a wonderfully written book that will make you laugh while also equipping you to look inward to confront the issues that have weighed you down for too long.

I’d read it again and would recommend it to a friend.