Groove: Stories to Refresh The Way We Think and Feel about Our Mental Illnesses

by Daphne Tarango, Grace Ciszkowski (Co-Author), Carley Cooper (Co-Author)

You're one of the millions of people who struggle with mental illness. You struggle in silence, hoping to avoid stares, whispers, and prejudice. But society’s judgment has also become your inner voice. Guilt, shame, and low self-worth have entrenched themselves in your mind and heart like old grooves of sun-hardened soil. These false beliefs need loosening, turning, tilling, and ploughing until the old grooves give way to new grooves of God’s Truth.

In Groove: Stories to Refresh the Way We Think and Feel about Our Mental Illnesses, mental health advocate Daphne Tarango and nine inspirational writers tell how they've overturned the old grooves and false beliefs about their own mental illnesses. Groove offers encouragement and firsthand experiences from men and women who know what it’s like to have mental illness. You'll relate to their inspirational stories about relationships, coping skills, managing symptoms, career and home, life stages and milestones, even stories about their pets, the holidays, and much more.

Groove includes 52 thought-provoking stories, one for each week of the year. Each entry ends with a series of questions so you can reflect and dig deeper grooves on the topic for that week. As you read Groove, you'll learn how to build new grooves using God’s word and how those new grooves can change your life, the way you feel about yourself, and the way you carry yourself. You can even read and work through the questions with a small group.

Whether you're recently diagnosed with a mental illness or have struggled with mental illness for years, Groove can help you refresh the way you think and feel about your mental illness, all by believing and applying the Truth in God's word.

248 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2014

About the author

Daphne Tarango is a freelance writer who comforts hurting women with the comfort she has received from God. Daphne inspires women to take biblical steps to personal growth and freedom. She also writes about her struggles with chronic illness and pain.

Daphne’s work has appeared in Just Between Us, {in}courage (a division of DaySpring), Living Better 50+, The Gabriel, Ruby for Women, and Mentoring Moments for Christian Women. She contributed three chapters in the compilation Women of the Secret Place. Her first book was the thankfulness journal Dragonflies, Ketchup, and Late-Night Phone Calls. It was followed by its Spanish-language version: Caballitos del Diablo, Salsa de Tomate Dulce, y Llamadas Telefónicas Tarde en la Noche. Show Some Love: How To Be a Friend to Someone in Recovery and Groove: Stories to Refresh the Way We Think and Feel about our Mental Illnesses were released in 2014.

A speaker at recovery events, Daphne is a leader in a local Christ-centered recovery program and has facilitated open-share and step study groups.

Daphne lives in the southeastern United States. She retired from corporate life at a Fortune 500 company to become a stay-at-home mom. She is the President of Lakeland Christian Writers, a chapter of American Christian Writers (ACW).
Daphne enjoys solitude, nature walks, Hallmark movies, experimenting in the kitchen, the arts, and spending time with her newlywed husband, her three children, their Basset Hound Dudleigh, ornery Kitty-Kitty, their feisty Chihuahua/Rat Terrier mix Eendeeo, and their newest addition, their Siamese/Himalayan mix Elway.

Reviews

[Deanna Wiseburn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A real blessing to work with such talented writers. These devotions truly talk about real life experiences with mental illness and the challenges that come with facing it. It is a book of hope spoken into dark corners as you see that people can live victoriously even with Mental illness!!

[Barbara Tsipouras · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to admit that I read this book in the wrong way. It is supposed to be read through one year, each week one text with deep personal questions for every day. I read it all in one day, because I got a free copy in exchange for a review. Generally I don't like this type of books but in this case this is probably the right thing to do.

Ten different authors have contributed to this book telling about their mental illness and how they deal with it and how their faith changes their view of life and their illness. Thus it is a very personal book, very authetic, there's no preaching from somebody who has no idea what he's talking about or who knows depression only in theory. All of them struggle with illness, all of them know the valleys of depression but all of them stick to the hope they found in Jesus. Some texts touched me deeply, filling my eyes with tears, others didn't. But that is not the fault of the texts - it's due to who I am, to my experiences, to my personal struggles.

Again I was reminded of the truth: Important is not what I feel, important is what I know: Even if I don't feel it, I know God loves me. Even if I don't feel it, I know I am His child, He hears me, He is near and won't let me down. This book may help this truth seep deep in the hearts of the readers.