Books like Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck

Finding your own North Star: A Step-by-Step Guide to Fulfilling Your Potential and Creating Joyful Lives

Advice for dark-skinned girls on makeup, cleanliness, hair, the body, personality, clothes, and conduct.

Publisher's description: Donna Rafanello's groundbreaking study of lesbian survivors of childhood sexual abuse is a powerful and critically needed entry in the field of survival and recovery literature. Organized in a manner that provides both healing and important psychological insights, Can't Touch My Soul addresses the endemic feelings of horrible isolation and shame experienced by survivors through the words of 60 women who shared with Rafanello their inspiring stories of recovery. Can't Touch My Soul guides women through the process of recovery, from the earliest stages of remembering the abuse to understanding and ultimately overcoming the coping and defense mechanisms children adapt to survive, and helps them to realize they are not alone and that rewarding and complete lives are possible.

"In this personal memoir; Ayanda tracks her journey back to self in a bid to return to her true self and to redefine her worth by challenging cultural conditioning, social stereotypes, family expectations and people's opinions of her. Ayanda shares intimate details of her most profound experiences as a young girl in the township in a toxic relationship with a high flying gangster: As a young woman falling pregnant out of wedlock and the ostracism she encountered. As a young black woman in a white male dominated corporate environment. As an artist who didn't quite fit into mainstream popularity and her battle to maintain her authenticity in an industry that recognises fake over real. As a loyal friend betrayed by someone she loved and trusted. As a mother overwhelmed by the expectations of being a supermom. As a young wife fighting not to lose herself in marriage. As well as finding God for herself against the stereotypes that define God for us."-- Back cover.