Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness A Process for Reclaiming Your Full Self

A provocative interactive workbook probing the cultural influences that have shaped our lives, helping us to rediscover our true selves so we can find the peace and wellbeing we deserve.

Who am I? What do I want? What’s standing in my way?

With the publication of her electrifying New York Times bestseller On Our Best Behavior, Elise Loehnen--often deemed “our culture’s therapist”--offered a groundbreaking exploration of the rules women unwittingly follow in order to be considered good. She illuminated the centuries-old code of conduct that keeps us disempowered, exhausted, anxious, and disconnected--even from ourselves. On Our Best Behavior touched a nerve, sparking impassioned reader response and igniting conversations both virtual and in real life.

In Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness, Loehnen partners with Courtney Smith, a renowned Enneagram expert and coach, to take the ideas in On Our Best Behavior and explains what we can do to override them. Replicating the transformational process Loehnen and Smith have shared at sold-out retreats around the country, and incorporating tools they have learned from the visionary healers, thinkers, and therapists they’ve worked with over the years, Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness prompts readers to dig into the stories they tell themselves, guiding them to peel back the layers of cultural programming that prevent them from expressing their full potential.

This paradigm-shifting workbook leads us to answer to the questions that tug at our souls.

Elise Loehnen is the host of Pulling the Thread and the author of the New York Times bestseller On Our Best Behavior. She has co-written twelve books, five of which were New York Times bestsellers. She was the chief content officer of goop, and co-hosted The goop Podcast and The goop Lab on Netflix. Previously, she was the editorial projects director of Condé Nast Traveler. Elise lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two sons.

Courtney Smith worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Co. after earning a JD from Yale Law School. She now offers coaching, facilitating, and consulting services informed by practices she encountered in her own journey of self-development. Hallmarks of her approach include a warm and direct communication style; an awake mind and strong analytical skills; attentive and empathetic listening; grounding in the body; pragmatic tools; and a masterful understanding of the Enneagram.