david richo books

David Richo

Books, video, cds on personal and spiritual unfolding.

Presentation for Banyen Books, Vancouver BC, Canada

To Thine Own Self Be True: Shakespeare as Therapist and Spiritual Guide

Ready How to Know When to Stay and When to Go   Shambhala, April 19,  2021

On the other hand, there are times in life when we don’t stay long enough. We don’t hang in there through thick and thin in a relationship or affiliation that really can work. There is also the mystery of timing, feeling and responding to the opportune time. Ultimately, our readiness depends on the ping of a timer not in our hands. Time is a player in all our comings and goings. This book, combining psychological and Buddhist practices, helps us open to our own perfect timing for the big decisions in life and then act in accord with it.

To listen (free of charge) to extended explorations of the themes in this book,  click here to visit David Richo’s most recent workshop series in Santa Barbara.

And at all good bookstores.

BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS FOR READY

“ Ready posits that making important decisions is not about drawing up lists of pros and cons, consulting experts, or honing your willpower. Rather, it is about knowing yourself deeply, inhabiting each moment fully, and then letting the world speak to you in its infinite wisdom (which is not separate from your own). If you’re looking for a way to make decisions you can trust, this book is for you.”—Susan Piver, author of The Four Noble Truths of Love

“ Ready is a superbly succinct guide through the entanglements of fear, doubt, regret, and grief to a deepening trust of our decisions about our commitments and the skills needed to time them exquisitely. The journey through the practices is to be expertly companioned by a wise elder and a caring friend.”—Linda Graham, MFT, author of Resilience

“ Ready is the antidote to one of the most common crossroads we all experience as human beings—knowing when it is truly time to stay or go. Let this insightful guide support you in learning the language of readiness and cuing the courage required to make the big changes you seek.”— Amanda Gilbert, author of Kindness Now

How To Be An Adult in Relationships The Five Keys to Mindful Loving   REVISED EDITION — Shambhala, 2021

In Spanish: Como mantener relaciones estables y duraderas (Amat: Barcelona)

  Wholeness and Holiness  How to be Sane, Spiritual and Saintly (Orbis Books, 2020)

“Wholeness and Holiness is a helpful book for those striving to live a life of wholeness in an age of anxiety. Building on the human person as a relational being open to the fullness of life, Richo addresses the main areas of human personhood such as spirituality, sexuality, and sanctity. Each person has the capacity to be a this-worldly saint, a whole-maker, one who lives in the dynamic fullness of life and contributes to the sacred meaning of the world. We make a difference to what the world becomes and this book helps shape that difference.” -Ilia Delio, OSF, Josephine Connelly Endowed Chair, Villanova University

Order today with the following links.  

Five True Things  A Little Guide to Embracing Life’s Big Challenges (Shambhala, 2019)

In this book we look at the facts of life that we cannot change, unavoidable “givens” of human life and especially of relationships:

1) Everything changes and ends,  2) Things do not always go according to plan,  3) Life is not always fair,  4) Pain is part of life,  5) People are not loving and loyal all the time.

Most of all, we learn how to open up to our own truth—including to what is frightening, painful, or disappointing—and suddenly discover opportunities for our practice of mindfulness and loving-kindness.

This is a revised, shorter, small-sized version of The Five Things We Cannot Change .

Triggers How We Can Stop Reacting and Start Healing

Everything Ablaze Meditating on the Mystical Vision of Teilhard de Chardin Paulist Press  —  2017

“David Richo does it again! His synthesis of good theology, good science, and good practice offers any reader a personalized universe that is filled with meaning, purpose, and direction! He fills in the gaping hole created by so much of postmodern cynicism. Be grateful for discovering this book!” —Fr.Richard Rohr, OFM, Center for Action and Contemplation

Order from:

• Powell’s Books
• Barnes & Noble

The Five Longings What We’ve Always Wanted and Already Have Shambhala Press  —  2017

• Shambhala Publications

You Are Not What You Think The Egoless Path to Self-Esteem and Generous Love Shambhala Press, December 29, 2015

You and your ego: how to develop a healthy sense of self without becoming an egotist—and how to see through that sense of self for the happiness of yourself and others.

How can you build the healthy ego necessary to be effective in life—yet avoid the kind of egotism that makes people dislike you? Don’t worry; Dave Richo has the answers. His new book shows you how to navigate the tricky waters between egotism and selflessness in a way that avoids both extremes and makes you much more effective and loving. The key is to acknowledge your ego and to be kind to it, before you ultimately learn to let it go. As with all Dave’s books, this one is full of examples from myth and religion, with plenty of exercises and practical advice.

When Catholic Means Cosmic Opening to a Big-Hearted Faith Paulist Press, 2015

True faith in the gospel of Jesus is shown first of all in having and showing love for everyone. This introduces us to the bigness of our faith since it shows it to be about universal love. In this way, faith is a driving force of our evolution as connected beings. When Catholic Means Cosmic presents a liberated Catholicism, one that is about its values, assets, and limitations. While some people have divided religion from spirituality, this book now looks at reconnecting them sanely and exuberantly as it examines the marvels and challenges on our journey of discovering where we are going.

• Barnes and Noble

We were made to love and be loved. Loving ourselves and others is in our genetic code. It’s nothing other than the purpose of our lives—but knowing that doesn’t make it easy to do. We find it a challenge to love ourselves. We might have a hard time letting love in from others: recognizing it, accepting it. We’re often afraid of getting hurt. It is also sometimes scary for us to share love with those around us—and love that isn’t shared leaves us feeling flat and unfulfilled.We explore ways to love ourselves without guilt and with generosity. We learn how to love others with awareness of our boundaries. We confront our fears of love and loving. We embrace the spiritual challenge of letting our scope of love expand. Then love is a caring connection, unconditional, universal, and joyous. “It has been 10 years since the publication of my book, How to be an Adult in Relationships (Shambhala, 2002). During that time I have given over 100 workshops and received countless emails with comments and insights about it. I have kept careful track of them and incorporated them into this new book. It picks up where the “Adult in Relationships” book left off. I believe How to be an Adult in Love (Shambhala, 2013) represents my deepest realizations so far on how relationships work, how to love oneself, and how to practice loving-kindness toward all beings. I hope it is as helpful to all my readers as it was enlightening for me to learn what it took to write it.” — Dave

Here are practices that can usher us into a new way of being alive—as cheerful agents of the goodness that is in us all. Our choices for integrity and loving-kindness reflect that goodness and help us co-create a world of justice, peace, and love. This is an owners’ guide to being an upright and loving human. In the Buddhist, and in many other spiritual traditions, our “right conduct” is a primary pathway to happiness and enlightened living. In psychological terms, it can lead us to fearless love, freedom from ego-centeredness, and contentment with ourselves and our predicaments. Most of all, we find the joy of living our lives at a heart level. (Revised/expanded version of Everyday Commitments )

Daring to Trust offers key insights and practical exercises for exploring and addressing our trust issues. Most relationship problems are essentially about trusting. Whether it’s fear of commitment, insecurity, jealousy, or a tendency to be controlling, the real obstacle is a fundamental lack of trust—both in ourselves and in our partner. Some people are trustworthy and some fail or betray us. Our path of mindfulness and loving-kindness is then to receive loyalty with appreciation and to handle betrayal by expressing our feelings but not by retaliating. We ourselves, in any case, can make a personal commitment to be trustworthy in all our dealings no matter how others treat us. We can’t trust everyone but everyone can trust us. This book is mainly about trust in relationships. However, there are chapters on the three other directions trust can take. We can learn to trust ourselves, to trust reality (that is, trust whatever happens to us as a path), and to trust a higher power than ourselves. These four types of trust not only contribute to having healthy relationships, they are also the foundation of emotional wellbeing and freedom from fear.

Becoming healthy, both psychologically and spiritually, includes releasing the full range of our imagination about who we are and can be. Writing poetry can be a surprising tool in that exciting venture. What it takes to express ourselves poetically is exactly what can open us to our inner world and connect us to others and to nature. Using Buddhist and Jungian perspectives, this book offers a fresh and inspiring approach to personal growth, one that taps into our inherent creativity and the versatility of poetry. When we write a poem about some life event we may notice that we are naming needs that we never guessed were in us or longings we were afraid to acknowledge. This is the power of poetry to grant us access to the lost or disavowed territories in ourselves. Poetry, of course, is totally legitimate when it is written or read just for fun or for an appreciation of language or images. But we would miss out on its many-splendored possibilities if we did not also reach into poetry to explore our buried treasures. Poetry may have seemed daunting in school but here is a chance for it to become quite charming and wonderfully personal. This book offers an opportunity to use our hearts and pens to explore who we abundantly are.

  A touching fact about us is that we seem hard-wired to replay the past, especially when it includes emotional pain or disappointment. We tend to go through life simply casting new people in the roles of key people, such as our parents or past partners with whom there is still unfinished business. This phenomenon, called transference, is unconscious. What we transfer are feelings, needs, expectations, defenses, fantasies, beliefs, and attitudes. Transference can be our way of telling the untold story inside us. We can learn to notice clues about how our past is still very much alive in our present relationships. In this book, we also find practices to help us clear up our old business and form healthy relationships that no longer have to replicate the past. Then authentic intimacy can bloom.

This is a book of quotations gathered from a variety of sources in psychology and spirituality, especially Buddhist, Christian, Jungian, and transpersonal. The quotations are brief and can be used as springboards for contemplation. They are divided into three sections: Psychological insight into the work we can do on ourselves to build a healthy personality. Spiritual awareness of our calling to act in the world with integrity and loving-kindness. Mystical realization exploring the manifold pathways to the divine heart of the universe that was always our own heart. As we meditate daily on one or more of these quotations, we come upon our own unique path and our common human destiny: to love unconditionally, to access wisdom, and to bring compassionate healing to the world around us.    Order from your favorite local bookstore or click here to order online. ISBN 978-0966990829

It is a touching fact that Mary is the most loved woman on earth. A powerful and loving mother who is loved and loves us all is not an invention of Catholicism. The divine feminine expressed as the Great Mother has an ancient history in the collective psyche of humankind. Faith in Mary in this context includes the entire universe in its embrace.

The first challenge is to see Mary not only with the eyes of faith but also as an archetypal energy that endures in the universe. We do this by acknowledging her dark side with all its fertile potential, freeing ourselves from any disabling literalism in our appreciation of her, and becoming aware of her cosmic dimensions. The result is an appreciation of Mary as the figure who preserves the divine feminine through the centuries. Then we have a faith that stands up to our own personal evolution and a religious perspective that stands up to the advances of science.

This book presents a spirituality of heart based on the metaphor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. We explore the symbolism of the heart in world religious traditions. We then trace the historical thread of Christian devotion into modern times with a focus on the theology of Teilhard de Chardin and Karl Rahner to design a devotion that respects the new cosmology. This book may appeal both to Catholics and to people from other religious traditions. Order from your favorite local bookstore or click here to order online.

Choosing a Life of Love, Realism and Acceptance Shambhala, 2007  — Now available in eBook format only

From the publisher: In this unique book, psychotherapist David Richo offers fifty-two promises we can make to ourselves that will help us navigate the ups and downs of daily living in a wise, compassionate, and psychologically healthy way. Taken together these commitments, along with the author’s brief reflections on them, offer guidance on how to:

>> develop genuine kindness toward yourself and others >> find freedom from fear >> maintain healthy boundaries in relationships >> develop greater honesty and awareness

Designed for daily or weekly inspiration and contemplation, Everyday Commitments also features practical exercises—including journaling, contemplation, and guided meditations—to foster inward growth and lasting positive change.

Amazon Kindle eBook

Barnes and Noble eBook

The Power of Coincidence

Synchronicity, “meaningful coincidence,” happens so that we can find our unique personal destiny. We learn how to remember dreams and we see how they figure into our life purpose. Synchronicity is one way the universe/Higher Power grants hospitality to us on our human pilgrimage and makes everything work for the best. Just the right people and events have come along so that we can be all we were meant to be.

The Five Things We Cannot Change And the Happiness We Find by Embracing Them Shambhala, 2005

Shadow Dance Liberating the Power and Creativity of Your Dark Side Shambhala, 1999

We contain creative qualities and powers that we have kept hidden out of fear and self-doubt. Our shadow includes all that we find repugnant in ourselves and all the wonderful attributes that we have discarded or denied. We project our negativities onto others as strong dislike. We project our own positive potential onto others as awe and admiration. This book combines text and practices to help us befriend our shadow.

ISBN: 978-0809132232

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David Richo

• Books By David Richo

How to Be an Adult in Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Loving

The Five Things We Cannot Change: And the Happiness We Find by Embracing Them

How to Be an Adult: A Handbook for Psychological and Spiritual Integration

When the Past Is Present: Healing the Emotional Wounds that Sabotage our Relationships

Daring to Trust: Opening Ourselves to Real Love and Intimacy

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• Beverly Flanigan
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• Tyler Norris Goode

Books by David Richo

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Shadow Dance

How to Be an Adult in Love: Letting Love in Safely and Showing It Recklessly

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When Love Meets Fear: How to Become Defense-Less and Resource-Full

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Triggers: How We Can Stop Reacting and Start Healing

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The Power of Coincidence: How Life Shows Us What We Need to Know

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Coming Home to Who You Are: Discovering Your Natural Capacity for Love, Integrity, and Compassion

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Everyday Commitments: Choosing a Life of Love, Realism, and Acceptance

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Right Here with You: Bringing Mindful Awareness into Our Relationships

The Power of Grace: Recognizing Unexpected Gifts on Our Path

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Being True to Life: Poetic Paths to Personal Growth

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Unexpected Miracles: The Gift of Synchronicity and How to Open it

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Ready: How to Know When to Go and When to Stay

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The Sacred Heart of the World: Restoring Mystical Devotion to Our Spiritual Life

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CINCO ANHELOS, LOS

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When Mary Becomes Cosmic: A Jungian and Mystical Path to the Divine Feminine

Five True Things: A Little Guide to Embracing Life's Big Challenges

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You Are Not What You Think: The Egoless Path to Self-Esteem and Generous Love

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How to Be an Adult in Faith and Spirituality

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Everything Ablaze: Meditating on the Mystical Vision of Teilhard de Chardin

Catholic Means Universal: Integrating Spirituality and Religion

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Mary Within: A Jungian Contemplation of Her Titles and Powers

To Thine Own Self Be True: Shakespeare as Therapist and Spiritual Guide

Shadow Dance: Liberating the Power and Creativity of Your Dark Side

Releases 1/2/2024

How to be an Adult in Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Loving

Embracing the Shadow: Discovering the Hidden Riches in Our Relationships

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The Art of Extreme Self-Care: Transform Your Life One Month at a Time

How To Be An Adult In Relationships: The Five Keys To Mindful Loving

How To Be An Adult In Love: Letting Love In Safely And Showing It Recklessly

The Five Things We Cannot Change: And The Happiness We Find By Embracing Them

How To Be An Adult: A Handbook For Psychological And Spiritual Integration

Triggers: How We Can Stop Reacting And Start Healing

Daring To Trust: Opening Ourselves To Real Love And Intimacy

Ready: How To Know When To Go And When To Stay

When The Past Is Present: Healing The Emotional Wounds That Sabotage Our Relationships

Five True Things: A Little Guide To Embracing Life's Big Challenges

Etre adulte en amour: savoir ce que l'on veut, être bienveillant

The Five Longings: What We've Always Wanted And Already Have

When Mary Becomes Cosmic: A Jungian and Mystical Path to the Divine Feminine

Être adulte : les clés

The Power Of Coincidence: How Life Shows Us What We Need To Know

Shadow Dance: Liberating the Power & Creativity of Your Dark Side

You Are Not What You Think: The Egoless Path To Self-esteem And Generous Love

Coming Home To Who You Are: Discovering Your Natural Capacity For Love, Integrity, And Compassion

The Power Of Grace: Recognizing Unexpected Gifts On Our Path

Embracing the Shadow: Discovering the Hidden Riches in Our Relationships

Everything Ablaze: Meditating on the Mystical Vision of Teilhard de Chardin

Le pouvoir des coïncidences

Being True To Life: Poetic Paths To Personal Growth

David Richo

DAVID RICHO, Ph.D., is a psychotherapist, teacher, and writer who draws on Jungian, Buddhist, and poetic perspectives in his work. He leads popular workshops at the Esalen Institute, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and Santa Barbara City College. He is the author of HOW TO BE AN ADULT, HOW TO BE AN ADULT IN RELATIONSHIPS, and SHADOW DANCE: LIBERATING THE POWER AND CREATIVITY OF YOUR DARK SIDE. He lives in Santa Barbara and San Francisco, California.

Books by David Richo