Book excerpt: The Smart Girl's Guide to Self-Care tackles the common problems of effective self-care with practical suggestions for practices that will create a sustainable, lifelong self-care routine. For those who are beginners to concepts like mindfulness, meditation, opposite action, positive rebellion, positive affirmations and radical acceptance, this book will provide a useful and comprehensive introduction. For those struggling from the trauma of emotionally abusive relationships, this book will guide you in recognizing the signs of abuse, creating a reverse discourse that challenges ruminations over the abuse, moving forward successfully after a break-up using no contact, and techniques on coping with trauma in constructive and meaningful ways. Each chapter of this book also provides a list of supplemental resources as well as a recommended reading list to guide you on this journey to greater self-love and self-care. Although this book is intended for everyone, its target audience is young women who are socialized to believe that their needs and wants don't matter and that their relationships with others are much more important than the relationship they have with themselves. In order to have healthy, happy relationships with others, we must first cultivate healthy, happy relationships with ourselves and eradicate the toxic habits that deplete us of the self-love and self-acceptance necessary for a fulfilling life. You may be wondering: How is it possible to banish the browbeating bully inside your own head, influenced by all the bullies you've encountered in real life? How do you learn how to be more present in the moment rather than ruminating over the pitfalls of your past? How do you learn to love yourself, despite all of the experiences that tell you you aren't even worthy of your own respect and appreciation? Using a patchwork of diverse techniques and practices, The Smart Girl's Guide to Self-Care answers these questions through a holistic program of tending to the mind, body and spirit in healthier and more productive ways, serving as the portal to immense healing and enabling you to stage your own recovery and victory in ways you never thought possible.