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Aundi Kolber

Aundi Kolber

Strong Like Water: Guided Journey

A five-session guided study for groups or individuals based on the acclaimed Strong Like Water.

Are you exhausted from the kind of strength it’s required you to keep going―but have wondered what other choice can there be? What if strength meant more than simply surviving?

In this five-session guided journey through Aundi Kolber’s Strong Like Water, you’ll discover that it’s possible to be both soft and strong; in fact, they sustain and empower each other. Designed for individual or group use, Aundi will walk readers through the deep work of becoming strong like water―of learning to internalize connection, love, and safety to experience greater healing and resilience.

Strong like Water: Guided Journey is available now wherever books are sold, including your favorite independent bookseller and these sites:

Tyndale Momentum Amazon Barnes & Noble ChristianBook.com BooksAMillion.com IndieBound.org

What People Are Saying

A personally moving, healing, and formative experience

Steve Carter

I’ve never had such a personally moving, healing, and formative experience while reading a book. Aundi offers wisdom on every page as well as practices for your mind, heart, body, and soul that will help guide you through pain and that embody what true flourishing and resilience are all about.

Steve Carter
pastor and author of The Thing Beneath the Thing

This book will speak to your soul

With careful thought and gentle intention, Aundi is a trusted guide who distills what she’s learned as a trauma-informed therapist. If you’re feeling like you’re holding the weight of the world, Strong like Water will speak to your soul, offer needed resources, and invite you into the sacred work of healing.

Kayla Craig
author of To Light Their Way

A beautiful gift for anyone who has felt like they have to stay strong to survive

Strong like Water is a beautiful gift for anyone who has felt like they have to stay strong to survive. With wisdom drawn from her own story and her clinical expertise, Aundi Kolber reimagines strength as a dance of tenacity and tenderness, of holding tight and of learning to release. This brave and insightful journey through resilience is a revelation―one that honors both the grit it takes to survive and the compassion it takes to heal.

Dr. Alison Cook
psychologist and author of The Best of You and Boundaries for Your Soul

Strong like Water adds direction, lightness, and hope to a worthwhile journey

Kendra Adachi

I was deeply moved reading Strong like Water and felt comfort and confidence from Aundi’s practical, compassionate words. The work of healing and integration often feels heavy, like it’s easier left undone, but Strong like Water adds direction, lightness, and hope to a worthwhile journey.

Kendra Adachi
New York Times bestselling author of The Lazy Genius Way and The Lazy Genius Kitchen

This is a book I need

The process of navigating hard things is not a linear path for any of us, but with clarity, resources, research, and the deepest wells of compassion, Aundi lends her heart and expertise as she guides us through this road map of healing and discovery in her latest offering. Strong like Water contains truths that ultimately lead us back to ourselves and the ever-present reminder that God has and always will be with us on our journey of becoming more beautifully human in the midst of adversity. This is a book I need now and will surely return to as often as necessary.

Patricia A. Taylor
writer and antiracism educator

The gentle way of hope awaits

Shannan Martin

Strong like Water is a trustworthy guide away from fear and into the safe embrace of love, where healing resides. I will carry Aundi’s words into the corners of my everyday life—as a neighbor, parent, spouse, and friend. This book is for the hurting, the rattled, the stuck, the numb; which is to say, it’s for each one of us. All is not lost. The gentle way of hope awaits.

Shannan Martin
author of Start with Hello and The Ministry of Ordinary Places

Excellent, well-researched, and heartfelt.

Emily Freeman

In Strong like Water, Aundi Kolber emerges as one of the most trusted and approachable voices at the intersection of faith, trauma, and body-centered therapy. The practices alone are worth reading this excellent, well-researched, heartfelt book.

Emily Freeman
author and host of The Next Right Thing podcast

A gentle and self-compassionate approach

Chuck DeGroat

Aundi shows a way beyond “toughing it out” and “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” and it’s a gentle and self-compassionate approach. Ultimately, it’s the way of Jesus, and Aundi is a wonderful guide into it.

Chuck DeGroat, PhD, LPC
professor of pastoral care and Christian spirituality; interim D.Min. director, Western Theological Seminary

Strong like Water is both an anchor and a lighthouse

In a culture full of conflicting messages about the value of strength, where to find it, and how to use it, Strong like Water is both an anchor and a lighthouse. Aundi’s book is full of gentle, resourceful tools and generously offered stories. What a gift this book is for all the weary souls who aren’t sure if they have what it takes or what they need, or are afraid of what they might find within themselves.

Tasha Jun
author of Tell Me the Dream Again

An encouraging guide that will help you gracefully navigate life

Strong like Water is such a timely book as so many of us deal with the pressure of needing to be the “strong one” in one way or another. This book is an encouraging guide that will help you gracefully navigate the many experiences of life that call for strength.

Morgan Harper Nichols
artist and writer

Practical tools to move from simply coping to gaining embodied strength

Strong like Water beautifully acknowledges the courage that survival requires and offers practical tools to move from simply coping to gaining embodied strength. Over your own deep waters, Kolber’s voice will rise as a wise and gentle guide, calling forth your inner strength and testifying to God’s redeeming love.

Clarissa Moll
author of Beyond the Darkness

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It was such an honor to write this blog for @annvo It was such an honor to write this blog for @annvoskamp, but also…whew, it was a tender one to share. It seems this is often the way of healing.🫶🏻 
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It’s been just over 3 months since “Take What You Need” released and it’s been a sacred joy to hear from so many of you that you have felt seen + witnessed in those pages. In these times that are filled with much disconnection, fear, and frozenness—I pray we can have access to the groundedness we need to love our neighbor *as* ourselves. May we all have what we need to access the deep God-given wisdom available to us. Selah.
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I’d be honored if you’d consider reading the whole blog over at annvoskamp.com (link in my stories) & and if you haven’t already—pick up a copy of “Take What You Need: Soft Words for Hard Days” (link in profile) 🌿
It was such a privilege to preach at @christchurch It was such a privilege to preach at @christchurch.us this last Sunday about what it means that we are Held by God in our pain + how that can empower us to try softer. Especially knowing what a tender + at times complex holiday Mother’s Day can be—it felt especially meaningful to offer this message. 
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And, it was a special bonus to be invited by our dear friend @steveryancarter + to spend time with the lovely @heysarahcarter, too. So much goodness. Thanks for the incredible hospitality, @christchurch.us! 🫶🏻
#trysofter #takewhatyouneed #stronglikewater
Hello, my dears…it has been a long while since I Hello, my dears…it has been a long while since I’ve been here and I’m peeking my head in to say hi. I’ve been taking some extended time off of social media and it’s has been helpful, needed, and clarifying—though I miss connecting with you all here.
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A few months ago, I shared that I’m troubled by much of IG’s current framework (more on that in stories.) Sooo I’m working to change how I show up here and I think some of that will mean that parts of my public work will be other places. I don’t have all of it figured out yet, but I hope you’ll stay tuned and I will be sure to share more as I have it available. Either way, thanks for being here. I hope you’re taking care of yourself, using your voice and influence in the ways that you’re able. May we all have what we need to heal anyway. 🫶🏻
#TrySofter #TakeWhatYouNeed #HealAnyway #StronglikeWater
Thinking about this as we end the week: It can be Thinking about this as we end the week: It can be so disorienting and disturbing when you’ve experienced abuse or oppression that is targeted at making you question your reality.
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So frequently in this kind of situation we learn to mistrust ourselves as a way to make sense of what is happening; even if our perceptions are indeed accurate. 
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Often, at least part of the repair to this kind of experience starts with being fully seen & validated in the presence of someone else’s compassionate, attuned attention. This safety allows us to rebuild our internal templates— at whatever pace we’re able—so that we can ultimately come to believe ourselves (again or for the first time) & and live more and more from our true God-given self. #TrySofter #StronglikeWater #TakeWhatYouNeed
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Need more resources + insight? Follow along at @aundikolber or check out my books, “Try Softer,” “Strong like Water,” and “Take What You Need” (links in profile 💛)
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Today is Ash Wednesday in the Christian tradition, Today is Ash Wednesday in the Christian tradition, and though there are many different significant insights from this day and the whole Lenten season—one important element I’m thinking about today is this: 
We are not machines. 
We are not objects. 
We are not check lists.
We are not commodities. 
We are not projects. 
We are not drive through windows.
We are not trash receptacles. 
We are fragile, resilient, and oh, so, Beloved humans that will someday be dust. But even then, we will be sacred dust.
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In a time where dehumanizing rhetoric seems to rule the day, particularly towards those who have already been the most marginalized—may our finite humanity be an invitation to remember how we want to live & move in the world. #TrySofter #CompassionateAttention #StronglikeWater #TakeWhatYouNeed #LoveYourNeighborASYourself
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So much of trauma takes away choice, and so it mat So much of trauma takes away choice, and so it matters deeply that the language we use in healing reflects empowerment and repair.
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Through the years, I have worked to find words that help translate an invitational, survivor centered, trauma informed ethos into language. I am certainly not perfect, and in many ways that’s the point, isn’t it? All of us are in process and I think that—as we are able—staying connected to that humility allows us to stay open to growing & working toward loving our neighbor *as* ourselves.
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Tonight I was thinking about the many phrases that have reminded me of this open posture—and I was inspired to write down a few. (I have loved seeing this poetry format floating around the internet—kuddos to the originator 🙏🏻)
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📙Needing more resources & insight? I’d be honored if you check out my newest offering that released just two weeks ago: “Take What You Need: Soft Words for Hard Days” (link in profile 🌻) #TakeWhatYouNeed #TrySofter #StronglikeWater
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Today is my 42nd birthday—and I’ll tell you wh Today is my 42nd birthday—and I’ll tell you what, I feel deeply grateful to be alive. What a privilege it is to grow older. This last year was hard in ways I haven’t been able to fully share, but I think someday I will. But here’s what I noticed in myself this last year: more so than ever before I have learned to trust the voice God has given me & the wisdom placed within me.
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A significant portion of the trauma & particularly narcissistic abuse I experienced in my life has been targeted at causing me to disbelieve my own reality, experience, strength, and integrity. It caused me so much suffering not to know if I could believe myself. It has been the hardest work of my life to choose—again and again—to be on my own damn team. To know God is already waiting for me to see how loved I am; to see the people who choose me; to see the Goodness already present around me; to embody what I have devoted my life to teaching, speaking, and writing about.
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Thank you for being here; my heart is full. #TrySofter #TakeWhatYouNeed #StronglikeWater #cptsd #narcissticabuse #healanyway
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