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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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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This last week I got to hold a copy of the newest This last week I got to hold a copy of the newest translation of “Try Softer” in Ukrainian & also celebrate it's translation into Korean*, too. What a deep honor.
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Perhaps even more moving for me, I heard how “Try Softer” is being utilized at a seminary in Ukraine to support counselors & pastors as they navigate the stress & trauma of ongoing war. I hate the reality of ongoing violence, and yet it is a privilege to be able to offer resources that can help folks as they travel through dark valleys. Grateful. 
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(A special thank you to Brian Smilde for delivering me a copy of a Ukrainian “Try Softer” — signed by his Ukrainian students no less. Brian shared with me that the title doesn’t directly translate, but instead reads: Be Softer to Yourself. May it be so.💛) 
#trysofter #stronglikewater #takewhatyouneed #loveyourneighborasyourself
***As a correction, I'm embarrassed to say that I mixed up that this translation is in Korean not Japanese as I originally said in the post. Oof, being a human on the internet gives me lots of room to stay humble ;) 🌿
Rest can be a tricky topic, especially for trauma Rest can be a tricky topic, especially for trauma survivors. Many people deeply desire rest, but often, it hasn’t been safe to fully let their bodies settle in the past. Patterns like staying on high alert, over functioning, pushing ourselves beyond our limits, perhaps even shaming ourselves to keep going has often been necessary in order to navigate difficult, disturbing, or even traumatic experiences or systems. 
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This makes a lot of sense. 
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Our bodies are tenacious in their desire to help us survive.
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And yet, sometimes, even when we’ve left a system or we actually have the capacity to rest in the present—we may continue to live in that hyper alert state. This, too, is common when an experience hasn’t fully processed in our body. Even more complicated, sometimes the present isn’t fully safe either. Yet, as we are able, finding ways to let our body be nourished by rest is essential to the healing process. Often we need to do this little by little. This is called titration, it’s part of the way we show our bodies that it’s safe to tolerate rest—and there is no shame in this approach. Often, it’s what allows us to fully embody a new way of being. 
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If this is an area of growth for you, I hope you can give yourself permission to get curious around how you can integrate even small pockets of rest into your life. Because, in the way and the pace you are able: rest is a part of healing.
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If it feels like a resource to you:
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Inhale: I can honor my limits.
Exhale: God is here, too. 
#trysofter #stronglikewater #takewhatyouneed #exhale #rest
May it be so. 🫶🏻 #TakeWhatYouNeed #LoveYourNeighbo May it be so. 🫶🏻 #TakeWhatYouNeed #LoveYourNeighborASYourself #TrySofter #StronglikeWater #fawning
I’m channeling both fierce & tender self compassio I’m channeling both fierce & tender self compassion today* — so I thought I’d leave these here in case you might need some, too. As always, take what you need. 
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Also, that first slide introduced to me by the wonderful @heysarahcarter is *chef’s kiss*
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*Dr. Kristin Neff, one of the utmost researchers in the field of self-compassion, calls the combination of fierce and tender self-compassion caring force 🕯️
#fierceselfcompassion #selfcompassion #trysofter #takewhatyouneed #stronglikewater
These are for you, if you’re feeling the weariness These are for you, if you’re feeling the weariness of these days or the reality of the pain in our world. May Compassion be a fuel that allows us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.💛
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Which of these resonate with you today? As always, take what you need, and set down what doesn’t. 
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Aaaaand, just one month late: Happy 1 year anniversary to “Take What You Need: Soft Words for Hard Days.” 🥳 I’m so proud and grateful for this little book. Thank you to each of you who’ve shared about it, left reviews, and reminded me why it’s mattered to you. I’m so honored. If you haven’t already, I’d love for you to check it out (link in stories and profile 🌻) @tyndalehouse 
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(These affirmations aren’t from the book, but they were inspired by the spirit of it.)
#takewhatyouneed #trysofter #stronglikewater
In our culture, tenderness is often viewed as a li In our culture, tenderness is often viewed as a liability, even and especially the tenderness we gain from healing. But the paradox is, the softness we gain is actually the source of some of our greatest strength. Selah. 
#trysofter #stronglikewater #takewhatyouneed #loveyourneighborasyourself
Healing work is not only about us, but make no mis Healing work is not only about us, but make no mistake — it must include us; it must include the relationship we have with ourselves. 
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At the pace you are able, may your healing come. 
#TrySofter #Stronglikewater #TakeWhatYouNeed #fawning #cptsd
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