What Makes You Bloom: Cultivating a Practice for Connecting with Your Divine Self
Get ready to heal from your past, get real about the present, and imagine a delicious future by rebuilding a living practice that actually works for you.
So many of us are leaving conservative faith traditions behind, rightly saying goodbye to toxic theology, bigotry, and harm. But in the process, we often lose our rhythm of gathering, prayer, and worship. We may even lose our sense of connection to God. And we think it's our fault. But spiritual coach, speaker, and podcaster Kevin Miguel Garcia is here with a reminder: ""We don't need saving because we were never in danger. We don't need to get found because we've never been lost. Everything we need to connect with the Divine is already inside us.""
What Makes You Bloom is a guide to creating your new spiritual practice after your life or faith has fallen apart. When going to church, praying, and reading your Bible just doesn't cut it or outright disturbs you, this book will show you how to cultivate new, meaningful spiritual practices--like stillness, presence, breath, and movement--that will help you overcome the pain of your past and root yourself in the present.
Through stories, insights, and guided meditations, Garcia explains how the goal of every spiritual practice should be about the attainment of peace--about finding what truly makes you bloom. Along the way, you will discover that the smallest changes in your life can bring about the biggest transformations, and that a feeling of bliss is only a few breaths away.
Earn by promoting books
Earn money by sharing your favorite books through our Affiliate program.
Become an affiliate
Kevin Miguel Garcia (they/them) is a digital pastor, spiritual recovery coach, mystic theologian, sought-after speaker, and host of the podcast A Tiny Revolution. Garcia holds a master of practical theology from Columbia Theological Seminary. They coach clients from around the world through deconstruction, coming-out processes, and cultivating spiritual practices to promote resilience, solidarity, and self-compassion. Garcia is the author of Bad Theology Kills and is based in Atlanta, Georgia.
"The implications of religious trauma don't begin and end in church; they bleed into our entire culture. This book shows you how to put that down, reconnect with your faith, and find a new home in your spiritual heart. Reading Kevin's work always makes me tear up. I feel cared for in such a profound way that my whole being relaxes, and a tear comes as a sign of relief. This book is a new kind of church that genuinely gives all of us the refuge we need." --Sah D'Simone, author of Spiritually Sassy and 5-Minute Daily Meditations
"Kevin Miguel Garcia is a natural-born truth-teller! And in What Makes You Bloom, their storytelling, vulnerability, passions, and voice all come together to deliver truth, sometimes an uncomfortable truth, with earnest delight. Garcia's words are wise, winsome, and potent, a powerful offering to help all of us blossom into our truest selves." --Matthew Paul Turner, #1 New York Times bestselling author of What Is God Like?
"The perfect example of integration, What Makes You Bloom is a seamless blend of ancient wisdom with modern insight, irreverence woven into an accessible and nourishing sacred lens on all things, and truth-telling that is at once gentle and incisive. This book is sure to wake you up, stretch you, and affirm you." --Hillary McBride, PhD, registered psychologist, podcaster, speaker, and author of The Wisdom of Your Body
"Kevin Garcia is someone who just exudes peace. From the moment I met them, I felt at ease just being in their presence, and thanks to this book, I now know why. They have gifted us their story coupled with a practical guide for how to embrace our divinelycreated selves and live lives of joy. Each page is cultivated into a demonstration of what makes Kevin bloom, so we can bloom too." --April Ajoy, cohost of Evangelicalish
"For a world of us budded humans seeking a space to bloom intentionally, purposely, and freely into our divine and connected selves, Garcia offers not a guide but a single stone on a path we have been conditioned to believe that we can't create ourselves. Every meditation, reflective exercise, and gentle offering allows our learned petals of shame and guilt to unfold into freedom and safety. What Makes You Bloom is the sunshine we wanderers need to find the light and learn what it means to find it for ourselves time and time again." --Arielle Estoria, actor, poet, and author of The Unfolding: An Invitation to Come Home to Yourself
"Kevin combines their humor and genuine love for us in what can only be described as a true hug from heaven. Pushing us all to discover what makes us bloom, Kevin dares us to tap into who we were created to be--and thrive." --Candice Marie Benbow, author of Red Lip Theology
"THIS IS THE BOOK I NEED. I'm exhausted by thinking about how to live; I just want to . . . live. This book helps me relax, breathe, and connect to myself and simply be. What a gift." --Cindy Wang Brandt, author of Parenting Forward and You Are Revolutionary
"What a gift this book is. Kevin put all the wonderful aspects of an intimate conversation with him in this helpful resource." --Scott Erickson, author of Honest Advent and Say Yes
"This book is a start. Usually when people say something is 'a start, ' they mean it in a bad way, as if there is something lacking. That's not how I mean it. There is no lack here. But What Makes You Bloom won't make your life better just by reading it. Instead, Kevin shows us how to begin. They show us how to start to shake free from what has kept us bound, and how to keep going when things get hard. It is a start, and if you're looking for a new start, this book will be a welcome guide." --Matthias Roberts, psychotherapist and author of Holy Runaways and Beyond Shame
![The Bean Book: 100 Recipes for Cooking with All Kinds of Beans, from the Rancho Gordo Kitchen [A Cookbook]](https://images-us.bookshop.org/ingram/9781984860002.jpg?height=250&v=v2-7400cb3badc696c5c26291bab7b06b47)
