The Joy of Imperfect Love: The Art of Creating Healthy, Securely Attached Relationships by Dr. Carla Marie Manly, PhD. IS LIVE!!
The Joy of Imperfect Love: The Art of Creating Healthy, Securely Attached Relationships <— HAPPY RELEASE DAY TO DR. CARLA MANLY!!! And to celebrate, she is sponsoring today’s feature post and newsletter.
P.S. This book is TOTALLY my thing, and I will be devouring it and bettering myself, my mind and my heart in the process. I’ve found (and just recently married) my amazing love, but there is always room for more healing and growth and connection.
P.P.S. Check out her entire book repertoire for more motivational and self help books.
The author says:
Stuck in unhealthy relationship dynamics? Yearning to find—or be—that perfect someone? Tired of a lack of emotional connection?
You CAN get the love and intimacy you want! The key to healthy relationships is accepting that real love is messy, imperfect, and a work in progress!
Whether you’re partnered or single, The Joy of Imperfect Love guides you into a transformative journey of compassionate awareness and healing. As you embrace genuine self-love, you’ll naturally attract and keep the healthy, emotionally connected relationships deserve! Based on Dr. Carla Marie Manly’s exclusive, research-backed attachment paradigm, you’ll discover how to create intentional, real-life changes that foster connected, emotionally attuned relationships.
The Joy of Imperfect Love is filled with science-based concepts, captivating case examples, and over 30 actionable workbook-style exercises, Dr. Carla’s uncomplicated, science-based approach to creating healthy, lasting love is geared toward helping you:
- create strong, secure attachment
- embrace compassionate self-love
- form positive, love-building habits
- heal unresolved attachment issues
- communicate openly and honestly
- foster healthy emotional intelligence
- let go of toxic or loveless relationships
- attend to traumatic emotional wounds
- experience empowering self-awareness
- notice red flags and unhealthy behaviors
- discover how to create healthy boundaries
- enjoy increased self-esteem and confidence
- feel the joy of loving, connected relationships
Let The Joy of Imperfect Love help you discover how to mindfully use your feelings, thoughts, mindsets, energy, and actions to help you manifest change. As you embrace the skills of genuine friendship, relationship ethics, emotional intelligence, connective communication, healthy conflict, and relationship maintenance you’ll enjoy greater balance, fulfillment, and authenticity in romantic partnerships, friendships, family relationships, and work settings. Through the lens of Dr. Carla’s life-shifting concepts, you’ll discover the freedom of genuine love—authentic, imperfect love that is grounded in acceptance and intentional transformation.
AUTHOR SPONSORED
We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.
SOME HIGHLIGHTS:
As you read The Joy of Imperfect Love, it is my hope that you discover and embrace pieces of yourself you have cast off, forgotten, concealed, or have never come to know. There will be a day, if not now, when you look at yourself in the mirror with all the love and acceptance that you’ve searched for in the eyes and hearts of others. I pray that you find and embrace the deep, imperfect love you deserve. And then, from a radiant space of genuine self-love, you will be able to love all those in your world with the power of deep, abiding, imperfect love.
Love—or its absence—is where our lives begin and end. It is never too late to foster love in one’s inner and external life. In today’s fragmented world where material success and excess are often prioritized, millions suffer from empty, false, or broken promises of love. Yet, no matter how much we have in the external world, we suffer when we do not have love. We have the power to reset—to shift our priorities—and focus on fostering genuine love in all our relationships, from romantic partnerships and family connections to our vital friendships.
You can look forward to encountering many positive tips, practical tools, and thought-provoking exercises in each chapter of The Joy of Imperfect Love. This is no ordinary self-help book. In fact, it’s more of a heart-and-life-shifting guide intended to help you make real-life changes. Throughout this journey, you’ll discover how to create more of the wonderful love-oriented behaviors you desire while you diminish the unhealthy love-related behaviors that leave you feeling alone, hurt, misunderstood, and defeated. The more you explore, the more you will learn. And the more you learn and understand, the more you will grow.
The Joy of Imperfect Love focuses on understanding and fostering imperfect love from the inside out. It is within your mind, body, and spirit that self-love is grown. You do not need to love yourself perfectly to love others well, but a
stronger sense of self-love will help you shine and show up for yourself and others. As the power of your own self-love is harnessed, the most important relationships in your life will naturally flourish. And while self-love and romantic love are the focus of this book, you’ll find the tenets applicable to all the important love relationships in your life. Your ability to genuinely embrace imperfect love will bring joy, empathy, and integrity to every relationship.
Imperfect love asks us to respectfully call attention to a partner’s poor behaviors, unhealthy patterns, or negative trends with an empathic, connective mindset. When imperfect love is at work, both partners strive to support each other in being the best—if imperfect—versions of themselves. A key focus of relationship work involves conscious detachment from toxic love’s unhealthy patterns and healthy attachment to beneficial patterns.
Healthy, connection-oriented communication is a key to all healthy relationships. What I have termed connective communication involves the conscious use of verbal and non-verbal behaviors to join with another person. Healthy, connection-focused communication is always respectful and oriented toward creating unity rather than division. Relationships built on imperfect love offer mutually respectful communication free of interruptions, verbal abuse, and criticism to allow for healthy discussions and genuine listening. The aspect of healthy communication is imperative for healthy relationships.
When you feel safe in a relationship, you are able to create a secure attachment. Safety is not elective in healthy, imperfect love relationships—it is essential. In fact, Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs outlines safety as the second most critical need; only physiological needs (e.g., having food) are considered more vital. When it comes to intimate relationships, I believe emotional safety—which fosters other forms of security—is the main priority.
Trust is a gift that must be earned through responsible, trustworthy behaviors. In all relationships from childhood onward, we seek safety and security. If caregivers provide key elements such as sensitivity, attentive nurturing, consistency, safety, and security, we learn to trust in healthy ways. This is the basis for attachment theory—the principle that the security of our earliest childhood attachments forms our ability to connect and attach in our adult relationships. For the many children who are not so fortunate, the lack of parental attunement leads to feeling unsafe, which reduces their ability to trust in relationships. A person’s attachment style is generally carried into adulthood.
Partners who practice being attuned and responsive to each other create and reinforce secure attachment strategies. If one or both partners are not attuned or are non-responsive, attachment avoidance increases. And if one or both partners have unpredictable patterns of responsiveness (e.g., being engaged at times and disengaged at others), attachment anxiety increases. When we take care to slow down to listen to our partners and consistently meet their needs in loving, supportive ways, we actually foster healthy, secure attachment in adulthood. Although our efforts to relieve a partner’s distress may be imperfect, it’s the consistency of the connective efforts—the willingness to be emotionally present, attuned, and responsive—that makes every difference in fostering secure attachment. Conversely, if we consistently choose to disengage and act in unattuned, non-supportive ways, we stimulate and perpetuate attachment avoidance patterns in the relationship. It’s important to highlight that anxious attachment patterns may be stimulated or worsen if supportive energy and actions are conditional or unpredictable.
PODCAST EPISODE: Motivational Monday with Dr. Carla Manly – author of The Joy of Imperfect Love.
The Joy of Imperfect Love — Song List
AUTHOR SPONSORED
We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Dr. Carla Marie Manly—clinical psychologist, life fulfillment expert, and author—is based in Sonoma County, California. In addition to her clinical practice focusing on relationships and personal transformation, Dr. Manly is deeply invested in her roles as a consultant and speaker. With a refreshingly direct and honest approach—plus a dose of humor—Dr. Manly enjoys supporting others in the ever-evolving journey of life. Her novel self-development paradigm builds resilience, emotional intelligence, and self-esteem.
REVIEWS:
In this beautifully written love letter to the human heart, Dr. Manly helps us see loving relationships, including the one we have with ourselves, as transformative, illuminating, and life-changing—for the good of us all.
—Dr. Shelley Davidow, author and educator
Dr. Manly deftly guides us through self-awareness into imperfect love with great intelligence, insight, and infinite compassion, exploring what divides us and ultimately what unites us. The Joy of Imperfect Love offers a guide to enrich and maintain the relationships we already have and to create the ones we desire.
—Sheridan Stewart, author of I Am Enough,
ABC radio broadcaster, and speaker
A powerful resource and guide! Dr. Manly invites us to move toward mindful growth and away from a perfectionist mindset that magnifies “flaws” and compromises every aspect of our lives.
—Dr. David Hanscom, MD, author of Back in Control
Dr. Manly’s new book, The Joy of Imperfect Love, is a game-changer. Her ground-breaking concept of imperfect love gives us and our romantic partners room to be authentic and ever-learning. This book sets us free from the unrealistic expectations about “true love” which too often lead to prematurely giving up on relationships–or even finding a partner. Committing to others and ourselves in healthy, accepting, and honest ways requires time and dedication. But with Dr. Carla’s straightforward tips, practical tools, and encouraging guidance, working on how to love is no longer an uphill battle—but a heartfelt, purpose-filled “labor of love.”
—Dr. Friedemann Schaub, MD, PhD, author of the
award-winning book The Fear and Anxiety Solution
Today’s world pushes the ideal of perfection, but in fact, what we need most is imperfect love and heartfelt understanding. Dr. Carla Marie Manly’s fourth book, The Joy of Imperfect Love, opens the door to the power of imperfect love. Dr. Carla has a unique, ingenious, and uplifting way of approaching life! Her books, whether on fear, dating, or love, are a joy to read and are filled with vast knowledge and beautiful insights. She takes her work a step further with The Joy of Imperfect Love, which is both timeless and timely!
—Arash Farzaneh, multicultural educator,
wellness advocate, and host of Arash’s World
An exquisite, uplifting work of heart! The Joy of Imperfect Love is filled warmth, compassion, and the solid insights we all need to build healthy relationships. As a clinician who knows the importance of secure attachment and genuine love, Dr. Manly offers a stepwise approach that makes healthy attachment and love accessible to all.
Dr. Carla Manly’s latest book, The Joy of Imperfect Love, begins with a road map to understanding and embracing self-love and self-esteem to move forward in relationships. She walks the reader through the imperative qualities of healthy relationships including honesty, empathy, and compassion. Dr. Manly offers real-life examples of journeys others have navigated, step-by-step processes to move forward through those difficult circumstances most couples ultimately face, and actionable exercises. This book is for all couples at any stage of the relationship, or even for those considering embarking on a new relationship. You will want to have pad and pen ready because it is jam-packed with information. The tone is welcoming and nonjudgmental. Dr. Manly does not preach; instead, she effortlessly gets to the heart of each complicated issue she addresses. I highly recommend The Joy of Imperfect Love for anyone who is in a relationship, has had difficulty with relationships in the past, or is thinking about taking that next step with their significant other.
—Myrna Haskell, Sanctuary Magazine
The Joy of Imperfect Love is a delightful, inspiring guide to creating genuine self-love and healthy companionship. Focusing on secure relational attachment, Dr. Manly takes readers on a thoughtful journey that fosters mindfulness, communication, and emotional connection. A powerful, compelling read filled with Dr. Manly’s heartfelt wisdom, warmth, and compassion.
—Orchid Johnson, PhD, MS
The Joy of Imperfect Love is a captivating and eye-opening guide into the world of perfectly imperfect relationships with ourselves and others. Dr. Manly exquisitely teaches the differences among love, imperfect love, and false love, and how so many individuals have embraced erroneous mindsets regarding love and relationships. The Joy of Imperfect Love provides the wisdom on how to show up in healthy ways to embrace our imperfect selves and navigate imperfect relationships. A true masterpiece, this book is a must read for everyone!
—Jasmine Alexander, MA, RPC
In a world that often glorifies perfection, The Joy of Imperfect Love shines a light on the beauty and depth that come from embracing the imperfections within our relationships. This book offers a refreshing perspective that reminds us that it’s in our vulnerabilities and flaws where true connections are forged. A must-read for anyone seeking genuine and lasting love.
—Donna Tetreault, journalist and author
AUTHOR SPONSORED
We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.
Source link
