Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness: A Process for Reclaiming Your Full Self

A provocative interactive workbook that leads us to reclaim our true selves so we can find the peace and well-being we deserve

With the publication of her electrifying New York Times bestseller On Our Best Behavior, Elise Loehnen--often deemed "our culture's therapist"--offered a groundbreaking exploration of the rules women unwittingly follow in order to be considered good. She illuminated the centuries-old code of conduct that keeps us disempowered, exhausted, anxious, and disconnected--even from ourselves.

In Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness, Loehnen partners with Courtney Smith, a renowned Enneagram expert and coach, to share tools they have learned from the visionary healers, thinkers, and therapists that prompt readers to dig into the stories they tell themselves. These tools guide us to peel back the layers of cultural programming that prevent us from expressing our full potential. The paradigm-shifting process Loehnen and Smith teach on the pages of this workbook reveals the answers to the questions that tug at our souls: Who am I? What do I want? What's standing in my way?

Author: Elise Loehnen, Courtney Smith
Publisher: Dial Press
Published: 07/29/2025
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.25lbs
ISBN: 9780593736876

About the Author
Elise Loehnen is the host of Pulling the Thread, the author of the New York Times bestseller On Our Best Behavior, and co-author of True and False Magic: A Tools Workbook with Phil Stutz. She has co-written twelve books, five of which were New York Times bestsellers. She was the chief content officer of goop, and co-hosted The goop Podcast and The goop Lab on Netflix. Previously, she was the editorial projects director of Cond? Nast Traveler. Elise lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two sons.

Courtney Smith worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Co. after earning a JD from Yale Law School. She now offers coaching, facilitating, and consulting services informed by practices she encountered in her own journey of self-development. Hallmarks of her approach include a warm and direct communication style; an awake mind and strong analytical skills; attentive and empathetic listening; grounding in the body; pragmatic tools; and a masterful understanding of the Enneagram.