If you're feeling down, reach for this uplifting guide to feeling bad. Written by licensed therapist, Chelsea Harvey Garner, A Pity Party Is Still a Party provides reflections on sadness and being sad, and helps you process and connect to heal sorrow. Plus, 10% of the purchase price of this new hardcover book and audiobook combo goes to support ProLiteracy -- feel good about feeling bad!

From the Publisher:

Most of us try to avoid feeling sad, but in this candid, comical, and deeply-felt book, therapist Chelsea Harvey Garner doesn’t just argue that the future will be brighter if we learn to enjoy the unenjoyable and support each other when the vibes aren’t so good, she also shows us how.

What if all the advice we’ve received about “looking on the bright side” is wrong? What if sadness is actually the key to happiness, and can even be . . . fun? Garner is here to make that case. In this feel-good guide to feeling bad, she claims it’s not enough for us to tolerate hard feelings. We need to embrace them. We need to let them show by crying with others. Often. In public.

Playful, at times irreverent, but always sincere, Garner is the grown-up Miss Frizzle for the therapy generation. She believes that if we want to build a world where mental health is the norm, we have to lean into connection and count on each other, even—and perhaps especially—at our worst.

Through anecdotes about her own hardships and insights gained in her clinical practice, Garner illuminates the power (and embarrassment) of opening up. Featuring solo exercises, group activities, and journal prompts alongside personal essays, she invites us to see emotions in a new light and engage with them in a healthier way. A Pity Party is Still a Party helps us find the silver lining, but only after we’ve played in the rain.

Chelsea Harvey Garner is a licensed therapist, writer, and the executive director of Big Feels Lab: a nonprofit promoting collective mental health. In her creative and therapeutic work, she helps readers and patients alike cultivate courage, compassion, and a bit of dark humor so they can reclaim a stance of dignity and find true belonging with themselves and each other. She is based in New York City.