Elevate Your Life
with Dr. Manly’s Books

Transform your life with the power of authentic intention. Dr. Carla Marie Manly’s award-winning books make her uplifting support easily accessible. Available in print and audio versions, Dr. Manly’s empowering guidance helps you fearlessly love yourself and your life.

The Joy of Imperfect Love

by Carla Marie Manly, PhD

Stuck in unhealthy relationship dynamics? Yearning to find—or be—that perfect someone? Craving greater emotional connection? If these themes ring true, Dr. Carla Marie Manly’s fourth book, The Joy of Imperfect Love will be your best friend on an empowering, life-shifting journey into authentic love.

The Joy of Imperfect Love is a powerful guide filled with science-based concepts, captivating case examples, and over 30 actionable exercises. Dr. Carla’s groundbreaking, attachment-based approach will help you foster self-love and emotionally attuned relationships. Supported by her engaging guidance, you will discover how to:

  • build strong, secure attachment
  • form positive, love-building habits
  • create uplifting internal narratives
  • heal unresolved attachment issues
  • communicate openly and honestly
  • let go of toxic or loveless relationships
  • experience empowering self-awareness
  • benefit from strong, healthy boundaries
  • notice red flags and unhealthy behaviors
  • attend to trauma and emotional wounds
  • develop greater mindfulness and inner calm
  • feel the joy of loving, connected relationships

Your best, authentic self will come alive as you discover how to use your feelings, thoughts, mindsets, energy, and actions to create balance and connection. The Joy of Imperfect Love also provides practical tips that foster genuine friendships, relationship ethics, emotional intelligence, connective communication, healthy conflict, and relationship maintenance.

The results of your journey? As you embrace the truth that real love is messy, imperfect, and a work in progress, you’ll set yourself free from the grip of perfectionism. You’ll watch with joy as your connection to yourself—and those around you—blossoms and grows as never before. And through the lens of Dr. Carla’s life-shifting concepts, you’ll discover the freedom of genuine love—authentic, imperfect love.

Date Smart

by Carla Marie Manly, PhD

We have HUGE expectations for finding the perfect partner but are too-often faced with the reality that dating is complicated! I’ve taken the anxiety and stress out of dating with my life-changing new book, Date Smart. The best-friend-in-a- book you’ve been looking for, Date Smart shows you how to make healthy dating simple and achievable. With a focus on helping you embrace your authentic self, Date Smart is an intelligent guide that includes 33 actionable mindset shifts, journaling prompts, and real-life examples. As you create stronger self-esteem and self-awareness, dating becomes fun and empowering. Based on clinical research, my genuine and uncomplicated approach makes healthy dating and relationship building a breeze. 

Date Smart offers actionable tips for addressing common dating issues such as:

  • Low self-confidence, commitment-phobia, starting over, and mistrust
  • Attachment issues that lead to unhealthy and disastrous relationships
  • Recognizing and setting healthy boundaries for yourself
  • Finding authenticity with your sexuality and sexual needs
  • Identifying and assertively embracing healthy dating dynamics
  • Knowing when not to date and the upside of opting for periods of self-partnering
  • Evaluating and responding to relationship red flags
  • Addressing toxic dating dynamics including ghosting and sexual manipulation
  • Setting realistic expectations and honest relationship goals


As a gift of encouragement from Dr. Manly, download the Date Smart worksheet here to build your self-esteem.

Date Smart is available anywhere fine books are sold, including:

Joy from Fear

by Carla Marie Manly, PhD

If you find yourself running away from fear, you’re running in the wrong direction. Fear demands that we move toward it, face it, and hear its messages. When we fail to do this, the price is chronic anxiety, sleeplessness, damaged relationships, skyrocketing pharmaceutical use, and more. In her enlightening book Joy from Fear, clinical psychologist Dr. Carla Marie Manly explains that fear is not the enemy we thought it was; fear, when faced with awareness, is the powerful ally and best friend we all need.

Dr. Manly’s work is firmly based in science but goes far beyond presenting the dry facts. Joy from Fear offers page after page of real-life examples, insights, easy-to-use tools, and life-changing exercises. Coining the term “transformational fear,” Dr. Manly illuminates the importance of embracing fear’s messages for a transformed life filled with freedom and lasting happiness.

As a gift of encouragement from Dr. Manly, download the Joy from Fear worksheet here to start embracing the power of your emotional world.

Joy from Fear is available anywhere fine books are sold, including:

Aging Joyfully

by Carla Marie Manly, PhD

A must-read book for women of every age, Aging Joyfully guides the reader into the often-overlooked power and potential within the aging process. Highlighting the upsides while fearlessly diving into the challenges, Dr. Carla Marie Manly provides a vital and meaningful window into the heart of the intricate transitions women face as they approach 50 and beyond. With her warm and honest approach, Dr. Manly gently explores key topics ranging from relationship challenges and role changes to sensitive health matters.  Tossing the constraints of age bias to the wind, the reader is invited to embrace aging as a graceful process that offers untold freedom, beauty, and joy.  To support real-life change, Aging Joyfully provides mindfulness tips and transformative self-work exercises designed to foster an abundant future while also healing and releasing hurts of the past.

Filled with empowering insights appropriate for any gender, this warm-hearted guide helps adults of all ages better understand—and offer support throughout—the transformative aging process.

Aging Joyfully is a loving, supportive guide for individuals, yet it also lends itself to powerful communal discovery within workshops, book clubs, and support groups.

As a gift of encouragement from Dr. Manly, download the Aging Joyfully worksheet here to discover how to love yourself at every age.

Aging Joyfully is available anywhere fine books are sold, including:

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Dr. Manly’s latest book can be purchased on Amazon.

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