How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community

This book turned out to be my best read in 2024. I LOVE how Mia Birdsong deep dives community and its importance, particularly within a multiculturally affirming lens. I heard her on a meditation podcast and am hooked. The book reads like you're talking to your super smart best friend and she gave me many ideas on how to build not only diverse communities in my life but also different types of communities like friends who are family, maybe a women only bookclub and more. I love books that show me a new voice and teach me things and this book did all of the above. I love a new perspective on an old topic and for me Maya Birdsong brought the topic of community to life in a 2025 context. 10/10 stars, best read of the year

"...our work is to become more aware of what's already there and peel back the delusion of separateness to reveal our interdependence." - Mia Birdsong in the final pages of How We Show Up This book was highly recommended to me by a friend. I wasn't familiar with the author and hadn't heard of the book prior, but I'm so glad I listened to her recommendation and read it. Mia Birdsong weaves together stories of people from a variety of backgrounds along with her own experiences to reveal optimistic and regenerative ideas about what's possible when we lean into our interdependence. Particularly if you're feeling overwhelmed and burnt out by these divided times that we find ourselves living in, I highly recommend this book as inspiration for what a brighter future could look like.

A very insightful book about an inclusive community and how to build it. It highlights how far from true community many of us have come following the American Dream and it‘s stereotypical goals of two parent family, two kids, two cars and a fence around this nuclear family. It highlights action pints through personal stories while also informing in a more academic way on societal matters. Very inspiring !

Beautifully written, brought up so much conversation between my partner and I.

This book relies on a wide range of radical expertise to make real for us what it actually means to create community, to value and be intentional about friendship, to build family life that isn't weighed down by the burden of needing to meet our every need, but a foundational, imaginative center. It reimagines safety, health, vulnerability, support, and so many other fundamental parts of our human lives together. A must read for everyone, but especially those of us who have been less socialized with interdependent practices and deluded by the American Dream delusion of rugged individualism.