My book started off as a healing tool for myself. Even in retrospect I couldn’t believe, let alone wrap my head around, the enormity of the full-on collapse of my life that had begun in 2008/2009. I had accumulated stacks of journals, voice notes, notes on my computer, notes in my phone, and all my healing sessions. After a continuous series of events including a long-time friend’s partner’s suicide, the collapse of wall-street, and the total dissolution of my personal world, I would manage to eventually find a glimpse of inspiration. I continued writing and journaling over the next several years.

There was an abundance of information and experience in my notes. I pulled them all together in 2018 when I attended my one and only book-writing event over a long weekend in Sedona, Arizona. I spent the weekend steeped in my anger, frustration, and victimhood – it was overwhelming to live through it all again and again. Over the next couple of years, every time I edited and did a complete read-through, it was an extremely intense experience, emotionally and energetically draining.

My choices, made out of fear, insecurity, and low self-esteem, had kept me looping in my story for a long time. I was always the victim – “it even says so on the Police Report” I proclaimed to an AA sponsor once, as I was yelling and crying after my tiny backhouse apartment was robbed late one night while I was at an AA meeting!

What I did have, however, was courage, determination, and will (and a voice in my head that I heard in 2008 and trusted it!). It was not easy to face myself head-on. It was messy and ungraceful, and I was desperate for someone to sidetrack me so I could continue not having to look at myself - from within.

I went through a full Life Cycle of Warrior Energy – I hit it head-on, in spite of the voracious fear that lay in wait, ready to pounce. I did not have any language, tools, or understanding of the energy and vibration of the heart space, and the key role it played in my self-damaging responses to everything, and everyone.

Saying I have changed or shifted, would be a gross understatement. I have rebirthed and transformed from a once-unimaginable state of hopelessness (Dark Night of the Soul) to a beautiful existence enriched with Self-Empowerment; self-worth, self-validation, and gratitude for all that comes my way, coming through it all to find sovereignty by creating an existence that offers the freedom I desire.

Sovereignty does not simply mean you have enough money to do what you want. Sovereignty means that you are self-guided, self-regulated, self-empowered, self-managed, and self-aware - that you are guided and listen within, not without.

My book was mostly written by mid-year in 2020, and when Covid hit in early 2020, and the amount of suffering that people were experiencing (and continue to experience) kept me inspired. I know what it feels like to have your entire life pulled out from underneath you – my journey rocked me to the core of my being. And I know what it feels like to surrender into a new way of being that leaves victimhood behind.

I have continued on the most amazing journey; literally mystical on so many levels, which will be revealed in the second book.

I hope you can find inspiration, hope, vision, and some freedom from your own shackles through my experience.

And…may we continue to travel together…