Journaling is an outlet for many because the act of writing helps process information and allows for more reflection during and after.
As an author, it's common for me to take experiences from my real life and interpret them in a fictional world to give my characters other options I didn't have, saviors that show up for them, or a way to save themselves. They always learn the lessons they need to learn and I help my characters by giving them those experiences.
When I started writing nonfiction, I realized that I was doing the same thing, except the reader became the main character, able to learn from my experiences, while also giving my pain a voice to heal.
In my first nonfiction book, Stronger Now, my main focus was to help my readers process difficult situations in their own lives and transform them into something good.
By writing the book, I gave myself a transformation too. This book was written with a focus on personal stories in the years that my husband was battling cancer and we were in poverty, trying to support ourselves and our little son.
It was cathartic to write out my experiences as a teaching tool, cry about it, and occasionally make fun of myself in the experience. Re-living those traumas helped me see them in a new light.
The main themes in Stronger Now are the themes I needed to learn to deal with my own pain:
Finding Opportunity: I talk about how there is a hidden opportunity in every moment, with examples and end-of-chapter challenges to help you find them.
Overcoming Pain: I share how overcoming these situations is not about toxic positivity, but instead about feeling them and then harnessing those feelings as catalysts for positive change.
Personal Empowerment: No matter what is happening, there is a way to see yourself as the leader. I even share how I misplaced my feelings and what they were representing when I cried about a fish to a Petsmart employee.
New Perspectives: I teach my process for reframing what is around you to show the benefits, without hiding from the pain. My reframe process is one of the biggest self-help tools you can learn.
Gratitude and Forgiveness: I have chapters on gratitude and forgiveness and what they actually mean vs what society may tell you about it.
Growth Mindset: The whole book focuses on the ability to change your own mind, which is the #1 way to foster a growth mindset and help you change your life.
Change: How to take all of the above and combine it together in what I call the Catalysts of Change so you can take steps to your next stage of your life with this new energy.
If you want to change your life, move through your pain and let it go, and just feel better about your current situation - this book may be for you.
Order Stronger Now here and let me know if it helps you heal too..