“Write what should not be forgotten.”
GUIDEBOOKS
BOOK MANUSCRIPT
This book has something to say. I’m currently seeking a publishing home that can help it reach the people who need it most.
I wrote The Loyal Self because I spent a lot of my life looking outside of myself for things I eventually understood I could only find inside of me.
I think we all do this. We think if we find the right relationship, have the career we want, make enough money, accomplish the things we want to accomplish, or finally become the person we think we're supposed to be, then we'll feel good. But no matter what I did or how much I changed my life, I still had this feeling that something was missing.
I started to figure out that what was missing wasn't another thing I needed to find. What was missing was me.
I wasn't really paying attention to myself. I was caught up in my thoughts. I didn't know how to stay with my uncomfortable emotions. I didn't understand my nervous system or how much it was affecting my day to day life. So I started there.
I learned how to observe my thoughts instead of believing every one of them. I learned how to actually feel my emotions instead of trying to make them go away. I learned how to pay attention to my nervous system and my body. And the more attention I paid to what was happening inside of me, the less I needed something outside of me to make me feel okay.
That eventually became the idea of of The Loyal Self:
The life outside of us only changes when the life inside of us changes first.
The second half of the book is a 20 day practice that helps you start doing this for yourself. There's nothing you're supposed to fix or heal. You're just learning how to pay attention to yourself in a way you probably never have before. Because you can't change something you can't see. And I think that's really what this whole book is about. Learning to see yourself. Learning to listen to yourself. And eventually learning how to stay with yourself.
I spent years thinking there was something missing from my life.
What I eventually realized was that I was missing from my own life.

