I wrote As Good as the Best for seekers healing from childhood trauma who don’t feel seen by mainstream self-help.

As I learned and healed, I encountered us everywhere, hiding in plain sight, careful of what we divulged, terrified of being seen as less than, our nervous systems wired by fear and shame. Reading self-help written by people who have very little in common with us, whose lives we didn’t really want to live. Or written by clinicians who use anonymous anecdotes to convince us that they understand. Feeling alone, like we were the only ones with our kind of pain, our kind of reactions. Laboriously piecing together approaches and therapies that actually worked. Or not even trying much at all, because we had convinced ourselves we had moved on and that we had it together.

I also wrote As Good as the Best as an exercise in vulnerability and self-trust. I wanted to bring my wounded narrator out of the shadows and into the light. Because as long as I kept her hidden, as long as I was ashamed of her, as long as I blamed her for the trauma she experienced as a child, I couldn’t own the fullest expression of my own power and possibility.

And maybe, by slowly and patiently expanding my window of tolerance, taking small steps I thought I’d never be capable of, I could help others feel safe to try to do the same. Maybe by sharing what I had learned, through science, spirituality, mind-body practices, and my own trial and error, I could save someone else some time and struggle on their journey.

It’s not fair that it feels so much harder for you. I hope this book makes it a little bit easier.

We are not the darkness of our childhoods. We are not “broken” nor are we simply “survivors”.

We already know how to turn an unrealistic belief into reality because we’re here.

Alive, curious, aware. Wanting to connect.

We have intention.

We can heal.

We are exemplars of the power of the human spirit to move forward.

Of the power to shape what comes next.

So I say to the audience that I’m still figuring out how to reach:

Thank you.