When I started writing Fearless Choices, I thought I was writing a book.

At the time, it didn’t even have a name. It floated through a few identities—Choose Her, then Make Better Choices, then simply Choose—until it eventually landed on Fearless Choices. Not because I had some cinematic “this is it” moment, but because some very smart people at HarperCollins ran it through their system and that was the title that graded the best.

I thought I was writing a book.

A product. A promise. Something with a beginning, a middle, and a clean ending that could make sense of everything.

What I didn’t expect was that the writing would take on a path of its own.

At first, I was organized about it, along with my co-author Eliza whom i brought onto this project because of her immense talent, but also because of my own doubt on whether I would be any good at it. We had outlines. Themes. A plan for what we wanted to say and how I wanted it to land. I was trying to be responsible with the story. I was trying to make something useful.

But somewhere along the way, the book stopped being a project and started being a process.

I got lost in it.

Not lost like “I didn’t know what I was doing.”
Lost like… I stopped trying to control who I was on the page.

I wrote sentences that surprised me. I went back to memories I thought I’d already made peace with and realized I’d only made them manageable. I found places where I was still bracing. Still performing strength. Still trying to keep my story tidy so it wouldn’t make other people uncomfortable.

The book didn’t let me do that.

There’s a particular kind of honesty that shows up when you’re writing alone. No one to impress. No one to reassure. No one to soften things for. Just the blank page and the question it keeps asking:

Are you going to tell the truth, or are you going to keep telling the version that sounds safer?

I didn’t sit down to write a healing journey.

I sat down to write what I knew. And then the writing process kept showing me what I didn’t.

Some days it felt like building. Other days it felt like taking apart. Like I was unlearning the habit of protecting everyone else from the reality of what I’d lived — or at least my interpretation of it. 

I learned things in the process— that growth doesn’t announce itself. That “moving on” can sometimes just be avoidance.

And at some point, without meaning to, I forgot people would read this book all together it.

I don’t mean that dramatically. I mean it literally. I got so deep in the work that the imaginary reader disappeared. It was just me—trying to understand my own patterns, trying to name what happened without making excuses for it, trying to write in a way that didn’t betray the person I used to be.

I wrote like no one was going to read it.

And now the book is coming out.

Now there is a reader again.

And I can feel my nerves kicking in. 

Because there’s a difference between writing something privately and releasing it publicly. There’s a difference between processing your life and publishing it. There’s a difference between being in your truth and offering it to strangers who will hold it for ten minutes between errands, or underline a line you wrote on a day you could barely breathe, or misunderstand a chapter you wrote with care.

There’s a big part of me that feels naked.

Not because I’m ashamed.
Because I’m exposed.

I’m not worried about being seen as imperfect. I already know I’m imperfect. I’m worried about being seen as real—without context, without control, without the ability to explain myself in the moment or to protect others from being hurt in the process. 

This book contains parts of my life that I have carried quietly for a long time.

And while I believe in the message, and know this book will help the reader, I’m still human enough to feel the vulnerability of letting it go.

Here’s what I keep coming back to, when I feel that tightness in my chest:

I didn’t write this to prove anything.

I wrote it because I needed to.
Because I believe that what we don’t name, we repeat.
Because I believe that choice—real choice—doesn’t come from willpower. It comes from clarity. It comes from self-trust. It comes from learning to stop abandoning yourself in small ways that look “fine” from the outside.

And above all, I wrote it because I don’t want anyone to think they’re broken for being in process, or stuck because they haven't yet made a choice. 

If my journey does anything for you, I hope it doesn’t become a comparison point.

I hope it becomes a stepping stone.

Something you can stand on for a moment—long enough to see your own life more clearly. Long enough to feel your own instincts come back. Long enough to remember that you’re allowed to change your mind, choose again, tell the truth, and become someone new without needing permission.

That’s the part I can hold onto as this book goes out into the world.

I can’t control how it’s received.

But I can stand behind why I wrote it.

I wrote it because I believe your life is not decided by one big moment.

It’s decided by the small, brave decisions you make when no one is watching. When it would be easier to stay the same. When you’re tired. When the world is loud. When doing the right thing costs you something.

Fearless Choices is coming out, and I’m nervous.

But I’m also grateful.

Because I didn’t just write a book. I wrote my way back to myself.

And I hope it helps the reader do the same.