Today is the day, my friends. It's Book Day. On this day, You Can Do This takes her place in the world. When I started writing this book a year ago, This Day felt oddly far away. But as it is with any due date, they tend to arrive. And this one is a glorious admission to the rule. Today, a book is born.
You Can Do This is live on the shelves of all your bookstore retailers, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target, and everywhere books are sold. There are quite a number of reviews already live on Amazon, thanks to a great team of early readers, so you can read their star recommendations here.
The book opens with an invitation. I invite you, the reader, to sit down with me, over caramel scones and white daisies and polka dotted coffee mugs, to join the confidence conversation. It looks like this:
Let’s start with an invitation:
I’d like to invite you to stop being unhappy with yourself. To stop wishing you looked like someone else, or that people liked you as much as they like someone else, or that you could get the attention of people who hurt you. I’d like to invite you to stop second-guessing all of your decisions and commitments, to stop wondering if your life were different had you only chosen the mystery prize behind door number two.
I’m writing to you working moms who think you’re not doing enough to be present at home, and to you stay-at-home-moms—to those of you who are unapologetically content at home, who worry about getting things right in your long days with the little people who hold your heart; and to the ones among us who miss working outside the home, who feel like you lost your confidence somewhere among crumbs and dirty diapers. I’m thinking of you single women who feel incomplete or not enough because you’re not married. I’m writing to you single moms who balance more than you were ever meant to carry alone, and to you women who live with a failure, a betrayal, or a loss that has stolen every bit of who you thought you were.
I am inviting all of you, all of us, to a new conversation. I’d love to invite you to stop hating your body, your face, your figure, your hair, your freckles (or lack of them), your personality, your quirks. You’re worth more than these self-imposed opinions. It doesn’t matter when you began torturing yourself with criticism, but it needs to stop today. And here’s what I’d love to convince you of right here, right now:
You can do this.
When you’ve finished reading this book, I hope you’ll think, This book made me think and laugh, and now I feel like I can do this next thing in front of me. I hope you’ll feel hope, courage, strength, encouragement, presence, freedom, and confidence to move forward into your life with the awareness that you were born for this. I hope, girl to girl and eye to eye, we can remember that we are called to claim complete confidence.
Finding your confidence is a miracle. I know this because I found mine. And when I looked hard at the woman I’ve become, when I finally recognized the courageous warrior hidden in this frame, I was surprised by joy and astonished by awe. I want the same awareness for you.
Join me, girlfriend. Let’s do this.
***
So, on this day, it's out there. My book is living and breathing in the world, looking for hands to hold and lives to dive into. Please join me in the pages.
Happy birthday, You Can Do This.
Fly, little bird. Fly.
If it's half as astonishing as "And Life Comes Back," it's well worth the price of admission! Congratulations!