I am a Danish-Norwegian American writer, educator, and life coach with a PhD in Transformative Studies from California Institute of Integral Studies. My award-winning book, Out of Love: Finding Your Way Back to Self-Compassion, chronicles my journey to self-compassion after experiencing cancer and suicide loss. For my PhD, I continued my research into what I call self-compassion narratives for creating growth-oriented meaning in the aftermath of adverse events.
I learned harsh self-criticism from a young age. For me, it manifests as perfectionism, worry, anxiety, and depression. In the course of my journey toward self-compassion, which began with the discovery of Kristin Neff’s research, I learned that all of my manifestations of self-criticism have to do with one core belief: I will never be good enough. In my book, Out of Love, I write about letting go of self-critical patterns and returning to self-compassion—”returning”, because I believe our natural state is self-compassion, while self-criticism is learned.
Self-compassion helped me survive and make sense of the devastating events of 2016 and 2017, which are the basis of my book, Out of Love: a breast-cancer diagnosis and double mastectomy, followed by the difficult decision to leave my husband of almost ten years and his subsequent suicide.
These were incredibly difficult experiences, which taught me how important it is to consider the stories you tell about yourself. For we all tell ourselves stories about who we are. Many of these stories are self-critical and disempowering. Through the practice of self-compassion, I’ve been able to shed many of my false narratives and become a more authentic, less self-critical, version of myself.
When I’m not reading or writing, I like to sing and play the piano, hang out with my three amazing nephews, and go for long walks with my puppy, Orion.
