When the Door Opens

on publishing, performance, and the courage to belong

I am about to begin the final leg of my publishing journey. Publishing a book is both tedious and deeply rewarding. It begins with the audacious idea that you have something worth sharing publicly. Then comes the painstaking work of finding the right words for experiences that are often more felt than understood.

If you are fortunate, you find a publisher. Then come the edits, and more edits, each pass bringing you closer to the truth you sensed from the beginning but could not yet fully articulate.

There is the cover art. The fonts. The subtle architecture that carries a reader through the journey.

And finally, the summary. You might think this part would be easy. It isn’t. This is when the mirror is placed directly in front of you. You must distill years of work into two hundred words without overselling, without shrinking, and without hiding from yourself, not to mention others.

I have lost more sleep over those two hundred words than I care to admit. As someone with dyslexia, language does not come easily. Every sentence must be weighed, turned over, listened to in the body. Publishing a book is a chore — a beautiful privilege, yes — but still a chore. But that is not actually what I want to reveal.

The Vulnerability of Coming Forward

As I approach the end of this road, I expected relief. Instead, I am encountering dread — a tightening in my chest, an urge to pull back. To put myself out there in this way feels deeply uncomfortable. Scary, in fact. And even admitting that it feels scary feels…well, vulnerable. Do you know what I mean?

This book is not a whimsical account of something I find interesting. It sits at the center of everything I do because belonging is not a theme for me. It is the lifeblood of my professional work, my private life, and the bridge between the two. It shapes how I understand healing and what has fractured in our culture and the world overall. So when I bring it forward — even gradually, even here — I feel exposed, the sense of standing without armor, of putting what is dear to me on the line.

And this is the very heart of what I want to share: Imagine if we all brought our tender hearts forward, not for display, but for good? What if we shifted our orientation from performing to befriending — befriending our insides, our outsides, and the space between?

Befriending What Is Before Us

I recently had the opportunity to practice this. I was interviewed for the first time about the book. The night before, I had slept poorly. Earlier that day, I had sat with a client who was walking through a painful season. My heart was already heavy. And then I entered the interview, distracted and slightly unmoored.

You might be able to predict what came next. The familiar wave of performance anxiety came through. The questions arrived. The recording light was on. But my mind went blank. You know the kind of blank that isn’t empty, but flooded? Thoughts racing. Self-consciousness tightening. The strange sensation that everything is draining away right when you most want to be articulate.

I could have continued to spiral. But instead, I decided to focus on the felt sense of the chair holding me and the floor beneath my feet. I noticed my breath, where it meets meets awareness and awareness meets my breath.

What came next, surprised me. The moment received me, even in my discomfort. While the interview continued, not in the polished way I had imagined. Not in the effortless, luminous way I would have preferred. But it continued.

And so does life — if we allow it to.

Belonging Is Not Always Comfortable

Belonging does not always feel good. Sometimes it feels like staying when you want to flee. Other times, it feels like speaking when you would rather disappear. And still other times, it feels like admitting fear while your voice trembles.

Belonging is not the absence of discomfort. It is staying… It is staying in the room. It is staying even when our performance falters, even when our words fail, even when we feel exposed. Perhaps especially then.

As I step into this final stretch of publishing, I am practicing what I write about: Staying. Breathing. Allowing myself to be seen without certainty about how I will be received.

Belonging, I am rediscovering again, is not something we achieve. It is something we receive — when we stop performing long enough to notice that the ground is already holding us.

And so, here I am. Tender. A little afraid. Unsure how these words will land.

And still here with you.