Authentic Power: Give Yourself Permission to Feel

Are you ready to make your "mess" your masterpiece?

Accomplished publicist, journalist, award-winning podcaster, and speaker Ashley Bernardi opens up about losing her dad as an eleven-year-old and trying to save his life alongside her mother and sister as he suffered from a sudden death heart attack. She ignored the trauma, grief, and guilt from the horrifying experience for years after being told she was "so strong" in trying to save her dad's life and attempting to move on. In her 30s, she suffered from a debilitating mystery illness that left her bedridden and unable to care for her three children.

It was then, in a state of despair and hopelessness, that she began to feel the pain and "mess" she had been ignoring - her illness, grief, and trauma - and found the true healing and growth that she had been searching for her entire life. For years, she had pushed her trauma aside to maintain a "mask" of strength for others, yet her feelings came out in other ways - in people-pleasing, alcohol use, in destructive relationships, and eventually, making the devastating effects of her mystery illness even worse.

Not So Strong teaches us that our darkest hours are disguised as an opportunity to uncover and process, feel, heal, and grow from our mess, even when society doesn't allow it. In this first book, Bernardi teaches that by taking off the mask of strength and honoring our feelings we will awaken the power within and potentially turn our stories and life experiences into a masterpiece and heal. She interviews the world's leading experts in health and wellness who offer her healing and hope in her personal journey, and to others in their journeys--a rich collection of top doctors, psychologists, nutritionists, coaches, spiritualists, and others.

Readers will learn:

• Why acknowledging, feeling, and processing your life adversities, aka your "mess", is the ultimate path to authentic and empowered living
• How to strip the mask of strength that society has told us to wear, and how the powerful act of removing the mask allows us to feel and express our true emotions in order to heal
• Why we need to ride the waves of emotions, and how to express them in primal ways
• Why self-care alone won't heal your life
• How to use the power of hope as a life affirmation
• Techniques to feel and process your "mess", including breathwork, meditation, sacred writing, art, nature, movement, and Ashley's FEEL Framework

This inspirational guide features insights and practical healing techniques from luminaries such as Dr. Habib Sadeghi, author of The Clarity Cleanse, Stanford's Dr. Jamil Zaki, 31-Day Food Revolution founder Ocean Robbins, transformational life coaches Julie Reisler and Malena Crawford, ER physician and renowned climate activist Dr. Courtney Howard, pediatrician Dr. Anisha Abraham, and a special Foreword by Dr. Emma Seppala, Science Director of Stanford's Center for Compassion and Altruism Research Education.