What makes someone write a self-help book? Just waking up one morning and deciding to take on such a challenge is one thing, but having the book completed and published is not for the faint of heart. Two women, one a certified yoga and meditation teacher, and the other a psychologist and life coach, put their own busy lives on hold to share their knowledge for the sole purpose of helping others.
WAT thought it was a good idea to celebrate these women who’ve gone through their own challenges and were compelled to put their hard-earned wisdom to work. We asked both writers about what brought them to make this writing commitment, and what else they’d like us to know.
For Krista V. Oakes, her book Shedding Shame is intended to have readers reflect on closely guarded secrets that are holding them back from living their best life, to offer ways to heal from the past, and the courage to move forward without shame.
Kate Evans has released Ditch Your Sh*t which offers a two-fold promise: to declutter mind and home to boost self-confidence, self-esteem, and to not feel guilty about taking care of ourselves.
(WAT featured Evans in a prior story about a life coaching business. )
Krista V. Oakes (Photo Credit: Rinat Halon Photography)
Shedding Shame: Finding Freedom to Live an Authentic Life
For Oakes, she began the early pages of her book trying to figure out how she got to where she was. “I wrote the first draft as a kind of therapy for myself,” she says. “I was recently divorced, sat down at my computer and it poured out of me.” That first draft was filed away in a cabinet for the next seven years. It was too personal, she felt, and too raw to do anything with it right away.
There were two beliefs that eventually propelled her forward: a dream to publish a book, and knowing she had an interesting story. But there were two equally strong fears that kept her held back: a low level of confidence she could even write it, and the other, that revealing long held and painful secrets would not only involve her life, but members of her family as well.
Taking one small step ended up being the action she needed. Oakes met with a local editor and after sharing a bit about her story, the agent wanted to hear more. Knowing that an expert in publishing had all these questions about her story and eager for her to keep at it empowered the first-time author to go for it and complete the final draft. “I’d stay up until all hours of the night letting my story flow out of me.”
Krista V. Oakes (Photo Credit: Rinat Halon Photography)
Shedding Shame is the result. Oakes says, “it’s about the secrets I was afraid to share with the world, and what I did to eventually release the shame that was holding me back from living a healthy, full life.” The story is deeply moving and written with a voice of someone who’s accepted the flaws of her family, learned how to help family members with mental illness, and to stand firm when a loving partner turns abusive.
But going back to those days wasn’t easy. “I had to put myself back in time, to relive the events and experiences to write them accurately and effectively. It was unexpectedly hard…at times I felt like an actor playing a part.” It was, she says, another step in the healing process. With the help of a therapist and a woman’s retreat, Oakes found her strength. She writes about facing a punching bag during one of the group exercises meant to release fears. “With each beat of the bag, I was gaining a little bit of myself back. When it was over, there was a sense of calm, like I’d pass through the eye of a hurricane.”
The release of her book into the world meant another “letting go” experience. It was, she says, “like giving birth.” Since then, she’s heard from readers about their own shame stories, and from people from her past who’ve similar experiences and regret not sharing them. “We could have supported each other,” she says, “and perhaps minimized our suffering.”
Oakes has taken this new level of courage and has connected with a much broader community; now she leads women’s retreats in addition to her yoga and meditation work.
Kate Evans (Photo Credit: Laura Swan Sieckman)
Ditch Your Sh*t: Decluttering Your Mindset to Declutter Your Home
Kate Evans doesn’t mince words, the title of her book, Ditch Your Sh*t makes that perfectly clear. “Yup, I swear a lot,” she admits, though she tones it down in her “life coaching” sessions with clients. She’s found her writing voice, and it’s peppered with four letter words. She hopes her readers understand that her use of these strong words is meant to emphasize her points and won’t see them as a distraction.
A friend of Evans, a book coach, asked her if she wanted to write a book. Her answer was an immediate “yes.” She’d already been thinking of a few book ideas but knew that her first one had to be about decluttering — the mental and emotional experience of decluttering and how to get past those barriers.
Around 2018, Evans says, “I was a mess.” When the unexpected hit and her life went from predictable to chaotic, she found herself needing to pull herself together “mentally, spiritually, and physically.” Looking back at the experience, she sees that “loss and change are not evil. They’re actually the sh*t that gives us the opportunity to make the greatest steps in our lives.”
The first step that Evans had to take to organize her exterior world was to work on her interior one – her home. “We were the typical shove-it-in-the-closet-before-guests-arrive home.” After an “old fashioned mental breakdown,” and working with a therapist, Evans knew that decluttering her home was the first step in decluttering her mind. She approached it one day at a time, not in huge chunks that can exhaust and overwhelm, but one drawer, then another, then another.
One of the takeaways in her book is that decluttering involves what she refers to as the “five stages of grief.” There’s “denial” which is the first step where one believes they can never give away their beloved items. Following that is “bargaining” or making a deal to promise to do the work another day; next comes anger, depression and acceptance. No wonder, Evans writes with first-hand knowledge, “change can be freaking hard.”
Her strategies, in the home cluttering process, can be useful in other areas. Taking control of the stuff you keep can also translate into taking control of the relationships you have, or of your own self-care, or in the life choices made.
Readers will find equal parts of handy worksheets to make sense of her suggestions, and compassion that what she’s advising is not easy. She praises readers along the way and says not to feel guilty if there’s a slip up now and then. In her bio, Evans writes she still must work at keeping her home and life decluttered and does so “with daily routines and yoga.” Adding a bit of humor, she notes that she lives with her husband and two cats, “none of whom will allow her to declutter their toys.”
These women choose careers that are more than a job, this work is a calling.
WAT salutes these women who are doing their part to make the world a better place. By putting their lives out there, others can learn from their challenges and solutions and may feel nudged to make the changes they need to. Though the issues faced are different, their stories are similar in that both had to accept change was needed and found their way through to the other side. No one could do it for them.
For anyone going through similar challenges, these books are a great start. However, both authors would be happy to hear from our readers with questions, concerns, or to say, “well done.”
Their work is not just a career, for them it’s a calling.
Shedding Shame
Krista V. Oakes
Krista’s website
Ditch Your Sh*t
Kate Evans
Kate’s website
Top Bigstock photo by StanciuC
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