"I loved (this book) "Find Your Voice Project: A Journey Towards Healing." It’s one of those books that you want to keep reading, and desire to finish all at once. Andrea has a unique voice, a way of expressing her inner world that jumps off the page. Her words allowed my heart to feel, my mind to see her story. And what a story it is! Hers is a journey of triumph in the midst of extreme odds and deep soul-pain. She met beautiful people along the way, but also courageously undertook the hard work to heal and to also understand every step of the healing process. This enables her to communicate the life-changing steps that anyone can take to heal our own souls and eating problems. As a Psychologist who has worked for 20 years with people who have anorexia and bulimia, I recommend this book to those who have a complicated relationship with food! This book can also be important for professionals in the field, because through it we can see the whole journey—from the depths of suffering to the days of flourishing—something we don’t usually experience when we work with people for only small parts of their journey. I am very glad I had a chance to Andrea’s beautiful Find Your Voice Project.

-Dr. Edward Cumella PhD, Psychologist, Professor of Graduate Psychology at Purdue University

BOOK | Find Your Voice Project: A Journey Towards Healing

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About the Book

Published 3.13.2017 (Second Edition for Professionals in Editing)

My 14-year battle with Anorexia and Body Hatred was the most defining moment of my life. It had intense ups and downs, literally life threatening moments in hospitals and treatment programs as many will tell you it is a living miracle that I am alive today.

As I entered recovery I began to go into the school systems, hospitals, eating disorder conferences and whomever called on me to share my story of strength, faith, hope and recovery. My professional speaking career started in the early 90's, but took off in 2000 as I began to create diverse wellness workshops around my journey.

All the while people would ask me at every interaction when I would write a book about my story. I would say, ‘it isn’t the right time.' I was in the thick of recovery, I felt I needed a solid base and I needed a strong recovery to write about. The idea of putting it into writing was so much different for me than speaking. Speaking allowed me to help others take the leap into healing, while watching me in the thick of it. I found myself needing to ask real deep and honest questions: Could my story really benefit people?

I hold a great responsibility in sharing such a story, for over my years of illness I learned too much about how to stay in the Anorexia from others poorly written stories on eating disorders. I made several attempts to write it over the last 10 years getting as far as half way at one point when my computer crashed and I lost the entire book. I knew at that moment, that when the time was right, I would know the moment without hesitation.

In 2016, I began once again writing. It flowed fast at that time, but I knew it wasn’t right just yet. I came back to it often alongside being a single mom and edited it from time to time, but it wasn’t until this 2017 where my passion came alive and I knew it was time to let the story be heard. I turned to trusted editor friends who knew the story to offer suggestions and realized it wasn’t just black and white. They challenged me to go the distance, to share my soul and to be brave.

So, 13 years into recovery I landed at what I feel to be exactly what my book was meant to be. It is my story within a workbook and a workbook within my story. It offers an intense story of survival, but at the same time next to each story are the teaching tools that worked for me to find recovery. Each treatment program, therapist and group offered me something that I took away with me on the journey and here you will find where you can embark on your road to wellness. The greatest repetitive compliment I receive is that this book can be used for anyone going through different journeys. The tools offered are true gifts that can add to any journey of healing and growth.

I chose to self-publish after engaging in publishers and their feedback, for I wanted to keep the integrity of the book in place. From a publishers’ standpoint, they wanted to tear it apart to ‘look better to the eye’ and sell high numbers, where my format is what I know to work when going through recovery with my sole focus on helping people heal and live their best life.

This book is to help people first and foremost, I am asking now if will you help me on this journey to let the world know about Find Your Voice Project: A Journey Towards Healing. Thank you so much for being a part of this journey, I literally wouldn’t be alive without so many of you!

BOOK | Tuning In, Turning Off & Finding Presence: Spiritual Reflections for Daily Living

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About the Book

Tuning In, Turning Off & Finding Presence is a book for the times. You will see an overlapping of themes, ministries and personal mentors from work with Fr. Greg Boyle S.J. of Homeboy Industries to the worlds of Dorothy Day, Mother Teresa, Pope Francis coming full circle to my personal ministries in Lourdes and Israel through Pilgrimage; all which have guided me to these reflective depths of human nature.

I invite you to walk into this collection of essays written over the years with an open mind, open heart and a yearning to go deeper into your faith, prayer, spiritual emptiness, personal holiness and mercy. Come sit in the silence with me.