A short excerpt from page 15 of my memoir "The Great Unlearning."

The Unloved Daughter

"The absence of any female heroes growing up required that I become a hero for myself, and for my daughters. A mother unlike my own in a million ways, I have broken the cycle that my mother, her mother, and her mother's mother were trapped in."

Why did I title the introduction to The Great Unlearning “Squirming Out of My Comfort Zone?”

Well, I survived some pretty traumatic life-altering experiences in my formative and adolescent years, and it became obvious to me in my forties how my childhood wounding bled into my motives for some of the disastrous decisions I made as a teenager and adult.

While following my curiosity about the early stages of my wounding and how it shaped my view of the world, I discovered photoshop and started creating art around my devastating experiences in the form of conceptual self-portrait photography.

I then approached writing about my traumatic childhood, very cautiously, with the understanding that it could rear up and bite me, which it did many times during the two years it took me to complete this book. I relived much of the anguish I had previously suffered, but by doing so, those experiences have finally become my past.

Here is a stellar book review from an extraordinary woman who I have admired for years:

“Life’s lessons are those intense pieces of knowledge we gather from experience. We learn from these nuggets and deem them to be valuable wisdom that can guide us.

But have you considered that you may also be lugging around damaging lessons you need to unlearn?

A compelling new memoir by one of Women on Fire’s most beloved wise women shares how we can twist mistakes and misfortune into destructive beliefs and behaviors. We know Mary La, formerly Mary Landberg, as an author, artist, and retired hospice nurse.

Please join me and all those friends you haven’t seen in months, maybe years, for a celebration of fine art, transcendent prose, and live music by guitarist Goh Kurosawa at Paschal Winery on March 25th from 6pm - 8pm.